Would you use a hackintosh in business?

[balamw]

and i said it before, the fundamental flaw in your argument is you cannot read and agree to the lisence before you bought the disc in the shop , that you can read the lisence online before you buy does not count in the rest of the world as nobody who sells in a shop can make you read lisences online before you buy
with OFFICE its different it says it in big letters HOME and Student so you are made aware of it in big letters on the snow leopard disc it only says intel only in very small print on the back that some cant even read with glasses on

As I have said this may vary on jurisdiction.

One thing that is quite apparent on Snow Leopard packaging is the Apple Logo and the fact that it is Mac OS X.

Why would there be any expectation from the purchaser that it would run on anything else but an Apple-branded Mac?

Note that I don't have a fundamental problem with Hackintoshes, for personal use. Do so in good health, but just like jaywalking or using prescription drugs off-label don't fool yourself to thinking that what you are doing is "100% legitimate". Go into it with eyes open.

B

 

[monkeybongo]

I don't think many would recommend a home-built PC for business either. PC or Mac, the main issue is with respect to warranty, support and potential downtime. You'll need to either have to source alternate support through yourself or a friend to be able fix and repair these as quick as you need them. If you can't stand to lose 1-2 days of business in order to fix, I would go to with a Mac mini with additional Applecare or if PearC will provide some support for your needs, you could go with that.

 

[MacHamster68]

I dont have a problem with Mac's in general.

Microsoft does allow Windows to be installed on a Apple PC as modern Mac's build after the transition are just PC's on the Hardware side , only Apple makes a fuss about where you install OSX on , absolute not neccessary in my opinion if you buy the disc Apple makes profit, so if a company buys a lot disc's Apple makes lots of Profit.
like i said Apple does only Fear competition , because then they would need to justify their pricing

 

[paduck]

I dont have a problem with Mac's in general.

Microsoft does allow Windows to be installed on a Apple PC as modern Mac's build after the transition are just PC's on the Hardware side , only Apple makes a fuss about where you install OSX on , absolute not neccessary in my opinion if you buy the disc Apple makes profit, so if a company buys a lot disc's Apple makes lots of Profit.
like i said Apple does only Fear competition , because then they would need to justify their pricing

Not a lot of profit at $29/copy.

Apple is a hardware company and makes its profits off a tightly coupled hardware ecosystem that "just works." If they let you run OS X on anything, then they'd incur huge costs and cannibalize their hardware sales.

It's one thing for people to do this at home themselves as hobbiests. It's another for competition to try and sell thousands of the things for a profit - that eats into Apple's bottom line.

 

[Mac_Max]

I've done production work on Hackintoshes before. The biggest thing I'd suggest is to keep two drives for the OS and clone one to the other. That way when you upgrade to a new point release you don't have to worry about "what if something doesn't go wrong." That said, I tend to not follow my own advice and vicariously upgrade.

Now that Thunderbolt is around I don't feel too bad about using a Mac Mini as a main machine. I did that for a while but needed a new gaming PC along with more memory capacity and hard drive bays on the Mac side (I run four hard drives for various development reasons) so I switched to a Hackintosh. Back then I just lived with USB 2.0 and Firewire with my Core 2 Duo Mini and it was OK... but there are only so many Mac Mini look-a-like HD cases you can stack under one of those things .

 

[divinituss]

I've done production work on Hackintoshes before. The biggest thing I'd suggest is to keep two drives for the OS and clone one to the other. That way when you upgrade to a new point release you don't have to worry about "what if something doesn't go wrong." That said, I tend to not follow my own advice and vicariously upgrade.

Now that Thunderbolt is around I don't feel too bad about using a Mac Mini as a main machine. I did that for a while but needed a new gaming PC along with more memory capacity and hard drive bays on the Mac side (I run four hard drives for various development reasons) so I switched to a Hackintosh. Back then I just lived with USB 2.0 and Firewire with my Core 2 Duo Mini and it was OK... but there are only so many Mac Mini look-a-like HD cases you can stack under one of those things .

Yeah I do development work on Hackintoshes too. They are reliable so long you use the correct hardware (plenty of guides on tonymacx86). To play safe I would make Time Machine backups over the network on a consistent basis.
To the OP:
However if your main motivation to get a Hackintosh is due to cost savings, then I strongly urge you to reconsider that if you are using the machine for your business. At the very least you should pick the parts wisely (like getting a good SSD) and minimally know how to get it up and running. Don't go all to reliant on your friend, or go building the cheapest rig available in the market. It may not be helpful in the long run.

 

[brentsg]

No, people that would do production work on a Hackintosh would be making a mistake.

 

[Unami]

i'm using my second hackintosh for business now (mainly video editing, graphics and multimedia stuff).

everything works like a charm. just pick your hardware carefully (stick to tonymacx86 buyere guide) and you should be fine.
as long as you're not afraid to have a HACKintosh (e.g. fiddle around a bit in terminal, maybe not being able to install OSX updates with just one mousclick,...). if you want - fire&forget computer, wait for the expected imac update.
but, honestly, setting up and maintaining a hackintosh is something between the complexity of working with windows or linux, so any computer-literate should be fine.

 

[snberk103]

i'm using my second hackintosh for business now (mainly video editing, graphics and multimedia stuff).

everything works like a charm. just pick your hardware carefully (stick to tonymacx86 buyere guide) and you should be fine.
as long as you're not afraid to have a HACKintosh (e.g. fiddle around a bit in terminal, maybe not being able to install OSX updates with just one mousclick,...). if you want - fire&forget computer, wait for the expected imac update.
but, honestly, setting up and maintaining a hackintosh is something between the complexity of working with windows or linux, so any computer-literate should be fine.

To offer an opposing opinion.... No, I would never use a hackintosh for business. I don't want to fiddle with a tool I depend on, I want it to work. And I want it to be able to accept any and all updates from Apple since they might include important security updates. I always wait a few days after an update release - of course - to see how many MR users have issues. But then I update and continue on.

More importantly, to me, is the one stop hardware warranty. Last year my Mac Pro broke. I dropped it off at the Apple Authorized Store, went home and plugged my MBP into the cloned backup and carried on. Turns out the failure was difficult to diagnose due to conflicting error codes (the video card failed but then took out the logic board as well - or it might have vice versa, they didn't know.) Not my problem - both parts were covered by the same AppleCare warranty. In a Hackintosh, you are dealing with two warranties in this case. Both of which just might decline coverage because they determine their failure was caused by the other part failing. Extreme case, perhaps.... but with AppleCare, I don't worry about it.

I just bought a 'new' refurbished MacPro to replace my perfectly functioning 2008 Mac Pro... just for the warranty coverage. Plus... I can still get a fair price for my 2008 since it is still running, and is a genuine Mac. Once I factor in the sale price for the 2008, the (hoped-for) sale price of the new Mac Pro in 4 years, and the discount because the refurbed Mac Pro was a really good price.... I'm practically getting this Mac Pro for free plus the cost of the old HDDs and RAM that I'm including with the 2008 MP when I sell it.

Anyway.... just an opposing view, for anybody reading this in the future... not trying to change anyone's mind who have already committed to a strategy.

 

[pdjudd]

In a business enviroment you never want to depend on something that is in the extremely best case is a legal grey area. I take the matter similar to any other forms a piracy, a business should never do it.

 

[mtek]

In a business enviroment you never want to depend on something that is in the extremely best case is a legal grey area. I take the matter similar to any other forms a piracy, a business should never do it.

Agree.
I do have a couple of hackintosh laptops running around and they've been extremely reliable so far (both running the latest 10.8.1 Mountain Lion) without any crashes, running all the security updates et al. Actually Mountain Lion code is so good that it even runs on my Atom netbook effortlessly!

Still I would just take a 'real' mac to the office, since like it's been said it's free of any grey area legal issues and can be oficially assisted at any Apple Authorised Repair Center.

Just my 2 cents