MacBook Airs ship; Psystar plans Mac notebook, Blu-ray desktop

[AppleInsider]

Apple is making good on a promise to have its new MacBook Airs in the hands of customers early next week. Meanwhile, unofficial Mac clone maker Psystar has announced a Blu-ray-enabled Mac desktop and says its also working on a Mac notebook.

MacBook Air ships

Readers in the market for one of Apple's new NVIDIA-powered MacBook Airs should expect broad availability of the ultra-thin systems shortly.

Overnight, several readers reported that their online order status for the new notebooks now indicates that those orders are either being prepared for shipment, or have already shipped.

"I received an invoice last night for the expedited shipping charge for my new MacBook Air. I ordered the 128GB SSD version on the day of the launch," said one reader. "The status on the Apple Store now shows "Prepared for Shipment" but still gives the same Ship Nov 5, Deliver by Nov 6."

However, several other readers reported that their MacBook Airs are already in transit to the United States and should arrive no later than Monday, November 3rd.

In addition to gaining NVIDIA's new GeForce 9400M integrated graphics system and industry standard Mini DisplayPort, the new MacBook Airs also run on a new version of Intel's special-run 'small form factor' mobile processors introduced in August.

The new 45-nanometer chips run at nearly the same clock speeds as the processors used in the first-generation MacBook Air, but support a faster 1.06GHz system bus (up from 800MHz) and a larger 6MB Level 2 onboard memory cache.

Psystar shipping Blu-ray Mac

While Apple and Psystar may have entered into mediation over their legal dispute (1, 2, 3), that hasn't stopped the unauthorized Mac clone maker from pressing forth with plans to become "the leading manufacturer of OS X-compatible PCs."

On Tuesday, the Florida-based company announced in a press release that it has begun shipping a Mac clone with Blu-ray optical disc drives and the NVIDIA 9800GT graphics card.

Psystar president Rudy Pedraza used the release to publicly criticize Apple for delaying support for Blu-ray, noting that chief executive Steve Jobs recently categorized the technology as "a bag of hurt" for consumers.

"Blu-ray has already won the format war. Not only is there fully functional and mature support for Blu-ray in other operating systems but you can now rent Blu-ray discs from almost any rental chain," he said. "Blu-ray has become pervasive technology that is being widely adopted by consumers everywhere," says Pedraza."

That said, Psystar clearly notes in a frequently asked questions document that a lack of Blu-ray software support from Apple means that its Blu-ray Mac clones will only support reading and writing data to and from discs formatted in the high-definition format, but cannot play back Blu-ray video.

Psystar plans Mac notebook

Separately, a spokesperson for Psystar told one AppleInsider reader in an email that the company is hard at work on its first Mac notebook clone, which it plans to price aggressively. A copy of the email follows:
Thank you for your interest in Open Computing. Although there is no mobile open computer at the moment, I can tell you that it is something that is in development. Once we release a final product, it will be posted on our website along with an automatic notification for all Open Computing newsletter subscribers.

No release day or price has been set for any potential mobile product line. However I can assure you that at release it will be very competitively priced.

Thank you for your inquiry.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[petermac]

Is this Psystar working for more leverage in their upcoming arbitration?

[g3pro]

I'm definitely looking forward to Psystar releasing a compact mac laptop, something in the 10"-12" range. It'll be interesting to see what kind of overall design they go with and what the price differential will be.

[wbrasington]

I think it's pretty funny watching Psystar try to pretend to be relevant.
Adding Blu-Ray drives and support for everything but movies has me laughing on the floor.... at them!

[gwilli]

It's nice them adding blu-ray drives to their mac clones, chances are Snow Leopard will support Blu-Ray playback, but I can pretty much guarantee Apple will do everything in their power to prevent Snow Leopard from running on Mac clones.

[Adjei]

Those dudes will go out of business soon so all is good.

[g3pro]

Originally Posted by Adjei

Those dudes will go out of business soon so all is good.

Actually I know of a few people who bought Psystar desktops, and they are generally very happy with the quality for the price.

If Psystar makes a compact laptop, they will be sold out. I plan on buying a compact laptop if they release one.

[Adjei]

Originally Posted by g3pro

Actually I know of a few people who bought Psystar desktops, and they are generally very happy with the quality for the price.

If Psystar makes a compact laptop, they will be sold out. I plan on buying a compact laptop if they release one.

Good for you, hopefully they'll be around by then.

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by g3pro

Actually I know of a few people who bought Psystar desktops, and they are generally very happy with the quality for the price.

If Psystar makes a compact laptop, they will be sold out. I plan on buying a compact laptop if they release one.

But that doesn't actually change the fact that they will be out of business soon however.

The case is a slam dunk, Psystar's argument is no doubt an interesting exercise for their lawyer, but the odd's of them winning it are many thousands to one (at best) and everyone knows it.

[otwayross]

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

But that doesn't actually change the fact that they will be out of business soon however.

The case is a slam dunk, Psystar's argument is no doubt an interesting exercise for their lawyer, but the odd's of them winning it are many thousands to one (at best) and everyone knows it.

i'm totally ignorant to the alleged laws being errr "broken"
but can you please explain why (if it was so obviously a slam dunk)
Apple went into mediation and didn't just take them to the cleaners ?

[FuturePastNow]

While I agree that Apple will probably win, you're deluded if you think their case is a "slam dunk." If Psystar manages to push this in front of a jury, who knows what might happen...

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by g3pro

Actually I know of a few people who bought Psystar desktops, and they are generally very happy with the quality for the price.

If Psystar makes a compact laptop, they will be sold out. I plan on buying a compact laptop if they release one.

And those people will be left out in the cold with a computer with a non-upgradeable OS when Apple wins the lawsuit with Psystar. Remember, Psystar, is the one providing modified updates to the OS for those machines.

[rbonner]

Great take on Blu-Ray:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=365&tag=nl.e539

[bpg131313]

I wonder how Steve justifies in his mind having his Pixar movies released on Blu-Ray while knowing full well that not a single one of his computers can play the things? I can respect and understand that complex licensing agreements are involved, but there's got to be adoption of this technology if the Mac platform is to remain on the forefront of Video production. I'm sitting here in front of a 30" Cinema display that admittedly upscales DVD video using my NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 to a rather clear imagine. While this fantastic monitor is still about twice the resolution of 1080 HD footage, I'd love to be able to watch Blu-Rays on it when I'm not working. I wish I had access to state of the art internet for fast streaming and downloads, which seems to be the way Steve wants us all to go rather than a physical format like Blu-Ray, but I live in a place where that's simply not going to happen for at least a couple more years while they bring the lines further out into remote areas.

If Psystar is the catalyst needed to make Steve drop a Blu-Ray drive into the Mac and have OS X fully support it, I'll applaud Psystar for the nudge Apple needed.

[irnchriz]

Originally Posted by g3pro

Actually I know of a few people who bought Psystar desktops, and they are generally very happy with the quality for the price.

If Psystar makes a compact laptop, they will be sold out. I plan on buying a compact laptop if they release one.

Well bully for them, lets see how happy they are when they need support or updates for leopard after Psystar goes tits up.

[heavydevelopment]

Originally Posted by otwayross

i'm totally ignorant to the alleged laws being errr "broken"
but can you please explain why (if it was so obviously a slam dunk)
Apple went into mediation and didn't just take them to the cleaners ?

Apple wanted to avoid a trial for two reasons. a) A public trial would be longer and more expensive than mediation b) Apple wants to avoid any sort of mainstream press (ie the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, etc. Apple Insider doesn't count as mainstream ) on this that might effect the perception of Apple with the general public--the perception would be the big bad corporation squashing the little entrepreneur--which is effectively what they are doing, but are fully in their rights of doing.

Why would Psystar go into mediation? a) A public trial would be longer and more expensive than mediation of which if they lose could end up costing them millions of $$$ b) there is an outside chance they might actually reach a deal with Apple and if they don't, Apple may just let them off with a slap on the wrist because the proceedings are confidential. If the proceedings were public Apple would bring down the hammer to make an example of them.

Psystar is not helping themselves by thumbing their noses at Apple with this press release. Apple and Jobs do not like people upstaging or disrespecting them in public. Just ask the people over at Sling Media and their stupid stunt before the Apple developers conference. The Sling player may never get on the iPhone (that pisses me off to no end, BTW). I only see bad things for Psystar.

[bpg131313]

Originally Posted by rbonner

Great take on Blu-Ray:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=365&tag=nl.e539

I respectfully agree with the points provided in your link. That said, what storage medium for HD video will we have beyond DVD for movies? At this rate I'll have an external hard drive that I save my 1080p footage to and just send that to the people I want to see the footage in HD. If the internet providers would speed up deploying Fiber, I could just stream it all. That's still a dream that won't be realized until 2010 for my area. I guess folks like me will just have to stick with MPEG2 for a few more years.

[res08hao]

Seriously, does anybody know if people have bought this product? Who would be that stupid?

[gastroboy]

Who is going to be stupid enough to buy a Mac from Apple knowing they will never get support from Apple for Blu Ray on any of the current models?

I can understand Apple going into mediation with Psystar. It must be totally puzzling to them this idea that a computer supplier should actually even bother giving customers what they want.

The Apple executives and lawyers are completely stumped, how do they tackle such a strange mindset and alien business model?

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by rbonner

Great take on Blu-Ray:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=365&tag=nl.e539

Bad take on Blu-Ray. Who the hell is Robin Harris but one opinion. The real bag of hurt is Apple TV - where are the sales figures for that lemon?
And Disney is one of the biggest chearleaders of Blu-Ray at that. Bad link.

[JavaCowboy]

Originally Posted by teckstud

Bad take on Blu-Ray. Who the hell is Robin Harris but one opinion. The real bag of hurt is Apple TV - where are the sales figures for that lemon?

I don't think the AppleTV is a lemon. I bought one for my girlfriend and she really likes it. She can listen to her iTunes music, rent movies online (which will be *really* great during the cold winter, so she won't have to go outside or even out of bed to rent a movie), and browse YouTube clips and Podcasts.

There are several things that it needs to add however:

1) More movies that you can rent. There are far too many movies that you can only buy.
2) More content altogether.
3) A better remote. Entering text on that thing is really painful. Hopefully they can add a scaled-down version of the iTouch as a more sophisticated remote.
4) News and weather applications, as well as other simple applications.
5) An SDK for third party developers to create software.
6) Bigger harddrive. 40 Gb on the basic model is really not much.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by JavaCowboy

I don't think the AppleTV is a lemon. I bought one for my girlfriend and she really likes it. She can listen to her iTunes music, rent movies online (which will be *really* great during the cold winter, so she won't have to go outside or even out of bed to rent a movie), and browse YouTube clips and Podcasts.

There are several things that it needs to add however:

1) More movies that you can rent. There are far too many movies that you can only buy.
2) More content altogether.
3) A better remote. Entering text on that thing is really painful. Hopefully they can add a scaled-down version of the iTouch as a more sophisticated remote.
4) News and weather applications, as well as other simple applications.
5) An SDK for third party developers to create software.
6) Bigger harddrive. 40 Gb on the basic model is really not much.

You forgot the most important:
1.) Search you own music files- it should be easier than using your computer's iTunes not harder.

A Mac Mini is a much better purchase- it does all of the above plus more with a DVD drive.
But again- what are the figures for Apple TV?

[mitchelljd]

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

But that doesn't actually change the fact that they will be out of business soon however.

The case is a slam dunk, Psystar's argument is no doubt an interesting exercise for their lawyer, but the odd's of them winning it are many thousands to one (at best) and everyone knows it.

Well, the interesting thing about the lawsuit is that....because the part that psystar is violating is the "License" that comes with the purchase of OS X, this may be hard to prove in court in mediation. so we don't know legally how it will pan out.

fact is that it is possible to install mac osx on many computers, there is widely known hacks now.

apple would be better served by introducing a mid range tower. and blu-ray finally. with compatible video monitors.

i would prefer to buy apple products, but if they are going to refuse to offer what i would like to buy... then i may have to look to Psystar.

[zunx]

MacBook Air?????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NO Firewire, NO purchase!

[quinney]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Psystar president Rudy Pedraza used the release to publicly criticize Apple for delaying support for Blu-ray, noting that chief executive Steve Jobs recently categorized the technology as "a bag of hurt" for consumers.

"Blu-ray has already won the format war. Not only is there fully functional and mature support for Blu-ray in other operating systems but you can now rent Blu-ray discs from almost any rental chain," he said. "Blu-ray has become pervasive technology that is being widely adopted by consumers everywhere," says Pedraza."

Pedraza to Apple: "hurry up and update your OS for Blu-ray playback, so I can make
more money selling it without your authorization"

[wbrasington]

Originally Posted by zunx

MacBook Air?????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NO Firewire, NO purchase!

Who cares if you buy it.
Go away kid... you bother me.

[Foo2]

Originally Posted by otwayross

i'm totally ignorant to the alleged laws being errr "broken"

No "errr" about it. The law being broken is in the area of copyright. Without a license allowing it, it is illegal for anyone but the copyright holder (Apple) to copy Apple's software onto a non-Apple computer. I believe Apple is also pursuing Trademark issues against Psystar.

By the way, ignorantia juris non excusat... ignorance of the law excuses no one.

[Kolchak]

Psystar should make the Mac tablet that so many people are clamoring for. If Apple refuses to address the market, it's an opening for them. Of course, the hard part would be getting MultiTouch to work on it. I doubt they have the hardware to emulate Apple's MultiTouch controller and even if they did, it would be extremely difficult to make it a MultiTouch touchscreen.

[Foo2]

Originally Posted by Kolchak

Psystar should make the Mac tablet that so many people are clamoring for.

That's a bit much, when installing a Blu-ray drive (that still won't play HDCP Blu-ray movies) is about the extent of Psystar's abilities.

[ecking]

Originally Posted by g3pro

I'm definitely looking forward to Psystar releasing a compact mac laptop, something in the 10"-12" range. It'll be interesting to see what kind of overall design they go with and what the price differential will be.

They'll just buy a shitload of msi winds and paint (or sticker) over the msi logo.

[JakeTheRock]

Originally Posted by mitchelljd

i would prefer to buy apple products, but if they are going to refuse to offer what i would like to buy... then i may have to look to Psystar.

However, buying from Psystar can only lead to bad things. In the end, Apple will win, and you will most likely end up with a $600 brick sitting on your desk.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that it is illegal for them to us Apple's products and logos to market their computers without their consent.

I heard a nearly perfect solution a while back on these boards, that Apple should sell 10.5 --> 10.6 "upgrades" for $129, and then sell a "Full copy" of Mac OS X for alot more ($600 or something ridiculous like that). Anyone who already bought a Mac from Apple would automatically qualify for the $129 version, but to but the OS to put it on another computer, people would have to shell out alot more. That way, Psystar, and other companies like them, would have no incentive to legally sell their computers, because they'd be spending enough on the OS to balance out any other pricing advantage they have.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for other companies producing computers with OS-X on them, but Psystar is demonstrating the worst possible way to do this. Apple could allow other companies to work closely with them to produce computers, but it's still not a good idea for the company business-wise.

Apple is a hardware company, and they make their money from selling the hardware, not the OS. In that respect, apple will never allow clones of any kind, and they will not allow companies of Psystar's nature to exist.

[wheelhot]

I'm definitely looking forward to Psystar releasing a compact mac laptop, something in the 10"-12" range. It'll be interesting to see what kind of overall design they go with and what the price differential will be.

Erm it will be a piece of crap like how the company is a piece of crap. I expect the quality to be much worse then Dell.

They will go for the cheapest and lowest and crappiest quality design.

I like some poster said, if Psycrap is that great and complaining about Apple OS being restrictive and all, why don't make your own OS that COPIES OSX and sells them, then you will be announced and known as the OS X alternative, rather then taking peoples work and saying that they are being anti-competitive.

[plokoonpma]

Originally Posted by mitchelljd

Well, the interesting thing about the lawsuit is that....because the part that psystar is violating is the "License" that comes with the purchase of OS X, this may be hard to prove in court in mediation. so we don't know legally how it will pan out.

fact is that it is possible to install mac osx on many computers, there is widely known hacks now.

apple would be better served by introducing a mid range tower. and blu-ray finally. with compatible video monitors.

i would prefer to buy apple products, but if they are going to refuse to offer what i would like to buy... then i may have to look to Psystar.

Psystar doesn't even have a disclaimer about the copyrighted Apple images they use.
They are asking for severe pwing and they will get it.

[g3pro]

Originally Posted by res08hao

Seriously, does anybody know if people have bought this product? Who would be that stupid?

Yes. And they're not stupid to have spent significantly less than a comparable Apple-branded computer with the same parts. Sorry, but you're stupid if you buy an Apple-branded case when you can get the same/better specs for cheaper than the Apple price.



I hope Psystar wins. Apple needs competition within the hardware arena so customers don't get gouged with Apple's excessive prices for its hardware.

[piot]

[QUOTE=otwayross;1332323but can you please explain why (if it was so obviously a slam dunk) Apple went into mediation and didn't just take them to the cleaners ? [/QUOTE]

How about ... err ... the Judge ordered it?

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?s...81019133549359

[elroth]

Originally Posted by g3pro

Sorry, but you're stupid if you buy an Apple-branded case when you can get the same/better specs for cheaper than the Apple price.

Thanks for the laugh.

[TBell]

I can answer that. First, it is likely the judge requested the mediation. Second, it gives the parties some privacy.

Originally Posted by otwayross

i'm totally ignorant to the alleged laws being errr "broken"
but can you please explain why (if it was so obviously a slam dunk)
Apple went into mediation and didn't just take them to the cleaners ?

[plokoonpma]

Originally Posted by g3pro

Yes. And they're not stupid to have spent significantly less than a comparable Apple-branded computer with the same parts. Sorry, but you're stupid if you buy an Apple-branded case when you can get the same/better specs for cheaper than the Apple price.



I hope Psystar wins. Apple needs competition within the hardware arena so customers don't get gouged with Apple's excessive prices for its hardware.

You are taking it too personal dude, I guess you was one of those who bought a Psycrap machine.
I just hope you never get ripped/stole even when you think that steal is alright.

[g3pro]

Originally Posted by elroth

Thanks for the laugh.

Yeah I thought it was funny too. I guess it's hard to put a price on having a silver plastic Apple on a computer case.

[g3pro]

Originally Posted by plokoonpma

You are taking it too personal dude, I guess you was one of those who bought a Psycrap machine.
I just hope you never get ripped/stole even when you think that steal is alright.

Nope, haven't bought one.

Can you explain how, in reality, purchasing your own hardware legally is considered stealing? And, can you describe, in the RDF, what it looks like to steal hardware that you purchased legally?