Someone has to say it so I'll bite 😛
They're not. Compare equivalent hardware between Apple and other name brands--looking at ALL the specs for an honest and complete comparison--and Macs are right in the same price range. Sometimes more than a given competitor, sometimes less.
What you and people like you don't seem to 'get' is that not everyone NEEDS all the hardware Apple forces upon you with something like the Mac Pro in order to get an expandable, headless Mac. Who CARES if a fully rigged Dell that matches the Mac Pro costs as much? The whole point is not everyone needs EVERY feature of the Mac Pro. You can get a machine that BETTERS the Mac Pro for things like gaming (even if in Boot Camp) and has all the expandability of one (there are no consumer expandable Macs other than the Mac Pro, which is pretty darn steep at $2700 for the base model or $2300 for a cut-down one). People have been begging Apple for years to release a consumer level mid-sized tower and they just keep ignoring those people. It's why Psystar came about and now thanks to this device, you can easily build your own clone with whatever features you want (within the device driver limits). You'll be able to build one that is more powerful than a Mac Pro because Mac hardware updates are far and few between compared to the PC World.
As for their claims this isn't for those looking to save money, that's just not true (I imagine they're downplaying that aspect for a reason OR they don't want to be confused with $399 PC projects), but I'm talking about compared to a Mac Pro when you don't NEED all the Mac Pro features. You could get something quite comparable to a Mac Pro when used with applications that only really use 1-2 cores to begin with and still potentially have better gaming capability for around $1200. Add in this device and Mac OS X and you're still over a thousand less than a Mac Pro. I don't need 8 Xeon processors. But I do want a high-end GPU, internal expansion slots and room for internal hard drives, etc. This is near ideal. I can build a machine with any high-end PC case I might desire and not be stuck with a ridiculously expensive cheese grater or all-in-one piece of crap and still get the vastly superior OS X instead of Windows OR have both with Boot Camp and/or Fusion or Parallels.
But the bottom line is this device and even the whole Psystar business has happened because Apple is NOT listening to their customers that WANT more choices than what they are offering. If they truly filled all the major niches and are at competitive prices, these things wouldn't happen or have to happen. It's because Steve Jobs thinks he knows better than his own customers that these sorts of products will continue to pop up. He must have known moving to generic PC hardware would trigger things like this if they don't meet their markets' needs. But I'm sure some of you think there is no market for it and iMacs are for everybody.
it is illegal to install osx on any non apple branded hardware. no matter how you manage to get it to work. my prediction is this company will be sued by the end of the week.
This device does not install OS X on such a computer so how could they be sued for something they're not doing. YOU the consumer have to install it yourself so unless you're going to rat on yourself to Apple, who are they going to sue, pray tell? Some of us believe that Eula will fail when challenged in court anyway, since Apple is impeding trade in a significant market with it, namely the OS X hardware market. And while some don't believe such a market exists, that only means this device is for a non-existent market so Apple doesn't have to worry about it since you can't sell things for a market that doesn't exist. That also means Apple sales are imaginary by extension.
How is Apple being anti-competitive? They are not preventing another company from developing an OS to rival OS X. And they are not preventing any other company from selling computer hardware.
Is it really that hard to add those two parts together instead of presenting them separately? They're preventing other companies from selling HARDWARE for the OS X operating system market. In other words, if you want to run OS X, you're not allowed to buy it and install it on the hardware of your choice. You have to buy generic clone hardware from Apple and Apple alone. Thus, Dell, Lenovo, etc. aren't able to compete with Apple because Apple is telling them they aren't allowed to install OS X. And if you need to run Mac software, you need OS X so that hardware from Dell becomes useless and irrelevant for your needs so how can their hardware compete with Apple's hardware at that point when you NEED Apple's to run Mac software?
Thus all "Mac" sales have to be from Apple and therefore Apple controls 100% of the "Mac" market. The problem is their operating system is entirely separate from their hardware (which is generic) and they're using one to leverage the other with a Eula that forbids any other choices for the consumer and prevents Dell, etc. from competing directly with their hardware. If you need OS X for work, for example, you have NO other hardware choices but Apple. How is that NOT a Monopoly? Because separately, they don't control a market? But a Mac *IS* the software. The hardware is irrelevant except for that Eula which guarantees Apple 100% of all hardware sales for OS X. And THAT is a monopoly on computer hardware for that operating system market. Their sales are significant (enough to beat Dell, etc. without competing on their turf) and their market share is 100% for OS X save Psystar and Hackintoshes and now this device. This device simply levels the playing field. The consumer can FINALLY choose their hardware from Dell or Lenovo or HP or whomever they want and still run Mac software. Apple is allowed to install Windows, Linux or any other operating system on their hardware to aid in sales of that hardware, so what makes people think it's fair for them to deny installation on their competitor's hardware? Let Apple's operating system compete with other operating systems and their hardware compete with other hardware. Combining the two to get all the profit from the other is artificially cornering the market on that hardware for that system.
Clearly, Psystar's lawyers believe they have an anti-trust case despite the beliefs of some on here that they do not and the courts will have to decide in the end, but this device appears at least to avoid the entire legal argument save for the consumer installing the OS himself, which is for an individual to decide.
As for arguments that OS X's cost will rise, if it's undervalued then it SHOULD rise. That won't change the fact that I can get a machine for $1200 that meets my needs for half the cost of a 4-core Mac Pro. Even if OS X cost $400, it'd still be $1000 less than the Mac Pro. I shouldn't be forced to pay twice as much to get hardware features I don't need. An iMac is out of the question. It has no expansion and poor GPU options. Thus no matter how you slice it, a more expensive OS X is still vastly preferable to some of us than limited hardware choices for OS X. So go ahead Apple, raise OS X's retail price and let us have the hardware we want, not the hardware you think we should have.