Some media and some rumors suggest that Apple seems to be disregarding some of its products and possibly focus on others such as mobile devices that have made them so successful, that is, smartphones and tablets. Although it does seem that next year we will see some renewed products such as the iMac, Mac Pro and Mac Mini, for the moment these have been in the background for the Cupertino company.
That's why some wonder if your bet is iOS and your energy efficient products, why not license macOS? That would allow many other manufacturers of computer equipment, such as HP, ASUS, Dell, Acer, etc., could assemble computers and provide another alternative to the almost ubiquitous Windows. That is, to be able to have desktop PCs and laptops with macOS installed. In my opinion, this will not be the case, at least in the short term.
This move maybe it would hurt Linux more, since it would have a new competition that now it does not have in the sense that you cannot install a macOS on any non-Apple device, therefore either you buy an Apple device or you forget about macOS. And I say in principle because you already know that this is not true at all, there are modified images of the Apple system to be able to install on non-Apple computers (see Hackintosh).
Regardless of whether it would affect Linux more or less and whether they end up doing it or not, which I repeat, I don't think they will, at least in a few years to come. It is true that Apple is pouring many resources into iOS and in developing its A-Serial SoCs. The latest designs of these chips come to have quite good performances to be of low consumption. This has led some to suggest that Apple could stop relying on Intel microprocessors as it did in its day with Motorola and IBM chips (breaking the famous AIM).
Anyway ... all rumors. What do you think?
Go go !!!
no joke…. that is simply NOT going to happen.
To Linux? Chrome OS in any case. The one who tries GNU / Linux, and likes it, does not change, we are only 2% on the desktop but those of us who know the most, and I don't think that number reaches two digits among the usual distros. (MS may change its kernel from NT to Linux now that it has become a platinum member of the foundation, as in its day Apple moved to FreeBSD with much improvement in its OSs, but it would not be GNU, but like Android or Chrome OS "Something" that uses the Linux kernel, which is not small)
In my opinion, the only alternative to Windows is Linux. Generally, the one that leaves Windows is not to get into another ecosystem that is even more closed than Windows, as is the case with OS X. Generally, the MAC user is another type of user apart. A different profile than Windows and Linux. He is a user who is more captive to the MAC ecosystem than Windows and Linux users are to their ecosystems.
Licensing OS X if it would be an alternative for the MAC user who wants to renew the equipment and does not want to spend a lot of nonsense on new hardware paying an extra to bear the seal of the apple. It could still be linked to the MAC ecosystem, but without being tied to having to buy the hardware from a single manufacturer.
In my opinion, Apple would only take this measure in a desperate case where each year it lost thousands of MAC users, raising doubts about the existence of the platform. But at the moment, it does not seem to be the case. In fact with their new range of Macbooks they are selling like hotcakes. The MAC audience is practically fixed, without significantly gaining or losing users. But they have so much margin with their inflated prices that they are hardly going to give up the business. OS X is the hook, but the business is selling the hardware at hyperinflated prices. In comparison, selling licenses would mean lower hardware sales. And apart from the licenses are preserved. That is, if you have an operating system license, you buy a new machine, and you install the old system.
Apple's juicy profits, I think, are not mostly from the sale of their devices, but from sales in the Appstore and iTunes, all the music that is sold worldwide, games, coins or virtual gems and applications both On macOS or iOS, if Apple does not license its macOS it is because of its traditional doctrine, no matter if the change doubles them, even triples sales in its online store, although there could also be a risk; "Piracy" or as some call it "sharing", several teras, by the way XD, as it happens to Windows, Android does not, because it lives off spam XD.