Whether it is a violation of Apple's EULA remains to be seen, but from my understanding EULAs don't stand up in court anyway.
I have no idea where this Internet meme started, but it is absolutely incorrect. Far and away, any EULA overturnings are the exception to the rule, and there have been close to zero instances where a EULA has been dismissed entirely. There have been a number of provisions in particular EULAs which cannot be enforced, but no judge has ever ruled against a EULA in toto.
Apple Hardware is only nice when it is new. Then a week later everyone sees that everyone can do the same and better for cheaper. Then a month or two later while everyone unviels this new feature and that, Apple is touting its New MacBook Pros (no updates in months).
There have to be customers on the leading edge to keep things moving forward. Someone has to do it first at a premium price before it can be made available to the huddled masses. Look at the first microwaves. They were out of reach to most working families 40 years ago, but today you can find them for $40 at Target. But if you look higher in the line, there are still much more expensive microwaves out there embracing new and improved methods. There's nothing radical about expensive microwaves, except nicer materials and showroom-quality design, and some small touches and evolutionary innovations that will trickle down.
But if no one buys the non-commodity ones, the features don't trickle down.
Apparently you haven't taken Econ 101, if not you would have known that increased competition is (in most cases) only going to benefit the consumer in the long run. Increased competition means lower prices and/or better products for the consumer due to the competition.
And if you'd moved on to the 200-level, you'd see that price subsidization in separate sectors causes companies to collapse when the subsidizing agent fails. If you're using your extra profits to run a charity, when your company goes bankrupt, the charity fails as well, because it isn't self-funding. When you sell a product as a core business and use proceeds to fund all development costs, you can sell satellite products (the odd copy of the OS), for a substantially reduced price. However, if the yields fall in the former product, the latter can no longer be sold at below-market prices.
The full version of Windows retails for $299 (ignoring the stupid Ultimate edition). Because Apple is a smaller company with a substantially smaller development group, its per-unit costs are even higher than Microsoft's, a fact only moderated by the narrower reach of its OS. OS X therefore would also have to be sold at a substantially higher rate very close to Microsoft's in order to compensate for the loss.
If you can run OS X on any computer, Apple will have to continue to create hardware that people are willing to purchase at a premium.
A big part of that premium
is OS X. To compare retail prices of computers, you must compare the whole package. People who are simple price tag shoppers will never see the value in an Apple computer, just as they will never see the value in a $6 dish towel when the one next to it is $5. Price tag shoppers don't look at the product, and most companies would do anything for a customer base like Apple's. Apple doesn't have the volume to compensate for razor thin margins, and it has no need to.
People keep insisting that the closed system will kill Apple. Adapt or die, and all that. What they fail to realize is that the future of desktop computing isn't this open, scattered disarray of products--it's commoditization of appliances. "Geek machines" are destined to be a niche product, like build-yourself toaster ovens and telephones. A complete, fully functional, reliable product has far more value and convenience than a pile of PCBs and transistors. Once upon a time, customers picked their network, sound, and video cards, and before that, even more trivial pieces. Today, all of that ships on a single board. The internal expansion card sections of electronics stores are a fraction of what they once were, apart from the graphics card aisle. PCs are slowly consolidating into purpose-driven appliances (HTPCs, media servers, desktops, etc.).
Who wants to run mac osx on a pc?
