I just don't see them actually getting a court to force Apple to do all of the following...
* Allow installation on non-Apple systems. (Remember that retail OS X is essentially an upgrade--not an original version. The original version came with the Mac. Look at how Windows pricing is different for an upgrade vs. original install. Apple would charge more--just like Microsoft--for a full version. Now technically the upgrade can install all by itself, and that's great--it's the same when I bought a Photoshop upgrade--but what you're buying is still an upgrade to something you bought already.)
* SUPPORT people who have issues with non-Apple hardware.
* TEST every patch and new feature on non-Apple hardware.
* Add code and bloat to their OS to support non-Apple hardware.
* Take the heat when an OS X feature only works right on Apple hardware. (Imagine the cries of sabotage!)
* PAY for all that support and development time out of Apple's pockets, when they didn't make the hardware profit, only the OS cost.
* Do all of the above for every other little box maker once the precedent was set.
...forever and all time! And I'd hate to see what happened to the pace and quality of Apple's innovation if they did.
I like CHOICE in computing, and one choice I like to have is to have hardware and software designed TOGETHER as a whole. Those who don't want that have other choices... but this choice has proven to have real benefits. I don't see a court making that choice impossible.
Well put...
And also, all of these things will end up reflecting on an detracting from Apple's brand.
I remember buying a Mac clone. It was from Power Computing and the problems I had with compatibility almost drove me to buy a Windows machine. I did buy a real Mac directly Apple and I couldn't get over the difference in stability. All the driver and device issues vanished with having the real thing. So from my prospective, I think bringing back Mac clones is a bad idea.
If Microsoft wanted to write into their EULA that windows should only be installable on Dells they "could". It wouldn't be smart but they could if they wanted to.
"Robert" should be kept away from the press. What a moron. This company will soon be a footnote. I'm sure they have a legal departmen that matches Apple's in every way<sarcasm>
If Apple could shut down Thinksecret over rumors they're going to do a number on this little company that makes Thinksecret look like a love tap on the ass.
The problem is that Dell, HP, etc. have to work with Microsoft to resolve technical issues. If it works, this Psystar Corp. will have a tough go with no technical support from Apple if there are compatibility issues with their hardware.
This won't be such a big problem if Psystar installs Tiger instead of Leopard on their systems.
There most likely won't be any more updates to Tiger, so they can be sure that there won't be any iPhone-style bricking, and Leopard hasn't added very much functionality anyways (other than boot camp, biweekly fixes and lots of crashing...)
I remember buying a Mac clone. It was from Power Computing and the problems I had with compatibility almost drove me to buy a Windows machine. I did buy a real Mac directly Apple and I couldn't get over the difference in stability. All the driver and device issues vanished with having the real thing. So from my prospective, I think bringing back Mac clones is a bad idea.
I had one too, though I didn't have the same trouble you had. I loved that computer for a while (as ugly as it was).
You can take my Mac...when you pry my cold...dead fingers off the mouse!
I had one too, though I didn't have the same trouble you had. I loved that computer for a while (as ugly as it was).
Well it was pre OS X days and conflicts depended on what software you had on the machine. Hardware wise my Power Computing clone was excellent. It had better specs than a real Apple at the time, but software conflicts drove me insane.
There really is a lot of good to say about having the OS and HW produced by the same company. IMHO most instability on Macs today come from third party software. Not that Apple hasn't had its share of bloopers.
Founded in 2008. Perhaps just a publicity machine for CC numbers and cash? How do we know they are a real business entitiy afterall and not just a front.
My money sticks with Apple. They'll be around after I order and when it ships, it arrives (and runs well). Then they also do a bang-up job of service if I need it.
I'm looking to get a new professional-grade machine soon. Out of curiosity I've been pricing Mac Pro's against Dells. The Dells don't even seem to be in the same ballpark in price-- they're way, way higher. A vanilla $2800 2.8GHz 8 core Mac Pro equivalent, or anything close to it, costs at least $500 more at Dell's store. Am I doing something wrong? Everyone seems to claim Dells are cheaper but I don't see it.
Now yes, in the sub-$1000 market you can get a LOT more on the PC side (where's the mini with a video card slot?) But for most of Apple's products they don't seem to be out of line from what everyone else is charging.
SPEAKERS\tNo speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)\tedit
KEYBOARD\tDell USB Keyboard\tedit
MOUSE\tDell Optical USB Mouse\tedit
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER\tNo Floppy Drive or Media Reader Included
$1958 including Office
Mac Pro
Part Number: Z0EM
One 16x SuperDrive
One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (quad-core)
Apple Mighty Mouse
iWork '08 preinstalled
Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X
4GB (4 x 1GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
Accessory kit
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB (Two dual-link DVI)
\t
$3428 including iWork (75% more expensive than the Dell...)
Dell doesn't offer Xenon "Octo"-core systems, instead they have Core2 Extreme, which is the overclocked gaming equivalent. It would cost $600 to upgrade to it on the dell, $500 to upgrade on the Mac. Also, Apple charges more for memory upgrades, video card upgrades, hard drives and displays, and Dell offers BluRay, which Apple doesn't...
While many of the issues raised in the replies to this post are all valid, perhaps the threshold issue on this subject is through what mechanism and how much is Psystar paying Apple for a licensing fee for OSX. Since Apple does not have an OEM program, the only (arguably) legal mechanism that Psystar has to legally acquire the OS, is to purchase retail versions. This coupled with the cost of components and packaging, is likely drive the Cost of Goods to at least $400, if not higher (that doesn't take into account other costs such as product design, testing, assembly, distribution, marketing, etc... (Of course, we can't forget Legal! ).
The other question raised is, who has the legal duty to support the customers of these systems? Even if Apple wanted to, there is no way that they can provide support without knowing the precise configurations of these systems and the specific components used.
This sounds more like a publicity stunt rather than a legitimate attempt to enter the OSX clone business.
Just my two cents....
(actually, given my hourly rate, that is my $46.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
Psystar Corporation, which this week began selling a series of Mac clone systems without Apple's blessing, is determined to challenge the Mac maker in court over the licensing terms for its Mac OS X operating system.
Speaking to InformationWeek, a Psystar employee identified only as Robert said his company sees Apple's end-user license agreement, which prohibits third-party installations of Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, as a violation of antitrust laws.
"What if Microsoft said you could only install Windows on Dell computers?," he said. "What if Honda said that, after you buy their car, you could only drive it on the roads they said you could?"
As such, the Psystar representative implied that the company is eager to bring the matter before a court, where it believes Apple will have a tough time defending its stringent licensing terms.
As part of its defense, the Miami-based reseller also appears to be accusing Apple of price gouging its customers with each Mac OS X-based computer it sells.
"They're charging an 80 percent markup on hardware," Robert told InformationWeek.
He said Psystar plans to continue selling its $400 OpenMac clone and insisted that the company isn't "breaking any laws."
Ironically, Psystar on Monday evening changed the name of its offering from "OpenMac" to "Open Computer," presumably to avoid charges that it was indeed violating trademark law.
Microsoft has a large stake in how this ruling comes out. If Apple loses, Microsoft will begin to see a noticeable change the OS market.
Dell maybe has the bigger stake - they could add some hackintosh people to their customer service and start selling systems with a choice of Vista, XP, Linux or OSX on a huge scale pretty quickly.
Basically, adding Firewire, Leopard, iWorks, Front Row, Airport Extreme (or any wireless), Bluetooth, Speakers?, Ethernet?, S-video and composite output will jack the price to well over $700.
Of course, one must weigh the value of Apple's support and guarantee, as well as, issues raised after reviewing Psystar's currently posted FAQs before making this a choice, e.g.,
How do I eject a CD without an Apple keyboard? This is an issue that may come up from time-to-time when using your Open Computer with the OS X operating system. As you may know Apple keyboards have an eject button and that is what actually opens the drive tray. PC-based keyboards do not have this button. What PCs do have is an eject button on the drive trays, but Apple computers don't and consequently lock the drive and ignore this button like most Linux/BSD operating systems, requiring the drive to be unmounted first.
*
\t?\tPress and hold F-12
\t?\ttype the command 'drutil eject' in terminal
Can I run updates on my Open Computer? The answer is yes and no. No because there are some updates that are decidedly non-safe. Yes because most updates are safe. It's best to check the web for this information but when in doubt don't update it. You may have to reinstall your OS X if it is a non-safe update.
Will my software work? Psystar has tested our Open computers with standard OS X software. We have not found any software incompatibilities with the standard OS software but we cannot guarantee that any of the software on your computer will work in Leopard. In Windows everything should work just fine assuming you have the proper device drivers and in Ubuntu everything should, in theory, work fine but Linux applications often require dependencies and a bit of work on the user's part.
A vanilla $2800 2.8GHz 8 core Mac Pro equivalent, or anything close to it, costs at least $500 more at Dell's store. Am I doing something wrong? Everyone seems to claim Dells are cheaper but I don't see it.
Now yes, in the sub-$1000 market you can get a LOT more on the PC side (where's the mini with a video card slot?) But for most of Apple's products they don't seem to be out of line from what everyone else is charging.
This has been widely written about many times over. If you compare the cost of a mac with specific components, to a PC from the major carriers with near the same specs, you will find the mac is a less expensive system...and in many ways better designed and built.
However when you go below $1000, you find there are many systems less expensive on the PC side. But you have to watch the specs, many times they are using AMD or Hypersonic processors or a lesser video card, which aren't a good point of comparison. If you compare a mac, and a pc, with x HD by brand y, xvideo card by brand y, Xram by brand y, usually the mac is cheaper. Why? I would have to guess that is the uplift for Windows licenses.
Have we all forgotten our computing history? The whole reason Microsoft became so successful was that they specifically allowed their OS to be used on multiple types of computers. Previous to that, the OS and hardware were almost always locked together (e.g., the original Macintosh). Also, Psystar would be aiding and abetting software piracy if they specifically marketed a machine for the purposes of allowing a purchaser to buy/install a copy of OSX in violation of the EULA.
SPEAKERS\tNo speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)\tedit
KEYBOARD\tDell USB Keyboard\tedit
MOUSE\tDell Optical USB Mouse\tedit
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER\tNo Floppy Drive or Media Reader Included
$1958 including Office
Mac Pro
Part Number: Z0EM
One 16x SuperDrive
One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (quad-core)
Apple Mighty Mouse
iWork '08 preinstalled
Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X
4GB (4 x 1GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
Accessory kit
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB (Two dual-link DVI)
\t
$3428 including iWork (75% more expensive than the Dell...)
Dell doesn't offer Xenon "Octo"-core systems, instead they have Core2 Extreme, which is the overclocked gaming equivalent. It would cost $600 to upgrade to it on the dell, $500 to upgrade on the Mac. Also, Apple charges more for memory upgrades, video card upgrades, hard drives and displays, and Dell offers BluRay, which Apple doesn't...
Comments
I just don't see them actually getting a court to force Apple to do all of the following...
* Allow installation on non-Apple systems. (Remember that retail OS X is essentially an upgrade--not an original version. The original version came with the Mac. Look at how Windows pricing is different for an upgrade vs. original install. Apple would charge more--just like Microsoft--for a full version. Now technically the upgrade can install all by itself, and that's great--it's the same when I bought a Photoshop upgrade--but what you're buying is still an upgrade to something you bought already.)
* SUPPORT people who have issues with non-Apple hardware.
* TEST every patch and new feature on non-Apple hardware.
* Add code and bloat to their OS to support non-Apple hardware.
* Take the heat when an OS X feature only works right on Apple hardware. (Imagine the cries of sabotage!)
* PAY for all that support and development time out of Apple's pockets, when they didn't make the hardware profit, only the OS cost.
* Do all of the above for every other little box maker once the precedent was set.
...forever and all time! And I'd hate to see what happened to the pace and quality of Apple's innovation if they did.
I like CHOICE in computing, and one choice I like to have is to have hardware and software designed TOGETHER as a whole. Those who don't want that have other choices... but this choice has proven to have real benefits. I don't see a court making that choice impossible.
Well put...
And also, all of these things will end up reflecting on an detracting from Apple's brand.
That's demonstrable harm right there.
I think the smart thing to do is make the mac compatible hardware and let the customers violate the EULA.
The way head shops sell pipes/bongs for tobacco and N20 chargers for whipped cream.
If Microsoft wanted to write into their EULA that windows should only be installable on Dells they "could". It wouldn't be smart but they could if they wanted to.
"Robert" should be kept away from the press. What a moron. This company will soon be a footnote. I'm sure they have a legal departmen that matches Apple's in every way<sarcasm>
If Apple could shut down Thinksecret over rumors they're going to do a number on this little company that makes Thinksecret look like a love tap on the ass.
The problem is that Dell, HP, etc. have to work with Microsoft to resolve technical issues. If it works, this Psystar Corp. will have a tough go with no technical support from Apple if there are compatibility issues with their hardware.
This won't be such a big problem if Psystar installs Tiger instead of Leopard on their systems.
There most likely won't be any more updates to Tiger, so they can be sure that there won't be any iPhone-style bricking, and Leopard hasn't added very much functionality anyways (other than boot camp, biweekly fixes and lots of crashing...)
I remember buying a Mac clone. It was from Power Computing and the problems I had with compatibility almost drove me to buy a Windows machine. I did buy a real Mac directly Apple and I couldn't get over the difference in stability. All the driver and device issues vanished with having the real thing. So from my prospective, I think bringing back Mac clones is a bad idea.
I had one too, though I didn't have the same trouble you had. I loved that computer for a while (as ugly as it was).
You can take my Mac...when you pry my cold...dead fingers off the mouse!
I had one too, though I didn't have the same trouble you had. I loved that computer for a while (as ugly as it was).
Well it was pre OS X days and conflicts depended on what software you had on the machine. Hardware wise my Power Computing clone was excellent. It had better specs than a real Apple at the time, but software conflicts drove me insane.
There really is a lot of good to say about having the OS and HW produced by the same company. IMHO most instability on Macs today come from third party software. Not that Apple hasn't had its share of bloopers.
Founded in 2008. Perhaps just a publicity machine for CC numbers and cash? How do we know they are a real business entitiy afterall and not just a front.
My money sticks with Apple. They'll be around after I order and when it ships, it arrives (and runs well). Then they also do a bang-up job of service if I need it.
I'm looking to get a new professional-grade machine soon. Out of curiosity I've been pricing Mac Pro's against Dells. The Dells don't even seem to be in the same ballpark in price-- they're way, way higher. A vanilla $2800 2.8GHz 8 core Mac Pro equivalent, or anything close to it, costs at least $500 more at Dell's store. Am I doing something wrong? Everyone seems to claim Dells are cheaper but I don't see it.
Now yes, in the sub-$1000 market you can get a LOT more on the PC side (where's the mini with a video card slot?) But for most of Apple's products they don't seem to be out of line from what everyone else is charging.
DELL:
PROCESSOR\tIntel® Core?2 Q6700 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.66Hz,1066FSB)\tedit
OPERATING SYSTEM\tGenuine Windows Vista® Home Premium with Digital Cable Support\tedit
MEMORY\t4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 4 DIMMs\tedit
HARD DRIVE\t1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 32MB Cache\tedit
OPTICAL DRIVE\tSingle Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability\tedit
MONITORS\tNo Monitor\tedit
VIDEO CARD\tnVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB\tedit
SOUND CARD\tIntegrated 7.1 Channel Audio\tedit
SPEAKERS\tNo speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)\tedit
KEYBOARD\tDell USB Keyboard\tedit
MOUSE\tDell Optical USB Mouse\tedit
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER\tNo Floppy Drive or Media Reader Included
$1958 including Office
Mac Pro
Part Number: Z0EM
One 16x SuperDrive
One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (quad-core)
Apple Mighty Mouse
iWork '08 preinstalled
Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X
4GB (4 x 1GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
Accessory kit
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB (Two dual-link DVI)
\t
$3428 including iWork (75% more expensive than the Dell...)
Dell doesn't offer Xenon "Octo"-core systems, instead they have Core2 Extreme, which is the overclocked gaming equivalent. It would cost $600 to upgrade to it on the dell, $500 to upgrade on the Mac. Also, Apple charges more for memory upgrades, video card upgrades, hard drives and displays, and Dell offers BluRay, which Apple doesn't...
The other question raised is, who has the legal duty to support the customers of these systems? Even if Apple wanted to, there is no way that they can provide support without knowing the precise configurations of these systems and the specific components used.
This sounds more like a publicity stunt rather than a legitimate attempt to enter the OSX clone business.
Just my two cents....
(actually, given my hourly rate, that is my $46.
Psystar Corporation, which this week began selling a series of Mac clone systems without Apple's blessing, is determined to challenge the Mac maker in court over the licensing terms for its Mac OS X operating system.
Speaking to InformationWeek, a Psystar employee identified only as Robert said his company sees Apple's end-user license agreement, which prohibits third-party installations of Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, as a violation of antitrust laws.
"What if Microsoft said you could only install Windows on Dell computers?," he said. "What if Honda said that, after you buy their car, you could only drive it on the roads they said you could?"
As such, the Psystar representative implied that the company is eager to bring the matter before a court, where it believes Apple will have a tough time defending its stringent licensing terms.
As part of its defense, the Miami-based reseller also appears to be accusing Apple of price gouging its customers with each Mac OS X-based computer it sells.
"They're charging an 80 percent markup on hardware," Robert told InformationWeek.
He said Psystar plans to continue selling its $400 OpenMac clone and insisted that the company isn't "breaking any laws."
Ironically, Psystar on Monday evening changed the name of its offering from "OpenMac" to "Open Computer," presumably to avoid charges that it was indeed violating trademark law.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Microsoft has a large stake in how this ruling comes out. If Apple loses, Microsoft will begin to see a noticeable change the OS market.
Dell maybe has the bigger stake - they could add some hackintosh people to their customer service and start selling systems with a choice of Vista, XP, Linux or OSX on a huge scale pretty quickly.
"They're charging an 80 percent markup on hardware," Robert told InformationWeek.
He said Psystar plans to continue selling its $400 OpenMac clone
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
I've just been on the Psystar site and that $400 doesn't even include OS X.
That will cost you an extra $155!
Even Firewire will cost you another $50
This brings it into Mini Mac territory and I know which one I would rather buy.
I think that Psystar have missed the point, even if they were'nt about to get annihilated by Jobs' lawyers, these machines just aren't cool!! :-)
Basically, adding Firewire, Leopard, iWorks, Front Row, Airport Extreme (or any wireless), Bluetooth, Speakers?, Ethernet?, S-video and composite output will jack the price to well over $700.
Of course, one must weigh the value of Apple's support and guarantee, as well as, issues raised after reviewing Psystar's currently posted FAQs before making this a choice, e.g.,
How do I eject a CD without an Apple keyboard? This is an issue that may come up from time-to-time when using your Open Computer with the OS X operating system. As you may know Apple keyboards have an eject button and that is what actually opens the drive tray. PC-based keyboards do not have this button. What PCs do have is an eject button on the drive trays, but Apple computers don't and consequently lock the drive and ignore this button like most Linux/BSD operating systems, requiring the drive to be unmounted first.
*
\t?\tPress and hold F-12
\t?\ttype the command 'drutil eject' in terminal
Can I run updates on my Open Computer? The answer is yes and no. No because there are some updates that are decidedly non-safe. Yes because most updates are safe. It's best to check the web for this information but when in doubt don't update it. You may have to reinstall your OS X if it is a non-safe update.
Will my software work? Psystar has tested our Open computers with standard OS X software. We have not found any software incompatibilities with the standard OS software but we cannot guarantee that any of the software on your computer will work in Leopard. In Windows everything should work just fine assuming you have the proper device drivers and in Ubuntu everything should, in theory, work fine but Linux applications often require dependencies and a bit of work on the user's part.
Awe, the simplicity of a real Mac.
A vanilla $2800 2.8GHz 8 core Mac Pro equivalent, or anything close to it, costs at least $500 more at Dell's store. Am I doing something wrong? Everyone seems to claim Dells are cheaper but I don't see it.
Now yes, in the sub-$1000 market you can get a LOT more on the PC side (where's the mini with a video card slot?) But for most of Apple's products they don't seem to be out of line from what everyone else is charging.
This has been widely written about many times over. If you compare the cost of a mac with specific components, to a PC from the major carriers with near the same specs, you will find the mac is a less expensive system...and in many ways better designed and built.
However when you go below $1000, you find there are many systems less expensive on the PC side. But you have to watch the specs, many times they are using AMD or Hypersonic processors or a lesser video card, which aren't a good point of comparison. If you compare a mac, and a pc, with x HD by brand y, xvideo card by brand y, Xram by brand y, usually the mac is cheaper. Why? I would have to guess that is the uplift for Windows licenses.
DELL:
PROCESSOR\tIntel® Core?2 Q6700 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.66Hz,1066FSB)\tedit
OPERATING SYSTEM\tGenuine Windows Vista® Home Premium with Digital Cable Support\tedit
MEMORY\t4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 4 DIMMs\tedit
HARD DRIVE\t1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 32MB Cache\tedit
OPTICAL DRIVE\tSingle Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability\tedit
MONITORS\tNo Monitor\tedit
VIDEO CARD\tnVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB\tedit
SOUND CARD\tIntegrated 7.1 Channel Audio\tedit
SPEAKERS\tNo speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)\tedit
KEYBOARD\tDell USB Keyboard\tedit
MOUSE\tDell Optical USB Mouse\tedit
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER\tNo Floppy Drive or Media Reader Included
$1958 including Office
Mac Pro
Part Number: Z0EM
One 16x SuperDrive
One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (quad-core)
Apple Mighty Mouse
iWork '08 preinstalled
Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X
4GB (4 x 1GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
Accessory kit
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB (Two dual-link DVI)
\t
$3428 including iWork (75% more expensive than the Dell...)
Dell doesn't offer Xenon "Octo"-core systems, instead they have Core2 Extreme, which is the overclocked gaming equivalent. It would cost $600 to upgrade to it on the dell, $500 to upgrade on the Mac. Also, Apple charges more for memory upgrades, video card upgrades, hard drives and displays, and Dell offers BluRay, which Apple doesn't...
Build me an equivalent Dual Xeon DELL System.