First Customer Receives Psystar Mac Clone

[seashellz]

ya dont "get" it-being able to run OS X on a PC could knock MS's share of the OS market in half! Maybe more.
Apple, Intel and AMD would have to huddle and come up with some workable consistent standards-so the problems Window has will be a thing of the past.

and you can still buy Macs, and in fact this would sell not only more of OS X, but of APPLE computers. It could be the fall of the Microsoft empire.

 

[oban14]

Apple will stomp this company out of existence if they ship a number of these machines. Apple could simply bankrupt them in litigation and should be able to have a cease and desist order put together pretty quickly. I just wanted to be one of the one's who told you so.

Using hacked EFI software for commercial use is illegal. Not only does Psystar violate Apple's EULA, they violate the license of the EFI emulator software, all the while attempting to make a profit.

No they won't. You and the other Apple fanbois have confused Apple Corporation with your favorite football team.

 

[blindzero]

FYI, there have been Mac models that were very noisy. In fact, I have one of them.

Also, you can customize a PC to make if very quiet with a quiet power supply ( you can barely hear the fans with your ear next to them) along with other very quiet cooling fans. Of course, you can purchase a cheap PC and have noisy fans as well. It all depends on how much you want to pay for your power supply and cooling fans.

Yeah. G4 MD Tower is the loudest computer I've ever owned, and I got a Dell Power Edge Server with 2 power supplies and 8 Hard Drives in my office right now...and that's still half as loud as the dang G4 Mirror Drive Model.

My G5 has been known to go into Jet Engine mode as well.

 

[bostonte]

This statement is incorrect.

Apple has sold standalone copies of the Mac OS from pre-X through 10.5.

The current price for the standalone version of Mac OS 10.5 is $129.

I believe you are misunderstanding his point. Yes, you can buy a copy. Yes, it can be installed on a blank drive with no proof of prior version.

BUT -- the license requires a previous version of the OS. I don't know if it's legally enforceable, but it's there.

Similar to a boxed $129 Leopard installing on unlimited computers. Can it be done? Yes. Are you licensed for that? No.

Back to the general topic, if clones are going to come back unofficially -- I just wish a stronger company was behind it. I don't get the feeling Psystar has the resources to go against Apple. A clone without official support is risky enough, nevermind from a company that can't weather the storm.

I'd bite for a decent clone of an XServe... Personally I don't see enough cost savings to justify it on this particular setup.

 

[MacinDoc]

I think I'll wait to see a few more before I conclude that this is a legitimate company that's actually shipping these. So far, we have evidence of one working box...

Besides which, for less than $100 less than the Mini, you get a massive box that looks like something the cat threw up and sounds like a Hoover, has no iLife, no free printer, and can't be patched with Software Update (and may not be upgradeable to 10.6), with an unknown build quality and no corporate name to protect with reasonable customer service. Why bother?

 

[AlphaAnt]

ya dont "get" it-being able to run OS X on a PC could knock MS's share of the OS market in half! Maybe more.
Apple, Intel and AMD would have to huddle and come up with some workable consistent standards-so the problems Window has will be a thing of the past.

and you can still buy Macs, and in fact this would sell not only more of OS X, but of APPLE computers. It could be the fall of the Microsoft empire.

Not going to happen. My company (one of the top 5 federal contracting companies), many like it, and large portions of the Federal Government itself have long since sold their souls to Microsoft in Active Directory, SMS, Exchange, Server OS, OS and Office Suite Volume Licensing, etc. Microsoft would have to declare bankruptcy for them to consider something other than Microsoft software in the future.

Apple can only hope to gain a large foothold in Home and Small Business markets, most of the Enterprise level market is virtually untouchable at this point.

 

[goosnarrggh]

Using hacked EFI software for commercial use is illegal. ... they violate the license of the EFI emulator software, all the while attempting to make a profit.

... A license which was pasted onto the EFI Emulator's website on April 15 - a day after the s**t hit the fan. It is absolutely certain that Psystar must have obtained their copy of the EFI Emulator before that date.

I asked in another thread if anybody had seen the terms under which the EFI Emulator were originally released - and therefore the terms would have been presented to Psystar at the time they obtained it.

I got one response that correctly pointed out that, if there had been no license text at all prior to April 15th, then it would follow that Psystar was using the software without any license to do so at all. And thus they, like all independent OSx86 hackers, would have been using it illegally right up until April 15th.

But IMO it's much more likely that it had originally been released with a tagline much more like this: "Hey guys, check out this really cool software I wrote. Do whatever you want with it, and if you have any suggestions email me at XXX!" That, IMO, would have constituted a license for Psystar to, well, do whatever they wanted with it, including distributing copies of it to their own sublicensees on their own terms.

Of course, the original author (or copyright holder) has the authority to switch to any different license whenever he wants, but I cannot see how the revised license could possibly be unilaterally binding against any people who had already obtained their permission to use the software under the previous (so far unspecified) license, unless the old license had included terms for modifying the contract in the future.

Again I ask, does anybody know what license (or lack thereof) the EFI Emulator had been released under prior to April 15?

 

[Steve Dillon]

Steve Dillon

Has anyone else noticed the similarity between Psystar and Shyster ?

 

[jbernie]

Watching the video it becomes apparent that this "clone" is not a clone in reality. It may run Leopard in some fashion, however, the user experience is not one that the vast majority of users would be happy with (the lack of easy update capability alone should prevent most potential main-stream purchasers from buying this machine).

Secondly, the engineering of the computer on the whole is far below Apple standards. Take a look inside this "clone" and then a Mac Pro and even the most technically inept potential computer purchaser will immediately see the huge difference in the two machines. Once the "clone" power button is pushed, the sound of the hardware booting up and running should scare off most potential main-stream purchasers.

Then there is the lack of Apple Care which many folks consider one of the most important options one can purchase when they buy and Apple product.

I personally know a fellow that has built a hackentosh. He is a very well trained PC technician who has commercially built PCs for folks and sold them for many years. Even he has a very hard time keeping his hackentosh working and getting a lot of software to work on it correctly. If he has this kind of trouble, the average users is going to find using a "clone" a disaster.

I would agree with many of the others that have posted in the tread; this "clone" will most likely be attractive to only the most geeky technical computer jockeys and will not be popular with main-stream (read that the the average person). If that is true, they aren't going to sell very many of them.

I would not be surprised if Apple just lets this thing go until it dies on its own. That way they won't have to take any negative publicity from press for being the big mean giant trying to stifle competition (and using their enormous clout to bust the little guy).

Dave

I guess you forgot to look at the price. A Kia is not the same as a BMW but people still buy them. Why? They are cheap and not everyone can afford the BMW. Psystar found a gaping hole in the Apple line up and are currently exploiting it at a very attractive price.

Everything comes down to price, it may not be to Apple's standard, it may not have the same support, but it is offered at less than the mini and to be honest, any person who has a solid understanding of a Mac would surely be curious at least, if not tempted.

 

[rychencop]

that thing sounds like a turbine engine. + the os can't be updated. waste of $$!

 

[mwpeters8182]

Because we don't want Leopard to cost $500, and we don't want people to turn away from Macs because they saw a buggy Psystar clone and concluded Apple produces crappy computers.

The Mac OS would only cost more for those that weren't upgrading. By virtue of the hardware/software tie-in that apple has with OS X, any boxed copy is technically an upgrade from whatever the machine came with.

If they were to keep the $129 pricing and come out with a "new user" license for $400 or whatever, that'd be fine with me.

 

[i.maverick]

one word..

yuk

 

[gkarris]

that thing sounds like a turbine engine. + the os can't be updated. waste of $$!

If OS X doesn't work out - you can still use it as a Windows/Linux machine...

Watching the video was sort of like, watching an "iPhone, exclusively from AT&T" come up with the T-Mobile indicator....

 

[O and A]

I can't wait til updates break these hobby boxes.

See these comments don't make any sense. Why does it bother you that people are installing OSX on non apple machines? Why do you hope their machines get broken by updates? I don't see the point.

I own 2 powerbooks a macbook pro 17 inch and an aluminum iMac. Last night i just ordered everything I need to build my own hackintosh box. You know why? Not because I can't afford another new iMac or even a Mac Pro, but because I can get near MAC PRO performance an ability to upgrade for 1200 dollars. And I don't care about support. I can support msyelf.

What I want is apple to release a sub 1500 tower that is upgradeable and doesn't use expensive server components. Will apple ever do this? I doubt it because it will probably eat into iMac sales. So this is why i have decided to biuld my own mac.

For those of you who are curious. its a Core 2 Quad 2.6ghz, 4 Gigs of ram, Nvidia 8800GT 512MB, Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, 2 x 750 GB hard drives. All for 1200 bucks. Oh and a macally icekey keyboard.

If anything apple should take notice of the Hackintoshes and realize that they should give people who want OS X an affordable upgradeable box.

 

[oban14]

See these comments don't make any sense. Why does it bother you that people are installing OSX on non apple machines? Why do you hope their machines get broken by updates? I don't see the point.

I own 2 powerbooks a macbook pro 17 inch and an aluminum iMac. Last night i just ordered everything I need to build my own hackintosh box. You know why? Not because I can't afford another new iMac or even a Mac Pro, but because I can get near MAC PRO performance an ability to upgrade for 1200 dollars. And I don't care about support. I can support msyelf.

What I want is apple to release a sub 1500 tower that is upgradeable and doesn't use expensive server components. Will apple ever do this? I doubt it because it will probably eat into iMac sales. So this is why i have decided to biuld my own mac.

For those of you who are curious. its a Core 2 Quad 2.6ghz, 4 Gigs of ram, Nvidia 8800GT 512MB, Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, 2 x 750 GB hard drives. All for 1200 bucks. Oh and a macally icekey keyboard.

If anything apple should take notice of the Hackintoshes and realize that they should give people who want OS X an affordable upgradeable box.

What you are seeing is blind, rabid fanboyism at its worst. People rooting for Apple to sue the company into submission, to break the machines with updates, it's just pathetic and sad.

Apple fanboys remain the absolute #1 negative I've found since switching my primary system from Linux to OSX. They've replaced religion and sports allegiances with a corporation.

 

[gkarris]

I really can't believe how many idiots there are here who are so hung up on corporate branding, most of you are blind brandwhores suffering from the sheep syndrome after being affected by steve jobs' reality distortion field.

A mac is a computer.
A pc is a computer.

You forgot:

Dell is a piece of ****

Get that through your thick skulls, these psystar computers are not going to 'fade out' depending on the hardware, good or crap, psystar or not, these computers will perform no worse than any of your holy macintoshes. To say these will 'die' in quick time based on less than impressive hardware is ridiculous and shows only how stupid you fanboys are and, more importantly, how little you know about computer hardware. Hardware failure is not exclusive to just pcs, it happens to macs as well, and if the parts are cheap crap they will obviously be more prone to failure or damage. What you morons fail to realize is that replacing these individual parts is a ton easier than any of your macs and a ton cheaper. How easy is it to go out and buy a new PSU for a mac pro if it fails? Or let alone, and god forbid, the motherboard? I can only see that none of you have any need or knowledge of 3rd party components, in the example, RAID controllers, apple's costing nearly $1,000 and pc starting at $50. Or, how about the recent geforce 8800GT debacle. How ridiculous is it that owning a hackintosh you have more video card selection than having a legally purchased mac?

Of course, none of you seem to care about choice.

The other choices s**k...

(awaits next instruction from Steve Jobs...)

All in fun, hey, there is "no unlocking of iPhones"...

Apple, in secret, I bet is laughing at all this... people desperate to start loading them and selling them on generic PC's....

LOL...

What's worse than loading OS X on a generic PC is loading Windows on a Mac!

 

[daveporter]

The first cost of any computer system is only one component of the total cost of ownership that one has to consider when making a purchase.

There are many more variables that should be considered.

While the cost of Apple's hardware appears to be higher then compatible PCs with similar specifications, this is often not the case.

Other variables, including build quality and component quality (which affect the cost of service and costs associated with down-time), average service life of computer (many Macs are still in use today running Leopard and being as productive as they were when new that are a number of years old), completeness of feature set (wifi included, firewire included, low noise fans and quality cooling design, case quality, etc.) can make the Mac very competitive as compared to the PC.

The level of IT support needed to set-up, train staff, do backups, patch the OS, deal with viruses and other nasties, replace components as needed, etc. greatly affects the total cost of ownership for a computer system.

The cost of the purchasing software and the cost of training one's staff to use this software also greatly affect the TCO. We have found that Mac software (especially utility software) is of higher quality and has lower first and secondary costs.

It has been our experience that the TCO associated with the Mac is much less than that associated with other platforms. That is why we made the move to the Mac in 2006 from a 100% PC house. Evidently we are not alone, since I read recently that it is rumored that IBM is conducting the same types of evaluations that we went through and that they are leaning toward making the move to the Mac.

In my opinion, the purchase of a "clone" increases the TCO back to that of the PC since the benefits described above would not be realized.

Dave

 

[icoffee]

Cheap hardware

I'm intrigued by Psystar's offerings. 3 quick points.

1) This isn't a hacked OS according to OSX86project. Only 3 files are replaced to get Leopard installed and working (I found this on insanelymac.com). The same post on insanelymac shows that most software updates work, so I am not sure why the psystar system does not allow updates.

2) The "leaf blower" or "vacuum" we all hear in the video is due to a cheap or broken power supply/fan. For $399, I guarantee you that psystar is not using a high-end power supply/fan. Add $50 minimum for a good one. With Leopard and ps/fan, the price now goes up to $600. Yikes!

3) Being able to cheaply upgrade hardware and have expandability are the only two apparent benefits of this system. I'll admit, I thought about ordering one when I first heard the news, but I'm glad I didn't. Compared to my iMac 17" C2D 2ghz, I'd love to be able to add a few INTERNAL sata 500gb drives, switch out my video card, add a pci esata connection, have 4 slots for memory upgrades, etc. I ECHO what I've heard in other posts. Apple needs a mid-tower Mac, similar in price to the iMac, and between the iMac and MacPro in hardware specs. I'd probably buy two in a heart beat!

 

[danny_w]

What you are seeing is blind, rabid fanboyism at its worst. People rooting for Apple to sue the company into submission, to break the machines with updates, it's just pathetic and sad.

Apple fanboys remain the absolute #1 negative I've found since switching my primary system from Linux to OSX. They've replaced religion and sports allegiances with a corporation.

You could say the exact same thing abut Linux fanboys, and IMHO it is much worse. I tried to "get into" Linux for several years, trying it again every 6 months or so. What really turned me off was the fanatical Linux fanboy club that want to "keep their secrets" and won't let anybody else in. OTOH the Mac community was ready and willing to help a potential switcher (me), and extremely helpful and friendly.

 

[Kwill]

The saddest part is that the owner of this wind tunnel is happy with his purchase.

 

[DaBrain]

I find Apples silence about this rather freaky. It's almost as if they are planning to do something big to take them down.

*Awaiting anxiously for Apple to make a move*

Perhaps their waiting for their own order to come in?

 

[oban14]

You could say the exact same thing abut Linux fanboys, and IMHO it is much worse. I tried to "get into" Linux for several years, trying it again every 6 months or so. What really turned me off was the fanatical Linux fanboy club that want to "keep their secrets" and won't let anybody else in. OTOH the Mac community was ready and willing to help a potential switcher (me), and extremely helpful and friendly.

We're going to have to agree to strongly disagree here... but a lot of it depends on what aspect of fanboyism irks you. I've seen them all.

1) Microsoft fanboys are pretty mild. They have the most market share and spend most of their breath defending Vista, stating that it isn't as bad as it's made out to be. They're mostly right. They tend to help you when you look for help, and they may have some blinders on when it comes to Microsoft's problems. But overall, they're OK.

2) Linux fanboys should really be broken out by distro. Ubuntu fanboys are easily the most supportive and helpful of the bunch. The more esoteric/difficult the distro is the more likely you'll get some RTFM comments.

3) Apple fanboys have a few problems. First is the blind allegiance to Apple, the reality distortion field that Steve has created has somehow spread into their brains. Every release from Apple becomes amazing, ground breaking and brilliant. Everything Apple does is great and must be defended viciously. Secondly, Part of the problem is that some have great technical expertise, but many know about as much about their computers as they do about their televisions. Third, and what I find the most depressing, is that their attitudes are a complete smack in the face of the tradition of hacking that founded Apple and the entire industry. Comments along the lines of "Anyone who tries to build their own Mac from spare parts is going to get a miserable experience and should be sued for breaking the law" are really depressing to anyone who knows the California spirit that started the whole revolution. If the Apple fanboys had their way, Woz and Jobs would still be in jail for selling blueboxes back in the seventies.

4) OpenBSD fanboys can be helpful, but are more like the Linux peeps you talked about in your original post.

5) FreeBSD types are helpful, but they also think people should read a book or two on FreeBSD before tackling it.

 

[goosnarrggh]

If the Apple fanboys had their way, Woz and Jobs would still be in jail for selling blueboxes back in the seventies.

Amen.

 

[gkarris]

We're going to have to agree to strongly disagree here... but a lot of it depends on what aspect of fanboyism irks you. I've seen them all.

1) Microsoft fanboys are pretty mild. They have the most market share and spend most of their breath defending Vista, stating that it isn't as bad as it's made out to be. They're mostly right. They tend to help you when you look for help, and they may have some blinders on when it comes to Microsoft's problems. But overall, they're OK.

2) Linux fanboys should really be broken out by distro. Ubuntu fanboys are easily the most supportive and helpful of the bunch. The more esoteric/difficult the distro is the more likely you'll get some RTFM comments.

3) Apple fanboys have a few problems. First is the blind allegiance to Apple, the reality distortion field that Steve has created has somehow spread into their brains. Every release from Apple becomes amazing, ground breaking and brilliant. Everything Apple does is great and must be defended viciously. Secondly, Part of the problem is that some have great technical expertise, but many know about as much about their computers as they do about their televisions. Third, and what I find the most depressing, is that their attitudes are a complete smack in the face of the tradition of hacking that founded Apple and the entire industry. Comments along the lines of "Anyone who tries to build their own Mac from spare parts is going to get a miserable experience and should be sued for breaking the law" are really depressing to anyone who knows the California spirit that started the whole revolution. If the Apple fanboys had their way, Woz and Jobs would still be in jail for selling blueboxes back in the seventies.

4) OpenBSD fanboys can be helpful, but are more like the Linux peeps you talked about in your original post.

5) FreeBSD types are helpful, but they also think people should read a book or two on FreeBSD before tackling it.

6) Dell Fanboys - the worst in the Universe... 'nough said...

 

[gkarris]

Perhaps their waiting for their own order to come in?

This is the BEST post in this thread!!!