With all the
Psystar-related drama going on in the OSx86 scene this week, it's easy to overlook the fact that people are doing some pretty wild things with the community-led project -- we've already seen
OS X boot on a Sony Vaio UX, and now the crew at jkOnTheRun have managed to shoehorn it on to a Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium UMPC. The Q1's 1.33GHz Core Solo and upgraded 2GB of RAM are enough to run Leopard smoothly, it seems -- Apple sold Mac Minis with similar specs a while back, after all -- and while not everything works exactly right, it appears the digitizer is recognized, allowing Ink to work. It's not perfect, as there are some calibration issues, but it's a fun little peek into what an OS X tablet might look like -- minus the command button, of course.
posted Apr 16th 2008 4:31PM
If you wanna see how a mac tablet would work, just look at the modbook. it doesnt even require the EFI emulation since it uses the same motherboard and processing unit and the MacBook Pro, though it isn't as minimalisticly designed as most actual macs. The only advantage to this is size.
It's actually a converted Macbook, not a MBP, if I remember correctly.
" but it's a fun little peek into what an OS X tablet might look like"
Yer... there is a whole website dedicated to it :)
http://www.axiotron.com/
Its good to see Engadget keeps up on tech developments.
Not every Engadget writer has all the time in the world to follow every single Apple development, indie or not.
Engadget doesn't have time to follow APPLE news. Wow this is news to me.
yes.
No.
Quite possibly maybe so
I really don't see why Mark isn't low ranked either..., or me for making this meaningless post. Hmm..
Wow, this is cool. Now we wait for Steve to realise this potential and release an Apple Tablet...or an iTablet....which sounds kinda lame actually.
Don't you think it's kind of weird that the digitizer is recognized? I mean, if Apple doesn't make any touch-screen products that run OS X, why would they include driver support for it? Or is it the same type of driver you would use if you plugged a touch-screen into a Mac Pro?
Wacom makes tablets and touchscreens.
A touchscreen digitizer on the Q1 is a generic USB HID device. That's why it works with a generic HID driver.
Thanks, Sean. I think I understand how it works now :)
Wow cool maybe now one can have a notebook that doesn't suck and OSX!
Lets get this working on a Thinkpad now!
Pointing device options?
mouse button options?
More choice!
No more style over substance
yeah Windows Vista is pretty good...........
oh wait this is an apple.
Fail x 2
In other news: Safari 3.1.1.
I'm pretty sure everyone who cares already knows due to the fact Apple Software Update would have bugged them to install it by now.
Apple needs touchscreen macbook!
but first Apple need to lowering their prices.
Really? Why? I honestly liked the idea of TabletPCs and even SmartDisplays, but in reality they've never caught on and, in the case of SmartDisplays, died a quick death. I like the idea of some multi-touch in a computer because it makes interaction feel natural but I have no wish to attempt to write documents or the like without a keyboard. In this respect I don't think that a Tablet really works and an enhanced form of traditional laptop is what I want. I can see the use of a TabletPC for some people, particularly artists, but for everyone else I don't see a Tablet Mac really selling.
I'm more interested in more apparent gaps in Apple's product line, such as MacBook with a 17" screen for those who want a big screen in a laptop but don't need the power of a MacBook Pro.
Old news. I had MacOS X running on my Samsung Q1U last year. Even posted piccies of it on my blog.
*yawn* :)
Indeed.. I do think you can provide us with links? Or are you just a pathetic fool who tries to brag yet ends up very unconvincing.
Yeah and I overclocked my Q6600 to 56 trillion Ghz on stock cooling with temps of -5 baggilion Celsius.
Oh and I can run Crysis maxed out at max resolution with a Overclocked 8500GT. I posted pics on my Myspace but no one believe them.
I thought OS X sucked for tablet/touchscreen use, so, why?
It sucks no more then any other OS on the market these days...
@Michael LaFramboise - Have you ever tried it with Vista or at least XP Tablet Edition? It works very, very well. I never tried apple's handwritting recognition but from what I've seen (there's a nice video on youtube comparing both OSes), Vista is far better at it.
a well handwriting recognition is a whole 'nother story... Its quite... lacking in OS X... Though w/ that said, I honestly can't say I'm a huge fan of that floating yellow box used in Vista...
Vista = win
The OS with the cat name = FAIL
The video Indeed is talking about
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CCHqMENtKkA
I didn't know Vista could do Korean handwriting too... this is epic win.
that korean handwriting recognition is amazing. i've been wanting a table pc for a while, i think my next laptop might be one of those hybirds...
You know, what /is/ the RAM usage of Leapord? XP and Hardy both run in the neighborhood of 200MB overhead...
Any OSX user here that could take a quick look at their system monitor?
Could you explain the '200mb overhead' comment.
Vista and Ubuntu are very different with RAM management.
Vista 1GB regularly uses 60%, but upgrade to 2GB and its still around 50%. What its using all that RAM, I don't know (sure does seem to speed up my relatively modern laptop).
Ubuntu on the other, is currently using 600MB/2GB, and 200MB of that is Firefox alone.
200 mb???!?!?! Nah man! Nah! My XP machine,(Dell), has 512 mb of RAM and it takes up around half. It's slow as a hog. I'm looking into buying a gig of RAM, but they rarely sell the RAM type my dell uses. Only at small local computer shops.
Chris, Vista preloads a lot of Apps to the Ram so when you open them it runs faster. People complain about Vista "wasting" ram, it doesn't really. Sure it needs more to run the OS but a lot of it is used up because of the smart memory usage system. Of course when running programs need more Ram it takes out the pre loaded apps and gives more Ram to the running program.
It's so things load faster.
Getting OSX to run on a non-native machine is easy.
I've done it for a few friends of mine.
This is old news, you can google OS X dual boot and you'll get a ton of articles from people bragging about their desktop running OS X. I recently got my friend's Toshiba to run OS X Leopard, Ubuntu, and Vista.
I'm not even that good with computers and I got a tri-boot system running just fine in a day.
-----[OS X] It sucks no more then any other OS on the market these days...
Really? Go to YouTube, search for TabletPC, OSX, Vista, Tablet, Ink, Handwriting...
Watch the videos on the vast difference in use and understanding of Ink on OS X and Vista. Ink is also a common format in the Windows world that is as valid and usable as text, including in virtually EVERY application natively.
Vista makes OS X look like a prototype from the early 90s in Tablet abilities or handwriting recognition. Apple has a long way to go to catch up to be a viable Tablet platform, and it will be years before you see an iTablet that users aren't throwing up against the wall trying to get to recognize a word better than Newton, from 15 years ago.
Tablet PC-XP and Vista users have been using TabletPC technology with real Ink concepts for a several years now. To the point it is a strong part of applications in the medical industry, and can even learn to read Dr's handwriting.
---Go watch ANY Tablet or Ink video on YouTube, and you will feel sorry for OS X users, especially when you see Vista do humanly unreadable hybrid cursive/print and recognize it perfectly in more than 50 different languages.
Well, good thing their speech recognition is going well..
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2Fvideoplay%3Fdocid%3D-1123221217782777472&ei=cX8GSNXNNqHAiAGGwcy3Bw&usg=AFQjCNHDTf0w6VudgJfbP3xAvDTFhbzWCQ&sig2=64e-MF3oOh6nDcJtmWc50A
and the fact that you're basing a comparison of all OS's on handwriting recognition...I'm just not sure what to say about that.
Yeah, I'm with you on this one...
Isn't OS X's hand writing recognition based on the hand writing recognition of the Newton?
Comparing handwriting functions on OSes, the nerd definition of "splitting hairs".
But given that Apple doesn't make a Tablet Mac this is hardly an issue, is it? As posted earlier, I can see a TabletPC being useful for artists but beyond that I don't see the point in them. I'm damned sure that I don't want to try writing on a computer since I know that my handwriting is both terrible and slow, both because I'm so used to using a keyboard instead.
"Years for Apple to catch up..."
I doubt it. When Apple decides they want to do something, it's generally very competitive and capable in version 1. The success of the iPhone is likely taking away some of the residual 'Newton' reluctance to build one.
Well, not exactly front page news Engadget... the osx86 project has been alive for quite a long time. There are dozens of systems that work striaght out of the box with newer builds, and even more tested mobo/cpu combinations for the DIY crew... I have it on my (former) custom built HTPC that has an AMD 4400+ socket AM2 with an ASUS mobo... get on the late bus everyone!
ahh.. a re-read of the article shows I was skimming too fast... you were talking mostly about getting ink to function. Ignore me.. most people do.
Mudkipz anyone?
When I was on my trip to Japan, I was in a pretty big electronics mall in Ikebukuro. On the floor that was filled with computers was an Apple section and in there was a huge tablet that was running OS X. I played around with it for a few minutes and I knew it wasn't a official Apple product so I pointed out to my friend that someone at the store must of messed around with it to get it to work. Maybe I should have wrote down what table it was running on though.
Overall, it can't be that hard to get OS X running on a tablet if a computer store in Japan had it, right?
If a computer store in Japan had it, that means it's *possible* on that particular brand/model of table. Says nothing about how easy of difficult it was to do on that tablet much less any another.
For all you know they had to write their own drivers to get that going, not a trivial task.
I was just looking at the Q1 UP a couple of days ago. Now I'll go and look some more :)
Yes, but does it run Crysis
Now give me OSX on an OQO model 2 and you have device to fight over.