Is Running OS X on a PC Illegal If......

[a456]

It's like getting really tasty cereal for $0.10 a box. But it's only edible when you put it in a special milk from the same company that costs $15 a gallon. Perhaps the proceeds from the milk sales even subsidize the cost of producing the cereal. Regardless, the company is using the cereal to drive up sales of milk, and then take profits off the milk.

I'm sure that while Apple cares how much of the personal computing market share they hold (bigger market share might encourage software companies to develop more) the bottom line is that they make fat profit margins on hardware sales. I'm sure that computers like the iMac are highly profitable for Apple; not only are they priced at the upper end, they are not as upgradeable as the Mac Pros. What if you could buy a cheap Dell, install OS X, and then cheaply do-it-yourself upgrade it for several years? That's a lot of money lost for Apple.

I disagree. Apple may well make a premium on their hardware, but their hardware is built to last and their software is built to optimize hardware that is many years old. They don't expect you to buy a new machine every time they produce some software. I know graphic designers who still use the original imacs for their home machines. Buy a budget PC, however, and how long before it just gets too temperamental to cope with? I'm sure that the average life of a mac mini for example is years longer than an equivalently priced and spec'd PC running the latest MS OS. How many PCs priced at the budget level sold now will run Vista?

 

[Porco]

I've always wondered what (legalistically) is stop people sticking one of those free Apple labels you get with various things on a generic PC and being able to quite truthfully claim their computer is "Apple-labeled"

 

[2ndPath]

I'm sure that the average life of a mac mini for example is years longer than an equivalently priced and spec'd PC running the latest MS OS. How many PCs priced at the budget level sold now will run Vista?

To be fair, it should be said that many PCs sold today won't support all features of Vista, yet most of them will be able to run it. For Mac OS this is similar: When for example Core Graphics or Quartz extreme were introduced, only realtively new Macs fully supported these features.

 

[yellow]

Fact of the day is Apple just wants to make maximum money, end of story

Don't all companies follow this business model??!?

 

[godbout]

There is like a million steps to install OSX on a PC, I'd hate to go through all that crap...

You obviously have not done a standard Windows installation on a PC lately have you

 

[Le Big Mac]

in what country?

it may be that in some countries an EULA that prevents you from using a legal copy on different hardward is not valid. i think in germany it would be legal to install it on a PC as long as you don't circumvent a copy protection.

is there a lawyer around to confirm/correct?

I'm guessing that the EULA for Germany works around whatever limits German law has. If not, Apple would likely withdraw from the market.

What you're pointing to is nearly the same issue as the France anti-iPod law--one should have "open access". Apple said they would pull out of France if that law came to pass.

 

[dextertangocci]

Didn't Apple used to allow Mac clones to be sold?

 

[yellow]

Briefly... PowerComputing Corp's clones were terrible. Cheap hardware. Not a single one we purchased lasted more than 3 years.

 

[daze]

This is simply not true. Apple and third parties constantly prove that like for like hardware is cheaper from apple than, say, dell! Plus build quality is overall excellent.

Build quality lately has been sub-par. Look at all the threads relating to MBP and MB issues. Hopefully, these are all growing pains.

 

[yellow]

Build quality lately has been sub-par. Look at all the threads relating to MBP and MB issues.

MR is a tiny snapshot of the Mac community at large, plus, people with problems tend to be a vocal minority. I suspect as a whole the issues aren't as widespread as we think. But I won't disagree that Apple QA has faltered. IMO, the MBPs and MBs were rushed to market before they were ready when Apple saw their earning dipping significantly.

 

[gnasher729]

This is at least the second time you've said this in a thread. What makes you think that Leopard will say "upgrade" on the box? Not that it really matters, but none of the previous OS X releases have said that, and there's nothing different about Leopard.

There is a huge difference.

Practically nobody has a machine that is capable of running Tiger that wasn't bought complete with some version of MacOS X or MacOS 9 installed. Hundreds of millions of people have machines that are (at least after a bit of hacking) capable of running Leopard for Intel.

 

[Xeem]

Briefly... PowerComputing Corp's clones were terrible. Cheap hardware. Not a single one we purchased lasted more than 3 years.

I'll disagree with you on this. Both the Powertower Pro and Powercenter Pro (my dad bought for his office and gave to me three or four years ago) are still running in perfect condition, and they saw pretty much constant use the first five years he had them. They benchmarked faster than Apple Macs, and they felt noticeably snappier too. There is a reason PowerComputing had such a large Macintosh market share.

 

[yellow]

How can you disagree with me on that? We bought 100 of them in all flavors, NONE of them lasted more than a single life cycle. Most of them were replaced within 2 years. That's not opinion, it's fact.

 

[WildCowboy]

There is a huge difference.

Practically nobody has a machine that is capable of running Tiger that wasn't bought complete with some version of MacOS X or MacOS 9 installed. Hundreds of millions of people have machines that are (at least after a bit of hacking) capable of running Leopard for Intel.

But because Apple ties the OS install to their hardware, requiring a hack as you say, this is already covered under the terms of their EULA and backed up by the DMCA. There's no need to add anything about it being an "upgrade" version to the packaging.

 

[MarkF786]

Apple and third parties constantly prove that like for like hardware is cheaper from apple than, say, dell! Plus build quality is overall excellent.

I've seen this argument many times and the people making these claims are either in denial or haven't really done the basic research.

Over the past few months I've been spec'ing out a new laptop and innumerable times I've went to Dell's website and "built" a laptop with specs that are better than then 17" MBP - and it's less than $1500 with a coupon. MacWorld tried to disregard the coupons as irrelevant in their comparison, but when Dell is always offering coupons for $300+ off a system, they are very significant and relevant. And even without the coupons, Dells are still cheaper.

Mac fans just need to accept and admit that Macs are much more expensive than PCs. They've decided they are worth the extra premium, which is their perogative.

I'm looking to buy a MB or MBP myself, but still in pains me to think that I'm paying nearly 200% more than an equivalent PC.

Mark

 

[yellow]

For the last time, there IS NO PC equivalent to a Mac, because none of them run OS X (legally). If you want OS X, you need to suck it up and buy a Mac. If Windows is good for you, lucky you, you can spend the extra $ on AV subscriptions.

 

[balamw]

I'm looking to buy a MB or MBP myself, but still in pains me to think that I'm paying nearly 200% more than an equivalent PC.

There are plenty of pros and cons either way, but in general you can't quite make an "equivalent" to a Mac that includes all of its form, fit and function besides OS X. You tend to make compromises in one area. e.g to get FW800 on a Dell is usually not a standad feature, it may not be important/valuable to you but it can be a dealbraker for someone else.

B

 

[bousozoku]

EULA sez:
...
But, it's not exactly criminal. It's a violation of the license agreement. All that means is they can stop you from using it that way (and maybe make it expensive).

In any case, the fines are more expensive than just buying Apple hardware and running Mac OS X on it to get the best experience possible.

Why would someone run Mac OS X on a machine that really wasn't targeted to run it properly? You'd end up with all sorts of situations that would keep you guessing what was wrong and you'd get the impression that Mac OS X was not that stable. (It's tough enough on Apple hardware lately.)

Briefly... PowerComputing Corp's clones were terrible. Cheap hardware. Not a single one we purchased lasted more than 3 years.

Yeah, my PowerCenter is still running in the other room.

 

[dpaanlka]

I don't know what 45 posts in this thread could possibly be saying, but here I'll help out the OP by saying YOU CANNOT LEGALLY RUN OS X ON ANY PC. Aside from being totally not legal at all, it is very difficult and clumsy, and often results in your computer not performing at its best, and is not a very good option for PCs compared to Windows or Ubuntu or any of those other Linux variants. So even if you didn't care about legality, it really isn't something I would recommend on a technical basis, unless you really enjoy extremely frustrating installs and maintenance, poor performance, and a certain level of exciting randomness and unpredictability.

 

[yellow]

Yeah, my PowerCenter is still running in the other room.

I guess we got lemons then.. a lot of lemons.

 

[it5five]

So, do we really need 10 threads about this a week?

My money is on 3 days until the next one.

 

[yellow]

So, do we really need 10 threads about this a week?

Welcome to MR.. it's cyclical. Wait until the next iteration of Mac X come out and the endless threads complaining because they didn't include a sawblade or magnafying glass or water cup or whatever.

 

[calculus]

I'm looking to buy a MB or MBP myself, but still in pains me to think that I'm paying nearly 200% more than an equivalent PC.

Mark

I'd love to know what your definition of 'equivalent' is...

 

[bousozoku]

I guess we got lemons then.. a lot of lemons.

Apparently. Personally, I think what you got were all built on Fridays and Mondays but mine was built in the middle of the week when everyone had recovered from their weekend.

I also had a lower bus speed than your fastest machines. Originally, I had a PowerCenter 120, so 40 MHz but I updated it with a 225 MHz 604e so I only went up to 45 MHz. Going above 60 MHz was a problem for some of the components, but they should have handled that properly. Is it a surprise that part of the people in the company came across town from Dell, though?

So, do we really need 10 threads about this a week?

My money is on 3 days until the next one.

Even if we put a sticky thread for every issue, someone would ignore it and start a new thread. People are lazy.

 

[MrNate3333]

But why? Why can we run Windows on a Mac perfectly legally, but not OS X on A PC? Of course, Apple would lose some money on that, becasue people would stop buying Macs, and go for PC's cuz PC's are cheaper... Wow, I kind of just answerd my own question.


Whoop, 100th post for me!

I BTW this has nothing to do with your comment really but people who download it as a torrent or something (as in mac for Pc) 67% of the time it was a virus not any virus but one that will wipe everything off your hard drive and a differnt one that give you OSX you open it and it acually says you're screwed! then permentaly freezes your computer with those words. Okay that last one only happend once but still the other one happens a lot...