EFi-X USA to sell pre-made PCs as do-it-yourself Mac clones - Page 2

Yeah, this is what really pisses me off about the whole thing.

It's so nice to live in the Apple world and not have to worry about junk like that, well except for FileMaker. (shakes fist in the air and curses FileMaker)

Now these Hillbillies at Psystar and the young dudes without a clue at EFIFix are f*cking it all up. Literally the only thing they will end up doing is causing everyone a lot more problems.

They will destroy the OSX86 community and force Apple to use proper copy protection. They may even force them to stop sales of the retail product altogether and move only to upgrades sold online. What they won't do is make any money or force Apple to open up their software to other hardware, which is their stated goal.

If I lived in the same town as either of these outfits, I know who'd have paint all over their windows and potatoes stuck in their exhaust pipes in the morning, and as I say that ... I realise that there are a lot of folks out there that feel even stronger about this. I bet someone might even get physically hurt over this before it's all over. I wouldn't put it past someone to burn them down in the night people feel that strongly about it.

And iWork, surely?

. . . is to just go ahead and make the computer that clone makers are offering themselves. Apple doesn't make a computer that fits the target market that so many Mac users are clammering for so clone makers are trying to fill the obvious gaping void in the Apple product line. All Apple has to do is make a headless mini tower with similar specs to the iMac but without as many drive bay and optical bays as the Mac Pro that is user accessible for RAM and video card upgrades, sell it at the price point that EFi-X is shooting for (say, $1500-$1800) then any clone maker would be a moron to try and make a knock offif Apple made the machine I described or similar, no one who wants a Mac would give a clone a second look because all of Apple's bases would be covered by a product line with no holes. Consumers would just get a genuine Apple that suits their needs and their budget.

Okay, since you asked for it .. you are a dimwit.

I mean look at what you *just* wrote above. You say two things (Apple hardware is overpriced and not any better than any other hardware). Both of these can be easily refuted with the facts, i.e. - you are "wrong." (look it up if you don't know that word)

You also use extensive hyperbole, (get out the dictionary again) which is the mark of an amateur thinker. (Apple hardware is not just overpriced it's "ridiculously" overpriced, Apple hardware is not even "remotely" better quality.)

Success! This is hard-core dimwit talk.

Well I don't by any means use all Apple software so there could be others.

I was mostly referring to product "activation" which is the real true evil in this category.

Serial numbers are okay by me as I always buy legal software and if there is a serial number that you have to steal, then that's the way you know you're doing a "bad" thing. If people are going to steal stuff they need to be cognisant of the fact that they are doing so at the time IMO.

FileMaker (can't say the name without shaking my fist) uses a ridiculous and very restrictive product activation scheme that would make Microsoft happy on it's upper level products.

So you often find yourself in a situation wherein you can't even use the product that you paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars for. The last thing you need when your production software crashes is to have to wait an hour on the phone getting re-activated with FileMaker.

This is just a variation of the mod-chips used for the XBOX and Playstations. I don't know what happened with the Sony case but Microsoft won judgement against the makers of the mod chip and had them shut down with damages incurred.

An argument (I'm sure will be made) is that they are not modifying Apple hardware like the XBOX mod chips required for the xbox systems or they are not modifying the OSX binaries in any way. Nonetheless, the sole intent (like the mod chips) is to circumvent the protection of the software in question whether OSX or XBOX/OS. That it still illegal in my belief.

I have no problem with them selling the hardware. It actually sounds quite good. However, they should be dropped hard in regards to the EFI-X module. The sale of that module is in fact an obvious violation of Apple's IP protections. I can't believe they would fall on the argument of "Hey, I know this chip I made will break Apple's protection. But I just sell them. I don't control what the buyers will do with it."

It's like the corner drug-dealer saying that he just sells crack to make a living. It's not his problem what his customers do with it. He is just providing a needed product to the market.

That is a stupid mentality and I hope Apple makes an example of them as well as Psystar.

The fact that apple provides stickers in the OSX retail CD box is not the same thing as installing OSX on an "Apple Branded" computer. Grow up kids.

Don't complain if Apple introduces some kind of scheme in Snow Leopard to disable this once and for all. It's within their right to protect their business model whether you like it or not. If they don't want to make a mid-priced tower, that is their call and their loss if they choose that path.

Can you be anymore of a complete idiot? This really doesn't even deserve a response, but just to help 'educate' the sorely uneducated that seem to be lurching about... here is a PC-FAN Boy's article about this very issue. I think its one of the better articles on that matter... and by they way... they all come to the same conclusion... interesting how that counters the MYTH.

Tom's Hardware Article

It sounds very niche, too. We all complain about the little niggles that we get on the regular macs. Imagine the troubles on a dodgy clone! This is really for the uber geeks.I mean, look at the specs. Without Apple's blessing there will be so many problems, eternal workarounds, peripherals nightmares. It'll never catch on in a major way. I mean, what professional, or what company would waste their time on this? Way too risky.

That's odd since I wasn't using the "circle the wagons" metaphor in the first place. Rather the old western movie imagery of Indians circling a lone wagon and shooting it up with arrows. To "circle the wagons" would imply that Apple wasn't alone in their fight.

Anywho, I'm all for clones and don't buy that Apple would be seriously hurt by them. Apple could solve this issue by releasing a non-Apple hardware version of Leopard in retail box form but disallow PC vendors from shipping the product with their hardware. No cloners, just converts. The have bootcamp so why not allow PC users to install OSX with bootcamp and run the two side-by-side? Oh, are they going to lose out on the hardware sales that they weren't going to get anyway since the PC was sub $600?

I am totally for Apple closing down the clones that are trying to leech the profits that Apple has built.........But did someone say 24 cores in OS X? Me Want NOW!!! I make pretty good use of 8 cores on my workstation. 24 would be super. I would save all kinds on time on my HPC account.[

Yeah... both of them.
I for one remember the disaster that was Scully's OS licensing.
If basement jockeys want to hack around, soup up some box with Linux and don't foul the water with the inevitable complaints about how OSX sucks so bad (because of hardware Babel.)

How many of you wanna bet they jump from Intel in the next year or so and make their own chips? Seems like the sure way to close the open door in Apple's Eco System. They have the cash to do it and now with Semi they have some pretty slick engineers on board. Once they make their own chips, it's all over for these pirates.

Side note: What the hell is wrong with people? You know, a lot of us are partly responsible for this. If you can't afford a Mac system then make some damn money or get off the boat. Vote with your dollar. If it's too expensive, don't buy it. Guess what, if you don't buy it, they can't sell it. I have owned my own design business for around 7 years and the first 5 of those I did everything on a PowerBook. Yes, one machine. Yes, I have pirated software and downloaded cracks, but really only to be sure it was what would work for me. Once I began making money on apps, I was bloody man enough to put some money down on their counters and buy the apps. My business has grown from scratching around to making money and only last year I was finally able to JUSTIFY the cost of a Mac Pro 8 core tower and a 30 inch monitor. Keyword being JUSTIFY. Yes they are bloody expensive. Apple has a wide profit margin on all their products but I am willing to bet MY DOLLARS THAT I EARNED that a lot of that money gets saved and poured into R&D and that is why they can carve up the market place with wonderful ground breaking products.

This is NOT a bash, but a challenge to all who claim to generally appreciate Apple on some level. Lets get behind them again like we used to. Why are we so upset they are making a profit? They are making a killing out there and gaining market share. Isn't that what we all wanted when Apple was in it's driest hour? Does Apple always satisfy everything each of us want? No, but they are striving pretty damn hard to be the best and all I hear every day, all day is b#tching and moaning.

If you are going to respond, I only ask that you truly think about where us Apple lovers all used to be. In some dark corner of the market getting laughed at while we waved the flag for a better company, with better ideals. Apple people used to behave like a team, now it feels like day-care in here. Come on, lets route for them again and push them further into MSFT's camp. This is Boot Camp after all :-)

Respect!

Could it be that competitors have grouped together to tie up Apple's resources and throw them off balance? A conspiracy and collusion to confuse customers? Why all of a sudden do all these clone makers pop up at once? Apple is doing well, competitors aren't doing as well ... hmm? I hope Apple finds the "John Does" they are looking for and embarrasses the hell out of them.

I agree, and for that reason, I think these hacks will only be bit players in the OSX world and doubt it will ever really affect Apples bottom line. A lot to do about nothing....

At least Apple isn't charging us to get support that is based in America rather India like Dell is doing.

Not going to happen, because:

#1 OSX on anything would be a support nightmare.
#2 Despite what you think, it would cut into sales. I currently buy Macs, but if they released a OSX on anything box, I most certainly would build my next Mac, and that is lost profit at Apple.

Apple doesn't need a new processor to stop this. Just a new Apple branded chipset. Give it a compatibility interface for legacy OS's....but a different register interface that only OS X knows. No one in their right mind is going to engineer a multi-million dollar chip to break Apple's DRM and slap it on motherboards. Intel won't. NVidia won't. ATI won't. VIA won't. They'd lose their asses. Heck, one of them (NVidia or Intel) would likely customize a version of one of their chipsets with the nessecary changes.

Then Apple just has to drop support going forward for any new off the shelf chipsets. In 2 years, you wouldn't be able to find a motherboard compatible with OS X.

That would force people to either patch OS X or steal Apple motherboards

(System chipsets, requiring a complete ASIC design, testing, etc cost millions to develop, hackers don't have the resources to replace it...and a simple hack like a mod chip wouldn't work, those run in the low MHz range not GHz over hundreds of pins)

Apple is not just a product... its a brand, and protection of brands is established trade law.
The Apple brand is all about the integration of the software and hardware.
The junk that will result from this will diminish the brand, and Apple is perfectly within its rights to prevent that.

That's what this is about.

And why do you think these companies think they can make money off Apple's success? Root cause analysis = they think that(and I quote bandalay),"It shows an underlying desire by a larger and larger segment of the population to have the Apple experience without paying for Apple hardware. The halo works."


Unfortunately Apple only wants your business if you settle for what they know is best for you.


So, they tell all the previous buyers of Apple hardware, sorry but you can not upgrade to our new Mac OS because we're tired of all the people that want our software but not our hardware. I doubt that will go over well at all. Between the lack of an xMac, the elimination of firewire on the MacBook and glossy screens there already are a bunch of disgruntled users.


It will never happen, it is just totally against Apple's vision of a consumer computing appliance world.


No one but you have said this. The rest of the posts have been restricted to what people need or believe they need in a computer.


According to this so much for any arguments that Apple computers have a longer useful service life.

--------

Apple by their recent actions have put themselves in a very crappy situation. Yes, there is a desire for an xMac, firewire and matte screens. If Apple implements draconian restrictions of upgrading to newer Mac OSes they will piss off millions of consumers.

Yes they are capturing market share and mind share, but it is never good to anger your userbase, ultimately pissing off your stock holders. Trouble is, I doubt Apple cares, it is their culture to know what is best for consumers and quite often they are absolutely correct.

Will I ever build or buy a hackintosh, no. I also believe there aren't a whole heck of a lot of consumers that would. And the number of consumers that would build or buy a hackintosh wouldn't affect Apple's bottom line one bit. What could affect their bottom line is the uproar over extrodinary measures to protect their walled garden.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but your #1 point completely contradicts your #2 point. Why would you buy a support nightmare?
But your #1 and first sentence of #2 are correct.

Ha-ha-ha-ha... NO!

The dongle serves no purpose but to facilitate copyright infringement. EFi-X USA is therefore aiding and abetting in the crime of copyright infringement. I am not a lawyer, but perhaps by only aiding and abetting in the crime, EFi-X avoids the triple damages that may be awarded by a court. Or perhaps they don't.

Who will fix EFi-X after Apple is done with them?

I have wondered for a while now if Steve is even concerned about market share. Apple is doing quite well right now without being the number one computer seller and being number one could just lead to more problems, look at microsoft. The bigger your market share the bigger target you are for those who would like to harm you.

I don't believe he nor anyone @ Apple is. Apple believes they make the best computers for whatever market they target. For consumers it's the iMac and to a degree the Mac mini.

Unfortunately, people don't like being told," we don't want your business". Apple isn't coming out and saying that, but their product matrix does. Right now Apple is expanding, primarily do to laptops, but then Apple comes out with the MacBook without firewire and people notice. Apple drops matte screens and people notice. How this affects sales we will have to wait and see.

Tell enough people we don't want your business and it could eventually affect sales, no?

Not in the OS. Look what a big PITA microsoft's activation garbage is in windows.

I don't use *any* software that "phones home" for activation, period. This means no Adobe CS3/4 - I will be using Photoshop CS2 for as long as I own hardware that it will run on; and if at some point that might eventually not be possible I suspect that the OSS stuff will be a reasonable (even if not great) option.

If Apple puts !#$@# activation into the OS then I will make the jump to ubuntu. End of story. And I've been a Mac user since 1984 and owner/developer since 1985. SteveJ likes things to be simple for the user, so I hope Apple can handle this by taking down the leeches, rather than burdening the users.

I'm sure you're not a dimwit though I am confused. How is making cheaper hardware going to improve that reliability? And what model are you proposing to recoup R&D costs? Drop the hardware price & increase the OS retail? I'm quite happy paying more for the kit and adding incremental OS upgrades at a comparatively low cost, with higher OS pricing that would be lost in a disastrous false economy.

I think we shouldn't fall foul of the same hardware hysteria that PC users suffer from when most of the Mac's benefits are not hardware related.

Apple should engage Papermaster ASAP, re-proprietarise the hardware keeping x86 cores available for those who need them (and those who believe they need them to realise that they don't) and get their integrated product model really working as Sun has. As of 10.5.6 OSX should QA the hardware it's running on and lock out the clones, like DRM this will have no disadvantage .

McD

There is so much to say on this topic it would take the rest of the day. I've been a Mac user my whole life, I had a copy of Photoshop before I ever got a copy of Playboy. I am a life long devotee.

1) There is a huge audience that Apple is missing out on, its those wanting the xMac ever since the Blue and White Yosemite G3's were released. A Desktop with expandability but not a 70lb beast of a Mac Pro, that doesn't have a built-in display, and that isn't as underpowered as the Mini. Apple hasn't moved on this because they are worried about cannibalizing Mac Pro sales, fair enough. Its a balancing decision, do you lose out the customers who would consider buying a Mac because they don't need a Mac Pro, or do you sacrifice some Mac Pro sales for a new desktop model.

2) EFI-X is not in the same boat as Psystar, they will not have the same troubles. I believe EFI-X has already been tested and is working with 10.6. Apple would have to introduce some sort of hardware feature into new machines to circumvent this truly. If implemented in 10.7, it would disable all machines purchased as of now, which should be more than capable of running one more release past 10.6. Apple is already going to piss off enough people with not supporting PPC users in 10.6. Even if they did introduce a hardware work around, it would only be a matter of time before people figured out how it works and created something like the EFI-X to simulate it. Apple decided to essentially use all the same parts as the rest of computer manufacturers, processors, memory, hard drives, optical drives, graphics cards. With their need to be able to compete, they opened up the door to the likes of EFI-X.

3) PASemi is not going to result in Apple producing its own chips for Desktop and high-end laptops. Apple with PASemi would never be able to keep up with the rapid development that Intel has. The PASemi acquisition will result in chips that perform very well with low power consumption, most likely for future Tablets/Netbooks. Apple knows they can't ignore the Netbook market, and they will want to have the best performing and best looking one out there sometime next year.

4) The Apple Experience has been pretty solid for a long time. I'd say its been slipping very much in the last year or two. iPhones and iPods don't exactly count towards this experience anymore (as far as hardware reliability), they're made to function, not made to be rugged as most portable electronics. I've been very disappointed with the quality of hardware in the laptop lines for the last couple of years. My first Intel MacBook Pro had so many hardware failures in the first few months of owning it I was considering jumping ship. Apple fixed them all eventually though I had no laptop for far too many weeks. Then I bought another MacBook Pro after they updated to Penryn chips, I had so many display issues with glitched and garbled artifacts that I was about ready to never buy an Apple laptop again and just rely on my trusty 4 year old G5. I bought a unibody MacBook Pro a couple of weeks ago, and my girlfriend also bough a unibody MacBook. I think Apple finally hit the nail on the head with this iteration as they have both been absolutely amazing machines.

I don't think anybody supports Pystar in this whole mess, but a lot of us think they stand a shot on legal grounds.

Ultimately, Apple will have to cryptographically lock their OS to their hardware or go with a goofy authorization scheme like Microsoft. When you get big enough, you don't have many choices.

Personally, my pain is that I want OSX on hardware platforms that Apple doesn't have or won't develop. The Netbook is a solid example of this, and to a lesser extent the headless consumer device and tablet: If you need one of those form factors and want OSX, what do you do.

It will be interesting to see what long-term solutions Apple uses-- will they keep it in the Legal department, or move the problem over to Engineering.

Is this fact? If so I will be one of those people, not so much for my G4 laptop, kind of expected it, but for my 2.1 Ghz G5 iMac I will be upset, it's not even 2 years old for crying out loud.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=498339

If the developer preview requires an Intel processor, I would pretty much guess that the final release will too.

living in the UK I don't know whats worse, talking to a Yank or an Indian.... honestly..

On the newer processors the separate TPM chip is not needed anymore, as the TPM chip is built into the main processor itself. See Intel LaGrande Technology...

Because they (clone makers) know that they are not and cannot provide the Apple experience but they use it anyway to sell their products. To get Apple experience you need Apple computer, Apple service and support, Apple Mac OS, Apple iLife, and not worrying about your computer being bricked. What they give you is only Mac OS.

Apple's answer will be to change the Product Matrix and hit that sweet spot.

Thank you! Many people have been voicing this huge gap in Apple's product line on these forums for years and yet, they've been continuously trashed by Apple fanbois. However, I do have to semi-disagree with you on one point here. An xMac may cut into the MacPro sales a little bit but the xMac will sell like a crazy monkey!


Agreed! And EFi-X is not illegal and cannot be fought in court; moreover, solutions like these were always available for plenty of various devices including Mac OS8. Yup, for those who don't know there were software and hardware hacks that ran Mac OS8 on a Intel box.

The only way Apple can put a serious dent in those markets, is by giving the rest of their customers what they need. People will pay few hundred dollars extra for some peace of mind and buy an xMac, but would not dish-out well over a thousand dollars for something they don't even need.

A typical Mac designer or web developer probably invested thousands of dollars into software during they past few years and cannot easily migrate to Windows when Apple doesn't provide the right hardware, so for many EFi-X makes sense.

The Intel iMac was released almost 3 years ago next month (Jan 2006). So your iMac G5 is at least that old even if you bought the last one.

What I was trying to say was that Apple's reasoning for not introducing the xMac was probably for that reason, but I proposed exactly what you said, its a balancing of those two scenarios. I would also think that xMac sales would be outstanding.

Uh, pretty much anything can be fought in court. Hopefully most issues never actually get to court but are dropped or settled long before then.
I would argue that EFi-X might well be legally challenged by Apple and shutdown on grounds that their dongle assists people in the commission of a crime (copyright infringement).


Of course you know that doesn't mean they were legal.

I think you are mistaken that the EFi-X is not illegal and cannot be fought in court.
The device is used to circumvent a copyright, so the DMCA can be used to fight it, as that law forbids sales of devices designed to do that.


But Apple has not sold such a machine yet, so Apple/Steve thinks that it does not need or want it. Seeing the growing market share of the Mac, even while the economy is slowing throughout the year, I think that Apple/Steve is correct. (Which does not mean that I personally wouldn't buy such a machine! I'll buy two of those if released!!...)


And what sort of machine would that be? That designer can now run Windows on an Intel Mac using BootCamp or something like VMWare/Parallels, so 'migrate to Windows' is no problem. If you mean 'migrate to a generic PC', that is not what you wrote...

Installing OS X on a non Apple machine isn't a copyright infringement to the OS. It might violate the EULA. However I'm feeling Apple might be pigeonholing themselves in for an antitrust opportunity.

I think you mean "not even 3 years old." The G5 iMacs were discontinued in January 2006.

I wouldn't bother being upset. Snow Leopard is not really looking like a big deal. It's focus seems to be removing legacy code. PowerPC is part of that. I suspect 10.5 will be active for quite some time yet.