Maybe not through some stores, but the AppleStore, MacMall, et al sells Mac Mini power supply/cords for about 49 bucks.
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'OpenMac' Promises $399 Headless Mac... But Not From Apple
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Maybe not through some stores, but the AppleStore, MacMall, et al sells Mac Mini power supply/cords for about 49 bucks.
What if I'm not near an Apple Store, and can't or won't wait until an online outfit ships me a new brick? For a PC, walk into any computer/electronics store, ka-ching, you're done.
Get over it and wait?
Microcenter sells em too, Best Buy with an Apple Store can carry them as well.
LOL. I take it you've never had to use your computer to work remotely or do anything else time-sensitive.
Neither of the two Best Buys near me stock Apple replacement parts - one doesn't even have an Apple section. And Micro Center's location distribution isn't nearly what it needs to be to bring parity with the immense number of options you have for PC components. The simple fact is that your options are substantially more restricted due to Apple's design and it doesn't have to be that way.kkat69 said:
If you say so. Working 10+ years with Lockheed Martin I have done it many times. Doing consulting work now for several companies, doing the same.
I've also built PC's before. Any PC I bought was custom built with the exception of my first couple when it was more expensive to do so.
Now we can go back and forth playing tit for tat goin "yah huh, nuh uh, yah huh" but point being the power supply IS obtainable. Because the stores near you don't carry them isn't a global generalization. Here where I'm at near Alpharetta Ga (outside Atlanta) there is a MC and BB within easy reach that carry them so for many people in this area your statement work work. There are also NUMEROUS people in the country that don't even have a computer store near them let alone an Apple store so they would have to wait.
Besides anyone truely doing "time-sensitive" important work will have a back up plan in case anything did go wrong. Whether it be a back up machine or whatever, telling a customer or Air Force General "sorry man, my computer broke" isn't exactly an acceptable answer.
True, I'm not arguing that fact. Your statement was generalized when in fact those parts are easy to obtain.
Now with your above example, if an average person was working on sensitive material and their powersupply went down (we'll keep the example simple and stick with PS) chances are they aren't going to know it's the PS. They going to have to take it in to a store and wait. So we're back to waiting with a PC or Apple. With a PC internal PS, it's a little harder to troubleshoot over the phone since there isn't any real indicator. If someone was using a Mac Mini (again let's keep it simple here) then when on phone it would be as simple as looking to see if the green light was on, then the tech would respond with "seems your PS is blown, we'll order you a new one"
It can be skewed in favor of both PC parts or Apple or for that matter No one wins. Regardless of being a design flaw or not (and I'm not taking sides to either), that's a matter of opinion and/or user usage.
There are far, far fewer Apple stores than there are generic computer/electronics stores - people are way more likely to be without an Apple store than to be without both an Apple store and a generic store.kkat69 said:
True, but ***** happens - and regardless, I only brought up the critical scenario because you were dismissive of personal convenience as being an important enough reason. It is - especially when there's a metric ton of precedent from computers that most of the rest of the world uses for being able to readily go out and buy your own components. The Mac, like the Apple II before it, is a personal computer and that should not entail being beholden to one manufacturer for parts that for billions of other computers are non-issues in terms of availability.kkat69 said:
Irrelevant - I already acknowledged that average users won't know WTF. This is for those of us that do, and it's well within the realm of reason, because being able to carry out this sort of task is (1) at the very basic end of technical literacy, which means a lot more than some exotic niche as some people characterize it, (2) is supremely easy to account for in product design, and (3) utterly outweighs the benefits that Apple and Apple alone reaps from being a single point-of-contact. There are neither technical nor aesthetic reasons to go non-standard, particularly for an xMac computer. It has everything to do with serving Apple's financial interests and nothing to do with the customer.kkat69 said:
I think it's time to end this as we both have valid points and invalid points.
To agree to disagree.
The arguement can swing both ways depending on who is on the other end and who it benifits.
It's all opinionated. What one believes to be a benifit and what another sees as a hassle.
However you wish to say it.
As for myself, I always order my pcparts online, cheaper (no tax), better, yada yada that's my preference.
Again, we both have valid points depending on who's reading it and what their personal preference is.
This dog needs to lay.
Actually I wasn't even sure it was a power supply issue myself. On my previous PCs when the power supply died, it died. On my iMac is was a slow fail and resembled more of a logic board problem (shutdowns at random points, unable to duplicate). However I am still using my G5 iMac as my main machine and haven't had another issue. My main point is, if say your logic board fails you have to mail it to them and get a new one. Or if you know nothing about computers you are screwed.
I also think if Psystar is real he is either putting these together by hand himself, or hired a bunch of guys to do it. Either way I doubt there is much in the line of quality control.
IF they are real.
And IF they are real I agree, there probably isn't any quality control and the parts are probably Amptron MB's (for those of us who remember amptron mb's back in the day) which are bare bone mass produced built to fail after 6mths POS's.
I worked briefly for a computer company and built machines for them. Their quality control was....................... ME. I took the order, walked to the shelve, grabed the oem parts, brought them to a room where the workbench was cluttered with junk/screws/etc put the pc's together, ran them up, ran a cheap a$$ diagnostics program, loaded windows 95, then put the mb in the cheap case, turned it on again, and that was IT. The place wasn't clean, no one doublechecked my work, no "Inspected by no. 114" or anything like that. Was mainly me and another guy and he worked in the warehouse behind me most of the time.
They've long since been out of business but one can say "you get what you pay for" when it comes to something like this.
Simply put, please be cautious with these guys.
I wouldn't say the same for a local company say (here in atlanta) Ginstar, but they've been around for years and because I've been in the back of some of these shops, their QA isn't exactly the greatest and mimics my experience outlined above, but they STAND behind their stuff. Somehow I doubt IF Psystar was real, they would do the same.
A lot of us have seen pics and youtube videos. Also some have even done a hackintosh install. I for one had tiger up and sure it was pretty fast. I didn't like the hassle so I bought an original. It did however, convince me the interface/os wasn't hard to learn and wasn't as intimidating as I thought. I now have 2 intel Macs and getting another 2 PPC macs for my kids.
still hope?
"Store Up And Running, Orders Shipped
It is our pleasure to inform you that our store is up and running thanks to our new high volume payment processor. To all, we challenge you, lets see if we can max this one out. Regarding shipping, orders placed the week of April 7th are currently being shipped. We will be shipping units out of our new facility starting Monday, April 21st, including those orders placed the week of April 14th. Orders are being shipped in the order that they were received, don't worry, you'll get yours soon. Upon shipment an email notification including tracking information will be sent to you automatically."
that was posted today on phstar's page.
hopefully there will be hands on reviews by the time i get my surplus check. yummy.
"Store Up And Running, Orders Shipped
It is our pleasure to inform you that our store is up and running thanks to our new high volume payment processor. To all, we challenge you, lets see if we can max this one out. Regarding shipping, orders placed the week of April 7th are currently being shipped. We will be shipping units out of our new facility starting Monday, April 21st, including those orders placed the week of April 14th. Orders are being shipped in the order that they were received, don't worry, you'll get yours soon. Upon shipment an email notification including tracking information will be sent to you automatically."
that was posted today on phstar's page.
hopefully there will be hands on reviews by the time i get my surplus check. yummy.
Theoretically, almost any decent x86 PC sold these days could run Leopard. So I don't think Psystar is doing anything illegal. After all, my Dell notebook could easily run Leopard, and yet it wasn't illegal for Dell to sell it to me.
Hogwash, your Dell PC can not EASILY run Leopard.
You can't just put the Leopard disc in and hit the install button, it requires patching and under the hood work, hardly an easy 10 minute install.
been researching about this online, and thought some of macrumors readers bought this item..
did you guys actually get something?
or was it a hoax, and your information is now been sold online as "young private identity - get them while there hot" kinda thing?
let me know.
thanks.
did you guys actually get something?
or was it a hoax, and your information is now been sold online as "young private identity - get them while there hot" kinda thing?
let me know.
thanks.
Hogwash, your Dell PC can not EASILY run Leopard.
You can't just put the Leopard disc in and hit the install button, it requires patching and under the hood work, hardly an easy 10 minute install.
Um, think McFly. He means Leopard hardly requires any special hardware (beyond using items that have drivers in Leopard already) other than a way to fool Apple's check for their hardware. Sometimes I think fanboys just WANT to be difficult. Sorry, but the days of Mac users pretending their hardware is special are over (not that it ever was special, just different).
Personally, I think the Commodore Amiga line blew the Mac away in the late '80s and early '90s. I wouldn't touch the Mac back then with a 10 foot pole. I'll give Steve Jobs credit where credit is due, though. MacOSX blows away Windows for the most part (saving hooks for gaming). But then MacOSX has very little in common under the hood with prior versions of MacOS other than many of the elements of the interface look and feel. MacOSX is the ONLY reason I've purchased a Mac. The hardware is nothing special at all. I'd prefer the option to build my own Mac 'clone' even if I'm limited in the hardware I can choose to use with it. At least then I could make sure I could keep a decent graphics card in the thing, which is definitely Apple's achilles heel. The ability to run Windows AND MacOSX on the same machine, let alone at the same time (via Parallels or Fusion) is incredibly cool, but the lack of decent graphics cards on most Macs means the ability is largely wasted, especially if you mostly want to use the Windows side to play games since the Mac is a virtual wasteland in terms of available native games.
But the problem I see with Mac users is instead of admitting the shortcomings of their platform and Apple's direction for it, they instead make excuses for Apple and their own nearsightedness in certain areas like the gaping hole that is a mid-range gaming capable Mac. If the Mac is ever going to increase its software catalog in the gaming arena, it NEEDS the available hardware to support those games at a REASONABLE price.
Why do you think Apple's computers are unavailable to the masses? You can buy a MacMini for £399, which is pretty darned cheap.
Also, I wouldn't talk about companies like B&O unless you have a little more experience with them...
It's cheap and has a slow hard drive and a worthless GPU. It's main "wow" factor is its form, namely a tiny case. I'm afraid Poncho's comments are right on the money. Apple's MacMini and iMacs ARE like B&O (i.e. you're paying for form, not function). I've been into HiFi for over 10 years. I have $2000/pair ribbon speakers. Don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. Geeze.
Apple could increase their market share much faster if they'd offer a traditional mini-tower with the ability to change the graphics card. The MacPro is too expensive for the average consumer and is overkill in many areas. Even a MacPro case with a regular Intel Core Duo CPU at a lower price would help increase traditional sales. Apple needs to know that not everyone cares about razor thin computers with less power due to the 'thinness'. The MBP is a fine laptop, but they have nothing in their line that competes with $600 laptops. They have nothing in their line that competes with $700 towers that can play any game out there in the Windows realm. They advertise Windows compatibility now and tout the return of Electronic Arts and big time gaming to the Mac, but they offer slow graphics cards that cannot handle the games properly. Apple is not perfect. They have a great OS and make some really poor design choices. It's probably why MOST of their computers sales are laptops. It's the one item they seem to know how to make well. Their 'desktops' are just laptops in disguise, save the MacPro which is too expensive for a consumer grade desktop compared to Windows and Linux towers.
Hogwash, your Dell PC can not EASILY run Leopard.
You can't just put the Leopard disc in and hit the install button, it requires patching and under the hood work, hardly an easy 10 minute install.
For the record, its hardly a 10 minute install on a Mac Pro even! He's right, the Dell can run it, but its not whether they're making it hardware compatible with OS X, its that they're selling it bundled with it, and even offering a pre-install option.
Turns out Psystar is probably a Credit Card / Phishing scam
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3761
also has anyone actually ever received a machine?
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3761
also has anyone actually ever received a machine?
They never will, and I am sure that all those that ordered won't be around to tell you, they are busy looking for the scammers that stole their money.
I am a Mac user since 1985.
But all i am saying is i saw the damn thing working and it worked great with Tiger
All these repost of similar news articles say the same thing. What's REALLY interesting is the links posted here:
That'll make you think twice about giving them your CC.
Although if they were smart and wanted to throw off suspicion they would at least deliver one or two before sell off the CC numbers.
I think a lot of us have strayed off the OT. No one is debating you Mac longevity, all I was trying to say is it's not new news and can be googled easily.