Somehow, some way, Mac OS drivers have appeared as a download option for a Dell Latitude X1. How many times do we have to tell you Michael Dell: You can't sell Mac OS X, no matter how often or how badly you wish to sell an operating system that's made for this century. Besides, trying to sneak it onto your site is just bad form.
If you want to see this interesting quirk for yourself, check it out at Dell's Driver and Downloads site. As of this writing, you can snag your own 'Mac OS' drivers for a Latitude X1.
This most likely is nothing more than a quirk of Dell's site, as we (thankfully) haven't heard of Jobs changing his mind or seen reports of the sky falling. You can go on about your business.
[via Engadget]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-30-2006 @ 7:22AM
Richard said...
If you actually have a look at the drivers that are available, you see that there is a .ISO (presumably bootable), a couple of EXEs, and a mac driver for a Dell laser printer.
I'd say this is ikely nothing more than a glitch caused by the way Dell's database is organized. Still interesting, tho
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5-30-2006 @ 7:26AM
Chris said...
Oh my... Ain’t gonna happen - Apple would be kissing goodbye to their Mac sales and thus most of their business.
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5-30-2006 @ 7:46AM
chrisjur said...
Actually, I believe Mac OS X has appeared here before...I recall downloading some drivers for a color network Dell printer that I use at work about a year ago. No driver for a small personal Dell laser printer that I have on my desk at work, however - I assume they only make the Mac drivers for a small subset of their printers.
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5-30-2006 @ 9:05AM
Jay said...
It appears for the D820 as well. Interestingly, the D820 is configurable to (at least for the hardware) closely match the MBP 15.4". Things that make you go "Hmmmm..." Nah, his Steveness is crazy but not nuts.
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5-30-2006 @ 9:45AM
John Laur said...
Dell has mac drivers for some of the gear they sell, so it's really not that big of a deal that the option would show up. Someone probably just checked the wrong box on a form when uploading the drivers into the database.
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5-30-2006 @ 11:34AM
Pluto said...
John, i think there isn't any mistake, they can logically explain it, imho.
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5-30-2006 @ 12:17PM
Colin said...
My God, I hope this news isn't related in the slightest!
http://gear.ign.com/articles/710/710374p1.html
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5-30-2006 @ 3:50PM
mrtotes said...
Dell just scored a load of hits from non-PC owning computer users.... Cheap marketing!
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6-04-2006 @ 5:49PM
Franzy said...
I am trying to spread to word to all the forums in which people have suggested false material.
Guys. You will never believe this if I told you. I bring you the actual answer to why dell did this and what this means. I talked to them via dell chat, and I got this response:
dell: this is to inform that latitude systems are designed in such a way that they support MAC os but Inspirons are not. So that's the reason I could not trace it.
me: so latitudes legally support mac os x? the full version, unhacked?
dell: Its not legally supported By Dell. However if customer installs it then dell has necessary driver to help them out.
me: How would one install the files provided?
me: Since, they are .exe, I see no way that they could be opened in mac
dell: Since I have expertise in troubleshooting Win XP, I will not be able to answer questions on MAC operating system. Its just for customers who know to install the MAC operating systems themselves and will be able to download necessary driver files from the support web site themselves.
me: My dad has a latitude x1, do you happen to know if the copy of Mac os x 10.4.6provided by apple will work? If i just boot it?
dell: No, to very honest with you, I will not be able to give you fake answer and land you in trouble. As I do not want to give you wrong information and set wrong expectations to you and make you upset and waste your valuable
time and money.
me: is there someone available at dell that I could talk to about this?
I was then given a number to contact another dell technician - this time - at Dell on call. I decided to call them, since I was on a breakthrough already. I talked with a rather nice lady, who, after about 10 minutes, decided she could not answer my question. I was redirected to another technician - a guy this time. Since it was on the phone, I'll give you the general information. He basically gave me the same bs as the first guy. He said that they are not completely educated on the mac operating system. He responded to this on numerous questions, including to why they are in .exe. I got a repeated response that "they are only for users who are knowledgable and are able to get Mac OS X on their laptops".
Does this information suggest help in the osx86project? We may never know. He did tell me to contact Apple's Mac OS X support, then report back to dell. Just though I'd fill everyone in that it is in fact NOT A MISTAKE. All that's left to figure out is - "what is dell's true intentions?", "What means of installation are they talking about - a legal method, osx86, or maybe some other controversial method?" If what i believe is right, and dell is covertly supporting osx86, the hackers could have gained a new, unlikely allie in these efforts.
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