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Apple Suit Demands That Psystar Recall OpenMacs
Da'Man writes "The Psystar saga takes another series of turns. Not only is the website down but an examination of the suit filed by Apple shows that the Cupertino Goliath wants Psystar to recall all Open Computer and OpenServ systems sold by the company since April. It seems that Steve Jobs is out to totally sink Psystar and put an end to Mac clones."
The more you tighten your grip, Jobs, the more star systems will slip through your fingers!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
um, you THINK?
about time.
pp4l
Be honest - who didn't see this coming?
That megalomaniacal bitch can pry mine from my cold, dead hands -- but judging from the looks of ol' Steve lately, looks like he'll kick the bucket a lot sooner than I will.
and while they are at it maybe they can get a unicorn!
because it exposes the fact that today's Mac desktops are just commodity hardware with an extra $1,000 charge for an OS X dongle (TPM).
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Notice that Apple filed approx a day after the WoW copyright decision. If there was some doubt on Psystar beating Apple on the validity of of the EULA...it is pretty safe to say that Psystar is about to get slapped down.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
...Steve Jobs called a "suit."
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Apple have no choice - if only IBM had retained such control over the IBM PC. And where are IBM now?
This was probably inevitable, but it's a shame to see Psystar brought down. Without any competition in the computers-that-run-OS-X market, Apple just keeps getting more obnoxious.
(If this kind of thing bothers you and you want to take a swipe back at Apple, I recommend passing up that shiny new iPhone 3G and looking at the equally shiny LG Dare instead. The screen is smaller but it's actually easier to type on.)
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
kiss innovation and creativity goodby kiddies... /. has been so wrapped up in it's M$ hatewagon ride, it overlooked the real assholes out there.
I for one will NEVER by a MAC or any other APPLE product just over this alone.
Take that Stevie!
http://nwbagpipes.com/
Ok, how about the thousands of us who demand a headless, non-pro, non-laptop computer, with actual desktop/decent parts in it?
Mac mini: piss-poor GPU and low-capacity/slow LAPTOP 2.5" drive in a DESKTOP computer?
iMac: fuckin' all-in-one computer with stupid glossy screens and low quality LCDs with not even average GPU choices.
Mac Pro: are you fucking insane? I don't need that much power (and even the GPU options for that one are ridiculous).
Make the Mac mini taller/bigger, put a 3.5" drive and a half-decent GPU in it (the ability to run Starcraft II and Diablo III at medium settings) and it WILL sell. A lot. You have no fuckin' idea how much people loathe all-in-one computers.
If Psystar were rich enough, they could win their case against Apple and we could see Mac clones on the market like we saw IBM PC clones in the 80's. But still, what would be the point in having Mac clones ? We'd start to see an OS (Mac OS) that crashes all the time because the hardware is "not supported officially". So we would be forced to install an alternative OS on the machine, like Linux or BSD. Ok it could work great but it works as great on PCs.
Really I'm not trying to troll/start a flamewar, I'm just wondering.
Has the price changed that much? Last I looked, Apple was actually competitive (within $100, sometimes cheaper) with commodity hardware. The only difference is, you can't get a Mac without the bells and whistles.
In other words, you get exactly what you pay for, which includes $1k of hardware you don't actually need.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
...the clone war.
What are the odds of people actually returning their much-less-costly Mac clone?
Bearded Dragon
It's so hard, and metal, and full of POWER! It even keeps me warm at night.
There is something pretty amusing about setting up distributed.net on and ending up in the top 100 participants immediately.
That's not accurate. OSX does not use the TPM chip for hardware authentication. The reason OSX does not run without modification is that it requires EFI firmware instead of BIOS. Pystar uses an open source EFI emulator to boot.
Looks like I was right in my comments from yesterday--but I never figured they would fall apart so quickly! Build a product that might infringe but would definitely piss someone off, make & deliver a bunch of orders, pay bonuses, declare bankruptcy (how long until Psystar does this???), and disappear... Take the money & run. The funny thing is that if they fulfilled their orders, they might be in the clear from criminal prosecution and their customers are the ones that got exactly what they paid for (sans warranty once they file for bankruptcy)... Excluding the execs, who might be sitting on a beach somewhere, everybody loses--including Apple.
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
If you look around next time your out shopping, you'll see (part of) how IBM is doing so well. They got back into the BM (no, not bowel movement) part of IBM. A very significant portion of all point of sale terminals (amongst other things) are made by IBM. Whether or not Apple could pull the same move is hard to say.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
dont know what this hullaboo is all bout but was able to reach the psystar website just fine ..
Cribbed shamelessly from an Ars Technica discussion on the same issue:
"TPM DRM" In Mac OS X: A Myth That Won't Die
Amit Singh
http://www.osxbook.com/book/bo...chapter7/tpmdrmmyth/
Beating a Dead Horse
"In October 2006, I wrote about the TPM and its "use" in Mac OS X. Since Apple provided no software or firmware drivers for the TPM ...
"Apple's TPM Keys"
"The media has been discussing "Apple's use of TPM" for a long time now. There have been numerous reports of system attackers bypassing "Apple's TPM protection" and finding "Apple's TPM keys." Nevertheless, it is important to note that Apple does not use the TPM."
In short, while there was a TPM chip in some of the early shipping Intel systems, there were no drivers for it, and Apple did not use it. Current shipping Macintel systems don't even have the TPM chip, so there's no possible way for them to use one.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
because it exposes the fact that today's Mac desktops are just commodity hardware with an extra $1,000 charge for an OS X dongle (TPM).
Are you sure about that?
Please provide Russian funding and Mig-29 (world's most
agile plane ) technology for Psystar.
Patriotically,
Kilgore Trout
Who here would expect Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft to NOT do anything if a competitor suddenly started to sell compatible systems or even just emulators for their own systems?
Remember that Apple sells systems, not computers. This may be an alien concept to kids today, but at the beginning, all companies were selling computer+OS systems and they were all proprietary (Apple II, Mac, Atari ST, Amiga, CoCo2+OS9, C64+GeOS, etc).
Also, don't be two-faced about this: you don't like it when companies don't follow GPL and other similar licenses, but when it's Apple or Microsoft, why wouldn't they be allowed to do the same?
I hope there's one good thing to come out of this mess: Apple selling a headless, iMac-specs computer (i.e. ATI/nVidia GPU with a 3.5" desktop hard drive). Heck, why don't they just make a case for the actual iMac motherboard to lower R&D costs?
apple will continue to suffer lost sales and profits in till they come out with a real desktop mid-tower and they update the mini it is a joke at the price that it is at right now.
The mac pro is ok for it's price but the video card in a $2300 needs to be a little better.
Where is the system that is priced at the $1200 to $2100 power mac g4 and g5 levels?
Why dose a $1500 laptop come with a 13" screen and intel GMA video?
Why do you have pay $2000 for a 15" screen and $2800 for a 17" screen?
The imacs need to have more screen choice with out be forced to pay more for other parts just to get a bigger screen / better screen.
If this were a story about Microsoft trying to stop vendors from building machines that can run their OS, there would be a million typical comments about them being an evil monopoly, etc. Since it's Apple, I'm sure it's somehow ok, in a shiny, trendy, hip way.
I suspect Apple is every bit as evil as Microsoft, just less successful.
And how is apple gonna get all those buyers to give up da goods? And how about the cash buyers who never 'registered'. How about foreign buyers who tell Apple to go screw, and add that the police in those countries will cut off the arms of any agents of apple who dare show up in their countries? And how many American soldiers will have to get injured or worse militarily intervening in, say, China to get at those 'errant machines'?
because it exposes the fact that today's Mac desktops are just commodity hardware with an extra $1,000 charge for an OS X dongle (TPM).
Let's not get out of hand here. $1000 premium is a bit of a stretch when you compare pure hardware specs between vendors. Maybe a couple hundred, but certainly not $1000. Besides, I'll gladly pay a small premium for stability.
If you really want to bitch about premiums, then let's stop bullshitting here and talk about Vista MSRP. Those prices make OSX look like a bargain.
You can't force Pystar customers to recall their machines after the point of purchase. You can fine the hell out of them if they refuse, but nothing stops them from just taking the fine.
Again, no no no no. That's simply not true.
Apple Hardware is typically comparable to hardware from other vendors at the same price point. There sure as heck isn't a $1,000 markup.
Whether or not it's necessary for Apple to use Xeon processors and server-grade components in the Mac Pro is an entirely different debate. However, you're paying for more than just OS X.
In my own unqualified and unscientific opinion, I've found Apple hardware (back in the PPC days) to generally outlive its PC counterparts by a good margin. It's anecdotal evidence, sure, but I think that most other users claims back me up. I have a 450 Mhz G4 tower that's still running nearly unmodified, and still generally useful, nearly 10 years after its original purchase.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
You dream of getting your colon irrigated by Steve Ballmer instead, do you? Come out of the closet already.
I think we need to change the expression "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" to "Success corrupts, real success creates real evil."
Jobs is just as evil as Bill Gates ever was, Bill just had the advantage of wealth.
If I bought something, it's now mine (the hardware anyway). I doubt Pystar can actually repossess any of the boxes. The entire demand by Apple is pretty silly. Apple's copyright claims can't possibly cover the possession of physical hardware. Very bizarre. I think Apple only has a claim against Psystar itself over copyright infringement (the distribution of hacked Apple patches). Personal use of OS X in breach of Apple's license would have to be an issue that Apple would have to deal with on a per user basis, which I doubt they are willing to do.
Funny. This would almost make it seem like Apple is a very profitable company, who's investors seem quite pleased at the ROI they get from owning stock.
In fact, in almost every category that would define investor confidence AAPL outperforms MSFT, and leaves DELL and HPQ in the dust.
I fail to see any lost sales and profits in this equation. If I was a shareholder in AAPL, I'd be happy as punch right now.
Cool, it's gonna fit right in with my Panaphonic plasma TV and Somy PS3!
Its the same as buying a Dell, except Microsoft doesn't complain when you use the product you bought in the way that you want.
apple will continue to suffer lost sales and profits in till they come out with a real desktop mid-tower and they update the mini it is a joke at the price that it is at right now.
Er, have you stepped foot inside an Apple store lately? It's rather busy, which is a LOT more than I can say for 95% of the other stores in the area in this morbid economy. I don't exactly see their stock price slipping either. In fact, it's one of the few that have rebounded rather nicely so far this year.
All that being said, it's simple why you don't see more hardware options. Their hardware serves the same purpose as their software. Simplicity. It's a niche market, one they are marketing fairly well.
What do you guys suppose the outcome would be had OSX not come pre-installed? Perhaps Psystar decided to sell blank boxes that just so happen to run a copy of OSX that they also just so happen to sell along with the box.
No way. Apple will charge you $1k for their lowest end laptop with 1GB of RAM and perhaps 160GB HDD space. You can get that from Dell/HP for $700, except the Dell/HP one you buy that you see in your local newspaper ads for Office Max will have 3GB of RAM and a 250GB harddrive, and will still have a dual core processor.
The emasculated, non-functional FTC should jump in the middle of this and do a slapdown on Apple. What's wrong with the fundamental morality in the computer biz? Has it just evaporated? Apple has no injury here, just a monopoly.
Oh, right.....
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
But still, what would be the point in having Mac clones ?
Well, let's see... people looking for something that Apple doesn't currently produce could get a computer with OS X on it that fit those requirements.
Like... a conventional desktop with expansion slots.
Like... a laptop with a two-button trackpad and a decent keyboard.
Like... a laptop with a swappable drive bay. Or multiple hard drives.
Like... a compact Mac with a high performance hard drive and a real GPU.
Or, Apple could just quit being so damn insistent on making everything subservient to "style", and cut the market out from under the would-be clone makers by adding a couple of products to their product line... a "Mac mini Pro" for the desktop (it could even be cubical!) and a Thinkpad-equivalent laptop.
But MS still gets a chunk of change whether you buy it with Windows or not installed. Or is that Dell?
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
If they sell it as a boxed software package. Ok, I am not in the US, but here (Brazil) it is actually illegal to bind the sale of the OS to a particular hardware (or any two dissimilar things, in fact). It is in fact called a "bound sale". I guess you americans have something similar (can someone say for sure?) Not so sure about the copyright infringment part of the suit, but I guess that would be covered by the compatibility exception under the DMCA. Anyways, is Psystar american? If not then the whole talk about that (absurd) WOW ruling is moot.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
No, this is not just about the EULA.
If you look up Psystar and the open computer, you'll find that they also modify and redistribute Apple security updates.
They can't rely on software updates directly from Apple always working on the computers, so they distribute updates themselves.
Since they are very, very unlikely to have permission for this, it is a straightforward case of copyright infringement.
Also, what do you expect? You all know that Apple does not allow "clone makers", so when one happens, do you just accept them to leave them alone, because they are "small time"?
Wouldn't you then be even more outraged if they waited until Psystar was big before they sued?
Psystar must have known this would happen, and I suspect they just used the OS X machines as publicity for their other machines.
This is a weird case because to my knowledge the hardware itself is not illegal. Installing MacOS X on it is because that is a violation of Apple's EULA.
I see this case as similar to the black market cable and satellite box sellers... While owning the boxes may not be illegal in and of itself, using the box to steal cable is. And many times when these companies get busted, prosecutors go after the purchasers, using the info from the sales receipts.
I don't know if that analogy makes sense in this case, but let's say Apple wins and Pystar is forced to do a recall. Will Apple prosecute Pystar's customers if they don't return the boxes? The EULA violation problem goes away if they wipe MacOS X from the hard drive and install Ubuntu or Windows.
From guess where.
IOW, what in the world are you talking about?
If you go by "sales record" then Apple has less than 8% marketshare anyway, which means that pratically nobody wants a Mac to begin with.
I wish I could mod this funny. Even when Apple is making money hand over fist in the middle of a freakin' recession, arm-chair CEO's are trying to save poor stupid Apple. LOL
I wish Mac's were cheaper too, but they aren't. I also wish strippers were free... (as in "beer" - and disease for that matter).
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
It's true that you can get laptops for under $1k, but it's quite a bit harder to find a 13.3" one like the MacBook for much less. I've seen the Toshiba Satellite for about $750 at Best Buy when it's on sale for $150 off list, but that's about it. Dells and Sonys are both >$1k, and HP and Gateway don't even offer that form factor. I bought a 13.3" myself recently since for me it's about the right spot between portability and usefulness, and in that niche the MacBook is not too badly priced (but I still didn't buy one). The MacBook Pro, on the other hand, seems way overpriced to me for what you get.
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
Last I looked, Apple was actually competitive
Except for when they charge you an extra $100 to make your macbook out of black plastic instead of white plastic, yes, their hardware is not that much more expensive than other vendors hardware with comparable features.
If Jobs sends his cult members after me to get mine back, I'll just distract them by walking past a coffee house with an open mike poetry night.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
A MacBook starts at $1100.
Please point me to the $100 commodity laptop which does all the things a MacBook does (except for OS X), because I think that would be a great deal, and would buy one.
(Furthermore, $1000 for the prerogative of using Mac OS instead of Windows seems about fair. I probably wouldn't pay much more than $2000. But, if it were actually that expensive for Mac OS, I'd probably use Linux. Anything but Windows!)
The Mac mini is more expensive than Dell and other generic low-end systems because it's the size of a large hardcover book.
Sure, if all you care about is the specs, that makes it overpriced. But if you actually like having a machine with a small footprint that is quiet and low-power-consumption, the Mac mini might actually be worth it...even before you take into account the fact that you're getting the ability to run OS X. Which, for some people, is pretty obviously a serious plus.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
I think the main reason they don't have a mid-tower is for profitability reasons. Apple could build one without a doubt but where would it be in the market? If you look at Apple's desktops, they operate in very niche markets. Apple offers a high end workstation in the Mac Pro. It offers a small footprint desktop in the Mac Mini. They have an all-in-one with the iMac. In the mid-tower, the product would not be unique enough to differentiate itself from Dell and the like. It really could not sell very well and wouldn't be profitable. Also, bear in mind that Apple has 1/4 the number of employees as Dell or MS. Expending resources to design a product line that they don't foresee as being profitable wouldn't make sense.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This may come as a surprise to you, but Apple isn't required to be everything to everybody. They aren't even required to produce the computer that you want.
And like others point out, their stock is doing quite well at the moment. I ought to know, I'm making good money off it!
You see this argument a lot, but it's really quite ridiculous on a couple of fronts: 1) Apple's sales and profits are amazing, while competitors' sales are stunted. 2) Apple has amazing sales because they are different from their competitors.
So how does introducing a product that is like something their competitors would release going to distinguish Apple and keep profits up?
Apple is in the business of selling tightly integrated systems that (to borrow the cliche) "just work," in order to keep their support costs down and customer satisfaction up. If that's not what you're looking for, then you're not in their target market. That's not a bad thing; it's just how it is.
It's not even that bad. Compare the iMac to the Dell One, a very similar system, and the dell, missing some of those bells, whistles, and a lot of quality software, costs MORE. The Mac Pro 17" machines are VERY competitive (within $300 +/- of other name brand systems, depending on how much attention you pay to package details, battery life, and weight concerns).
If you want to overstate, fine, but keep in mind, subtract the $1000 in "unneeded parts" and the iMac is a $200 machine... NOT!
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
I will concede, you can get a 15" performance PC for a good bit less than Apple's 15" pro. The 17", not so much a difference. The iMac and Power Mac are cheaper than the competition. Nobody really competes with the mini in terms of performance in that form factor. The classic macbooks are very competitive for the features and performance they include, and ALL of them can run Windows through bootcamp or parallells (or both).
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Try using it on a machine with more than 2 cores or try to make more than 10 simultaneous connections to it.
My anecdotal evidence has shown the G3s and G4s to be useless today. We don't even bother booting them up anymore. We finally even got rid of the dual G5 machine as it was having all kinds of hardware problems.
I've had similar hardware failure rates with Apple as I have with any other manufacturer but it's just my experience. The atrociousness that is Apple support would seem to indicate that the hardware is reliable otherwise they would have attempted to streamline their support practices by now.
The prices not marked up that high anymore on the low end laptops. The high-end gear is definitely marked up big time. For what you get from Apple for 10k you can do a lot better from another manufacturer. That's probably where a lot of the confusion comes from. Everyone does it though, the high end gear always has a larger profit margin to make up for the lack margin on the low-end gear.
Beige box Macintosh computers are what nearly killed Apple in the 90's. Why would you expect anything less than nuking from orbit from Jobs on this matter?
Afterall, it's the only way to be sure.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
Clearly, Apple has grown quite comfortable with their monopoly of the "Home Unix" -market. (I'm totally in the dark when it comes to programming, and I remember someone telling me Macs were "Unix-based", rather than PCs which are "DOS-based"). I can see where it is illegal to install Apple OS on a clone and then sell it, but there is nothing illegal about selling the computer sans installed OS and then letting the customer install it, post-sale. What Apple is doing is the same this as if Microsoft were to try to make illegal the installation of a Microsoft OS on any non-Microsoft manufactured or non-Microsoft licensed PC. In regards to the Macintosh computer and OS market, Apple *clearly* has a monopoly. PsyStar, noticing that consumers have no other alternative to Mac-format PCs is creating an alternative to Apple. Not only does Apple have a monopoly in this market, the lawsuit could very easily constitute an illegal anti-competitive action in addition to already having and illegal monopoly. Remembering the EU Antitrust circus of a few years ago, Apple could face the same thing, only the monopoly would far more obvious. Kinda reminds me of the breakup of the California energy giants and the telephone giants back in the day.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Psystar could probably win this on antitrust grounds. Apple's EULA is probably an "illegal tying arrangement" and unenforceable. But Psystar may not be able to afford the litigation. Historically, IBM lost on this antitrust issue in the 1970s, which is why there were and are IBM mainframe clones and, indeed, IBM PC clones. In fact, IBM was forced to sell their mainframe OS and applications to users with mainframe clones from Amdahl and NCR.
The difference between this era of Mac clones and the last one was that the earlier generations (pre x86) of Apple machines had parts of the OS in ROM, which gave Apple more legal leverage. The current Apple machines are essentially Intel-based PC clones, with little or no essential Apple intellectual property inside.
Psystar does not seem to be redistributing Apple updates. They distribute an installer which, on the client machine, downloads an update from Apple and patches it.
Also, Psystar's web site is not down. It's just slow.
is some hipster dufus gonna come kick my door in if i dont want to return my psystar clone? or should i start flushing it now?
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
IANAL, so I hope someone with a credible opinion knows the answer to this.
Is there a legal doctrine under which a vendor can compel the customer to return something that's already bought and paid for? Psystar says gimme, customer says no, is the game not over?
ObWhyImAskingALegalQuestionOnSlashdot:
Because the answer isn't important enough to pay for, I ask only out of curiosity, and won't be relying on it for anything.
I like how you assume Apple is losing massive sales, because clearly the entire market thinks like you do and has refused to buy a mac because of the things you stated.
It's true that you can get laptops for under $1k, but it's quite a bit harder to find a 13.3" one like the MacBook for much less
Funny you should mention that. I've been saying for a while that when my current laptop finally dies, I plan to get a Macbook. Not for the looks, the spec or the OS, but simply because I wanted a 13.3 inch form factor. I carry my laptop around a lot, so a 17'' monster is out of the question, but I also use it as my primary machine, so an ultra portable is no use either. 13.3'' is, for me, the sweet spot between portability and usability. But no one seemed to make them except apple, so it looked like the macbook was the best option.
Lately though, I've noticed more and more 13.3'' laptops showing up in stores. A quick search on dabs turns up these results. As you can see, they have twelve 13.3'' laptops that are cheaper than a macbook. The Toshiba U400 for example, compares very favourably with the cheapest macbook in terms of specs. The macbook had a faster processor, but the toshiba has a DVD writer and is lighter, so it's pretty much a toss up. On price though, the Toshiba trounces the apple. £498 against £699. A £200 pound difference. Looks like I won't be buying a mac after all.
I won't get into the the relative merits and value of vista compared to OSX. I'd be formatting it and installing Linux anyway.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
If I buy a mac clone, am I fighting against the machine Jobs claims to be fighting against?
I don't think Apple could whether a storm like this like IBM could. Keep in mind that IBM is an extremely diversified company. They existed before the personal computer. Their core business is and always was machines for the enterprise market, not PCs. When the clones outshined the real thing, IBM had many other markets to fall back on.
Apple on the other hand was built on solely the personal computer market. That's where their foundation is. Though the iPod and iPhone are popular, there is no way Apple could survive on those products alone. Mac is their core business. If they lose their supremacy to cloners, they're sunk.
One thing to remember is that Apple sells and supports a whole experience.
That includes stuff like easy setup of an audio/video chat client.
How do you plan to do video chats with your buddies on an all-in-one machine from psystar?
Well, if you can't, then you're not getting the Apple experience, and I don't blame Apple for protecting their business model.
On the more important side, I do hope to see a rulling on shrink-wrapped licenses. But whether it will get to that or not is beyond my law knowledge.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Guys why does it drive you so nuts that Apple won't do what you tell them to? It's called a free market and it's their business. Don't like their conditions? Then don't buy one of their computers. If you want an OS structured the way you want then why don't you get together with a bunch or your friends and build one.....Oh wait, already done, it's called LINUX! Just because Steve Jobs doesn't want to release a standalone OS doesn't make him the antichrist. It's only computer geeks that think that way. The average person barely notices. My business partner was in an Apple store a week before the new iPhone came out and he was stunned because it was packed on a week day. People were buying everything from iPods to high end desktops. His business model is working and Microsoft's growth is flat and they are loosing ground to Mac because it appeals to the average user. Chill out, crank up your Linux system you hand built and be happy.
they'll have to recall, what, all 5 that they sold?
This "lock-down" mentality of Apple is my main reason for never owning any of their equipment. One manufacturer, one source, one single point of failure. So no Apple][, no Lisa, no Mac of any generation, no iMac, iPod, iPhone or i-anything. Ever. Period.
It seems they are back in business. Also, they claim that the Leopard OSX in not modified. And the price for the open computer with pre-installed mac seems to have gone up to $554 from $399.
Keep in mind the dell system still has more ports and expansion slots allowing you to upgrade. The ability to expand is a feature that the iMac lacks to a serious degree. So, the dell system still has more value added to the equation. Beyond that, who buys pre-built systems these days anyway? If Apple allowed people to custom build their own machines, I wouldn't mind them charging a markup, however, they don't give us that option (well, legally), so I have a problem with it.
Typically with Apple the more high-end you go, the more competitive the price is. Expensive computers can have a more comfortable margin built into them. That's why the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro are so competitively-priced, but in the Mac Mini realm you can get way more power for the same price.
Hardware that you purchase and possess outright, you can do what you want with it. Proprietary software is the Intellectual Property of the IP owner. You are unfortunately only licensed to use it according to the EULA you must agree to BEFORE you use. If you do not agree, you do not get to use it. Think of it as a lease or a rental. Copyright protection exists so someone cannot take your creation and dictate to you how you should offer it as a product or make money on it without giving you a cut. This has larger ramification than just for Apple. Who should get to decide how you should sell your software, application, music, and writing? To twist this around, if you can argue a proprietary use term is unreasonable, what is stopping MSFT from copying everything from Linux and then close it by arguing the GPL terms are unreasonable? To protect Copyleft, unfortunately you must also protect Copyright. It's one thing to let authorized resellers also retail your product. Long time Apple fans know you can go online to a retailer like MacConnection, and get a Mac for a lot cheaper, without Psystar messing with the legality. If Psystar was installing AIX/HP-UX/SolarisSPARC on hardware it assembled without the explicit permission from IBM/HP/Sun and not sharing any profit with them, would anybody think Psystar's action should be permissible? (The sarcasm here, of course, is Why would you want AIX/HP-UX/Solaris on consumer boxes?)
Yeah, I can see it now... Apple coming out with iPOS.
Psystar's website is up and has been on and off this whole time. It looks like they're getting so much traffic in bursts, their server can't handle all the requests.
the clock on the wall says 4 til 7
Though the iPod and iPhone are popular, there is no way Apple could survive on those products alone. Mac is their core business. If they lose their supremacy to cloners, they're sunk.
On what do you base this assumption? This article is old, but it shows an opposing point of view:
Leading the charge for Apple was its line of iPods, with the company shipping 21 million of the market-leading devices during the quarter, a 50% jump from a year ago. Sales of the device accounted for $3.43 billion of the company's revenue, or nearly half the total.
Apple's total number of iPod sales now stands at about 90 million units since the device first went on sale in October 2001.
"After five years, the iPod is still going strong," said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research. "It's still a very popular product." Wu holds a buy rating on Apple's stock. The results show that demand for Apple's products remains strong despite stepped-up competition from rivals such as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT: Microsoft Corporation News, chart, profile, more Last: 27.26+1.10+4.20% 4:12pm 07/16/2008 Delayed quote data Add to portfolio Analyst Create alert Insider Discuss Financials Sponsored by: MSFT 27.26, +1.10, +4.2%) , which is pushing hard to boost its share of the digital entertainment market with a new handheld media player and other consumer products.
"The iPod sales were shocking," said Gene Munster, of Piper Jaffray. "And the earnings power of this company is reaching record levels."
Macintosh computer sales also surged, rising 40% to $2.4 billion, while Mac shipments rose 28% to 1.61 million units, more than double the growth of the overall PC market. The Mac results were a slightly below many analysts forecasts, as several had expected Apple to sell between 1.75 million and 1.8 million Macs during the quarter.
However, Munster, of Piper Jaffray, said the holiday-quarter Mac sales needed to be taken into context, and were actually solid because they remained almost in line with Apple's September quarter results, which is when Apple sees strong back-to-school PC sales.
"People give iPods for Christmas, not computers," Munster said.
Once again Apple shows that they can't really compete in a free market, and only survive through lock-ins. And that Steve Jobs is greedy for every single penny he can get.
As a result, continue to expect to pay the highest prices for what has become commodity PC hardware.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This is still illegal according to the EULA in OSX, but...
1) Purchase a copy of Mac OSX. While this won't help the legality issues, it'll certainly put you in the grey zone. Or just visit your friendly torrent tracker. Look for "kalyway". Cough.
2) Visit OSX86 Project and take a look at the many installation guides available. Make sure your hardware is supported (it probably is) and that all the kexts (Kernel Extensions) are readily available for you to install.
3) Install Leopard.
4) ???
5) Enjoy a BSD-based OS with a pretty GUI.
Design a product? Are you serious?
I have an idea. Let's take the generic motherboards they use in, say, any of their machines, and put them in a little bit different case. Let's slap a Core2 Duo in it and a couple gigs of ram. Add a nice 250 or 300 GB hard drive and a real video card.
Sell it for $800 or so.
I'd buy that. I won't even think about buying a Mac as things stand now.
Yeah, I can see it now... Apple coming out with iPOS.
IPieceOfShit?
By "Commodity hardware", I'm guessing you mean, PC hardware? I don't know where or when you checked, but no, they are not even somewhat close. PC hardware is MILES cheaper.
Also, "you can't get a Mac without the bells and whistles." If you mean't hardware bells and whistles, then I don't think that statement is true. Have you looked at the peripheral components (everything besides CPU), of the apple laptops and computers? SMALL hard drives, low ram, crappy video cards, etc. Go on apple.com and newegg.com and do a comparison, you pay at least 2x as much for apple hardware, if not much more.
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
Please read the word "desktop" in my post. The laptops are boutique-priced too, but not by $1,000 like the desktops.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Keep in mind the dell system still has more ports and expansion slots allowing you to upgrade.
Yes, those parallel and serial ports on the back and the FDD connectors on the motherboard really do make all the difference.
Lol... modded -1 Revenge of the Apple zealots
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
i should have RTFA then. i wouldnt have worked myself into such a tizzy then. whoops nevermind.
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
I don't think Apple could whether a storm...
"Weather". I know, I could of left it alone, but I'm sure that its bothering alot of people.
This is not a complaint which is leaning on the EULA's legality - it will be leaning on case and trademark law.
You see it turns out that modifying software then reselling it as the bona fide real thing isn't such a great idea in the world of intellectual property and trademark law. Now add a week of sales using the "mac" trademark and you've got yourself plenty of reasons for why apple will have enough legal clout to ask for a recall to be granted.
I don't think Apple could whether a storm...
"Weather". I know, I could of left it alone, but I'm sure that its bothering alot of people.
I know, I could "have" left it alone, but I'm sure that "it's" bothering "a lot" of people. You should have left it alone.
I have a 450 Mhz G4 tower that's still running nearly unmodified, and still generally useful, nearly 10 years after its original purchase.
A similarly aged PC is just as useful (probably more so, because it will be faster not only by virtue of raw hardware specifications, but also by running a less resource-intensive, yet still quite capable, OS).
Whether or not people choose to continue using such old hardware is a completely separate issue. It's easy to see why they wouldn't bother, though, when a _laptop_ nearly an order of magnitude faster only costs around US$700 today.
If you really want to bitch about premiums, then let's stop bullshitting here and talk about Vista MSRP. Those prices make OSX look like a bargain.
Except that's a completely invalid and stupid comparison.
I just did an Apples for Apples (ha) buy of an Apple Mac Pro and a Dell Workstation. There is premium, but it's not all that bad. We're building test boxes for high end graphics design and programming to see which will perform better. Spec follow:
2 Quad core 3Ghz CPUs (The Macs have Xeons, but the Dells don't. This is one the few real differences. It explains part of the price difference)
16 GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro 5500
Hardware RAID with 3 300GB SAS drives.
There is approximately $1000 difference in the price. Probably $5-700 of that is the two Xeon CPUs vs non. So there's a $3-500 premium on a roughly 10K box. Not nothing, for sure, but not horrible. Having said that, I'd likely have chosen smaller drives had Apple offered them, and clearly don't think I really need Xeon CPUs. At least part of Apple's "Premium" is in refusing to let you get less than the highest end hardware in many cases.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Offense:
Psystar = Stolen Identity
Power Computing = Speeding
Your License Please - Power Computing:
http://www.streamstudio.com/images/pcc_6lg.jpg
Low End Mac:
http://lowendmac.com/orchard/07/0220.html
Quit yer bitchin': Used Macs
http://www.macofalltrades.com/
~hylas
It's true that you can get laptops for under $1k, but it's quite a bit harder to find a 13.3" one like the MacBook for much less.
Dells and Sonys are both >$1k
Yes, the other brands have seemed to be reserving this "newish" form factor (compared to 12.1", 14.1", and 15.4") for their mid-to-high end notebooks. For a while, Apple seemed to be the only brand that offered this size for their low-end notebook (but not for their high-end until the MacBook Air). For example that $1000+ 13.3" Dell is the XPS series, which has some features and options that many 13.3" seekers don't want.
BTW, Dell does now offer a low-end 13.3" notebook: the Dell Vostro 1310. Starts at $750 (Conroe-based Celeron, Vista Home Basic, 1GB RAM, Combo Drive) with many optional upgrades. When shopping for Dell notebooks, don't forget their "business" sites.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
They can recall all they want I don't think the ones who bought the machine are obligate to return the unit. Correct me if I am wrong, but once a consumer buys a product it is theirs and the maker of that product doesn't really have any authority as to say what the consumer wants can and cannot do with it, not even ask them to return it (if it's not a safety issue) as the consumer paid for the product. At least that is the way I see it.
Not to turn this into a flamewar, but the G4s of that vintage Benchmarked significantly faster than their Pentium counterparts at the same clockspeed, and could address up to 2GB of RAM, which was a ridiculous amount in 1999.
I still use it because it's perfectly adequate for what I need it for. Although Apple succumbed to a great deal of bloat in 10.5, OS X runs remarkably well on older hardware.
I'm running 10.3 on that machine, because there's not much I do on it that would benefit from a new version (and mainly because I'm too lazy to upgrade).
Unlike Windows, and like Linux an OS X installation doesn't get "stale" after a while, and continues to run perfectly adequately. Although I don't use the machine to encode video, it's perfectly capable for day-to-day tasks.
In fact, I had a big video editing project a year or two back that required the use of several machines at once. Remarkably, Final Cut Pro has absurdly modest system requirements. Although encoding and rendering complex effects was predictably slow as a dog, the main interface remained as fast, snappy, and useful as it was on the top-of-the-line G5s I was using.
If you're not doing super-CPU-intensive tasks, old macs tend to do reasonably well.
Failing all that, they make fantastic Linux boxes if you can live without Flash. Add UbuntuPPC and XFce, and you've got yourself an even faster, and still quite capable machine.
A surprising number of "Classic" Macs are still out there and still being used, although even I consider that a bit extreme.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Innovation is 90% efficiency solar panels or 100 MPG cars .
No, that's not innovation, that's implementation. Being able to say, "Mine goes to 11!" is a nice feat, but it's nothing new.
On the other hand, taking an existing, underutilized or unattractive technology out of the lab (say, microprocessor-based computers...or Unix...or multi-touch interfaces) and turning it into something simple that Joe Schmoe can take look at and say, "Hey, I could use that!" is innovation. It's not the same degree of innovation as the conception of the first microprocessor, or Unix, or multitouch interface, but finding the first practical function for a geeky technology is far beyond what most engineers or product designers do.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
If anything deserved a "whoosh", this would be it.
Not to turn this into a flamewar, but the G4s of that vintage Benchmarked significantly faster than their Pentium counterparts at the same clockspeed, and could address up to 2GB of RAM, which was a ridiculous amount in 1999.
Ah, but in 1999, PCs were also available in significantly higher clockspeeds (up to 800Mhz, from memory) and dual-processor configurations. A mere 6-12 months later and you're looking at 1Ghz+ boxes (I still have a dual ~900Mhz machine dating from 2000 - with a new (and dirt cheap) video card, it even ran Vista usably and with full functionality).
I still use it because it's perfectly adequate for what I need it for. Although Apple succumbed to a great deal of bloat in 10.5, OS X runs remarkably well on older hardware.
OS X runs like a dog on anything less than a G5, IMHO (and even my mum's iMac G5 stutters more than I like). That's the latest and greatest OS X, as well. Back before 10.4 it was *much* worse.
If you're not doing super-CPU-intensive tasks, old macs tend to do reasonably well.
So do old PCs (better, if anything, for reasons stated previously).
A surprising number of "Classic" Macs are still out there and still being used, although even I consider that a bit extreme.
I know, I own a few myself. That does not change my point that from an objective perspective a PC ages just as well as - if not better than - a Mac. Historically, Windows is kinder to older hardware than OS X has been (even Vista).
so, I guess Apple would get back into the fruity party of their business?
Curious about Storage and Virtualization? Check out
I don't think anyone with a /. UID thought that this Mac clone company would last very long. I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did. Think this is unfair? Hey, Mac OS X is Apple's product; it's a great piece of software despite its shortcomings; and, yes, to run it, you need a Mac, made by Apple. They do this to guarantee that it runs the way they tested it in the lab. On other hardware, OS X might rock equally well or it might be the suxx0rz, Apple has no way to know or to control that outcome, so they prevent it from running that way. You can take it or use the alternative, which is a computer made by anyone of your choice, running your choice of Linux, the *BSDs, Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Server 2008 modified to function as a workstation per the instructions given in another /. story earlier today. Vote with your dollars!
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
does this mean Apple is as evil as M$?
It was pretty clear from the start that the machine is substandard. Looks like a few mods got burned and are taking it out on me. I would like to run OS X on a Dell with 64GB of RAM though. That would mean something. But it would be "against god's will" or some such garbage.
What?
There is a whole new breed of computer users. These are the ones who have realized that you don't need to spend alot to use the internet. These are the consumers that have purchased the gPC, the Asus laptops and the Psystar computers. The only mistake Psystar made was in offering the Apple OS to users. These make a great platform for linux. All I see coming from Microsoft and Apple is more eye candy not better products
Apple does not want lower class computer users
There was a recent case that upheld the doctrine of first sale.
If :
1) there is a way to get the Leopard OSX OS without hardware, and
2) Psystar bought valid licenses (as opposed to installing the same one over and over), and
3) Psystar isn't the End User,
then I see no wiggle room for Apple - and they lose.
While I appreciate Apple's concern for maintaining a certain quality level, they lost that opprotunity some time ago by being such frigging jerks about letting others build MAC clones (you know like a franchise operation or something).
I hope Psystar, is on the up and up with what they did and they mash Apple up.
they are also huge in the video game market
> If you look at Apple's desktops, they operate in very niche markets.
Of course one reason they only operate in nice markets is because they only make products to fit odd market niches. If they sold a mainstream machine they just might find a mainstream audience for it. It's possible ya know.
Seriously. If Apple sold a mainstream desktop and sold it at close to a mainstream price (say $200 over a Dell/HP/etc) they just might up their market share a few points. Of course they have no intention of doint it so the question is purely academic.
They seem determined to stay in single digits in the total installed base count. I'm guessing they fear losing Microsoft Office if they ever break an unwritten deal they made iwth the devil. Or perhaps they fear losing the Apple Faithful if they ever 'sold out' and courted the great unwashed, i.e the Faithful wouldn't be special anymore and would find some other obscure fetish item to worship.
Democrat delenda est
PsyStar is not in trouble for making OSX-compatible PCs. They are not in trouble for selling Leopard. They are in trouble for the following:
This isn't about whether you're allowed to buy a copy of Leopard and install it on your Hackintosh. Apple doesn't care about the x86 project. It generates interest in the platform and hurts no one and costs nothing because they don't have to support it and the onus of making anything work lies solely with the hobbyists doing it for the fun and coolness of it.
This is about whether another company can make unlicensed Mac clones and sell them and support them in violation of all sorts of laws and licenses. It's not about out-selling them. It's about violating their licenses and copyrights with no benefit to them at all.
Apple can charge very little for its OS, because it knows it's making money on the hardware it's going to be installed on. This is a good deal for everyone. Apple hardware isn't much more than other OEM builders for what you get (and that's just on specs--that doesn't include the best-designed OEM case I've ever seen on my Mac Pro or the remarkable attention to detail I've found in every nook and cranny of that thing), and then your OS costs a third of what a copy of Vista does, and doesn't do a bunch of bullshit to make sure you're not a filthy pirate (even though I own two licenses of XP, I install cracked corporate versions because they don't whine at me all the time and make me call MS when I upgrade hardware). It's a whole package that provides value to the customer and keeps money coming into the company. It's just plain old economics.
I am planning on making my next Mac a Hackintosh. That looks fun and interesting and cool, from a hobbyist standpoint. But I also hope Apple succeeds in suing PsyStar into the stone age. People like that are going to make it necessary for OSX to incorporate bullshit hardware authentication schemes like Windows, which is going to kill off the Hackintosh community entirely. Apple doesn't want to piss off the geeks (like me) who are really starting to get into OSX. PsyStar having its ass handed to them is good for everyone.
I am keeping mine! Ha, ha, HA! Take that Stevie!
Whoa, you actually BOUGHT one of these? You do know that it is just cheap generic hardware with a specially modified, over-priced copy of OS X, right?
If you really want to bitch about premiums, then let's stop bullshitting here and talk about Vista MSRP. Those prices make OSX look like a bargain.
Except that's a completely invalid and stupid comparison.
Really? I don't exactly see Apple forcing differentiation of features by way of OS versions as deep as a 7-layer salad?
Besides, if you really want to analyze pricing this deep, then back off the macro lens and take a look at supply and demand. The price? Simple. Because they can.
because it exposes the fact that today's Mac desktops are just commodity hardware with an extra $1,000 charge for an OS X dongle (TPM).
No, you're quite wrong about TPM. You may want to read up on it:
http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter10/tpm/
The executive summary (which I hope it's okay to quote here, but as a sample it indicates that the longer text is worth reading) notes:
I hope that helps kill some incorrect information out there in the wild. My understanding is that it's been a few years since we saw a TPM in any Mac, but I may be wrong about that.
It's almost like Dell went out of their way to create a pricy, niche machine just to give the Mac trolls something to post about. Try comparing the iMac to the more popular generic PC towers next time.
Ideas are a dime a dozen, from kids to adults, everyone has them.
So what if OpenMoko were 'discussing' multitouch? I was discussing how I was going to build a robot when I was 8 years old. Did it happen? no.
What Apple did was take an innovative idea nad TURN IT INTO A PRODUCT that works and that a sizeable number of people like. Turning an idea into a product, or at least into something, is what separates doers from dreamers. Sure, you need both, but without the product, the tech is just some random abstract thing. Without the tech, the product isn't as good. The point is, IT TAKES BOTH THINGS TOGETHER to work and they're both equally as important.
Sure, the idea that using more than one finger on a touch device probably isn't new. So why hasn't a GOOD windows mobile device, or a good mobile phone, come out with it previously?
I find people arguing that Apple's tech in this case isn't innovative and complaining that people were *talking* about it before, is like that person that keeps saying "I had the maddest idea for a game!!" and never doing anything to make it a reality. Or bitches when the game comes out "I had that idea ages ago!". Boo hoo.
Since Apple's entire legal argument hinges on the fact that their EULA states that OSX can only be installed on Apple-branded hardware, it will be interesting to see if the courts uphold such restrictions in EULA's, or the existence of EULA's at all. Psystar makes an interesting argument that Honda can't make you sign a EULA telling you that you can only drive on Honda-approved roads, so why should Apple be able to control what systems OSX is installed on? Is there any precedent here? Has the legality of EULA's ever been put to the test in court?
Of course, your argument leaves out two points.
A: Psystar is NOT the End User, thus violating that license
B: Psystar is declaring itself as an OEM, but does not have an OEM license with Apple to resell their product.
Beyond this, Psystar is repeatedly and intentionally breaking copyright law by modifying OS X to run on their hardware.
That's three strikes right there, and that's only the tip of what Apple is charging them with.
In particular, shrinkwrap licenses that purport to limit fair use are not a slam dunk. The first amendment is the fount of fair use (Sony v. Betamax) and thus of constitutional dimension. While the first amendment is only binding on government actors, the court itself is a government actor, adn therefore by enforcing a fair-use limiting contract (the EULA) the court is essential depriving fair use 1st amendment rights. That's the argument at least. I think its' the right one. We wouldn't want the court to eforce contracts to permit slavery (13th amendment), and I think limiting free speech is particularly dicey. But hey, it happens ALL THE TIME with contracts (nondisclosure for example.) I just don't think it's right for the courts to enforce it.
The biggest problem here for Apple is monopoly issues and tying, which I see Psystar counsel has wisely raised. (You can be a monopoly of a more restricted relevant market than just OSs in general..)
Just my opinion, as a non-lawyer.
In this particular case, however, Psystar clearly violates "Fair Use" as well by intentionally and repeatedly copying, modifying and reselling the OS. This is a blatant case of copyright violation first as well as violations of the EULA. Psystar is NOT the End User and thus violates the EULA right there, discounting anything else they may do.
because it exposes the fact that today's Mac desktops are just commodity hardware with an extra $1,000 charge for an OS X dongle (TPM).
And here you are just plain wrong. Period.
You can not buy any name-brand computer with all the same specifications and capabilities (and I mean all of them, not just the basics) for less than its Apple equivalent; or if less, then by a very small margin. This includes the software that comes with the computer.
Granted, you can build one for less, but not buy one from a major manufacturer.
People constantly try to disprove this statement but in every case they fall short of matching the Apple in some manner; usually by leaving out several capabilities that are standard equipment in the Apple.
----------- My comment
Big empty space
----------- Your head
If Psystar were rich enough, they could win their case against Apple and we could see Mac clones on the market like we saw IBM PC clones in the 80's. But still, what would be the point in having Mac clones ? We'd start to see an OS (Mac OS) that crashes all the time because the hardware is "not supported officially". So we would be forced to install an alternative OS on the machine, like Linux or BSD. Ok it could work great but it works as great on PCs.
Really I'm not trying to troll/start a flamewar, I'm just wondering.
Actually, they stand no chance even if they WERE rich. But that's beside the point for the moment.
First off, there's a complete difference between Apple today and IBM back in the middle 80's; it's called Microsoft. When IBM built their first PC, they wanted an operating system to use on it, and rather than pushing their own, they licensed Dos from Bill Gates. Their mistake was that they did not negotiate an Exclusive license, so Microsoft was free to sell Dos to anyone who could build to it; thus creating the whole IBM Clone/Compatible war. This also meant that so many companies started building to Dos, and later Windows, that they eventually drove IBM right out of the desktop/laptop business; they simply could not compete any more despite the quality they put into their hardware.
Apple, on the other hand, owns their OS and will do what is necessary to protect its copyrights as well as its hardware sales. The early 90's proved that permitting clones did not improve OS sales, but rather killed hardware sales. The same would happen today despite Apple now having a larger (albeit still small) market share. But by Psystar trying to pass itself off as a clone manufacturer, the only thing they could do is hurt Apple's name and reputation by delivering a severely inferior product.
Since Psystar has clearly and repeatedly violated copyright law, Apple has no choice but to go forward with this lawsuit. And I highly doubt that they will settle out of court because any payment to Psystar (such as to buy them out) would only encourage other criminals to take advantage of the precedent.
If you look at Apple's products they have a higher average margin than Dell or HP. They sell much lower volumes than Dell or HP so they have to achieve higher profit. $200 over a Dell or HP would mean that they may break even if that much on a desktop.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Keep this up Apple and await your anti-trust suit.
I think engineering and design is a lot more complicated than you make it to be. First of all they don't have a motherboard that is suitable. Their laptop motherboards are specialized. Their Mac Pro motherboard is specialized. Their Mac Mini motherboard is specialized. Well why can't they use the the Mac Mini or laptop motherboards? They're all in one boards. Anyone wanting a mid tower wants to buy their video card and maybe even sound card. What about the Mac Pro. Too expensive. It was made for workstation computing and all the components are made for higher performance and costs more. So they will have to design a new motherboard.
Then there's all the other considerations. What RAM should they use? The fastest ones? No too expensive. The cheapest ones? That might hurt reliability. Middle of the road? That's fine but the memory should be flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of memory. Same with hard drives. Congratulations, Apple has spent several months to design a computer that for all purposes is no different than any other that a consumer can get somewhere else. What's the pricing? Well it has to be competitive yet be profitable. Let's see Dell is offering their computer for $500. Linspire $200. To recoup R&D, it's gotta sell for $700-$1000. This is why Apple hasn't made this computer.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.-- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or . . .
(c) Machine Maintenance or Repair.-- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner or lessee of a machine to make or authorize the making of a copy of a computer program if such copy is made solely by virtue of the activation of a machine that lawfully contains an authorized copy of the computer program, for purposes only of maintenance or repair of that machine, if-- (1) such new copy is used in no other manner and is destroyed immediately after the maintenance or repair is completed; and (2) with respect to any computer program or part thereof that is not necessary for that machine to be activated, such program or part thereof is not accessed or used other than to make such new copy by virtue of the activation of the machine.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying they do or don't. I am not a lawyer.
.. for some reason this makes me want one more.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
Beyond that, who buys pre-built systems these days anyway?
About 271 million people in 2007. Seriously, if you think that most people build their own systems, you need to get out more.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Shouldn't that be
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Big empty space
----------- My comment
?
if they suit, they will only face a HUGE backlash from the "_anonymous_" developers. It will motivate the hackers even more. And, as things are changing rapidly in that space soon, very soon, any laptop will be able to run osX86 OOTB.
My guess? Snow leopard will become draconian, rather like vista, and it will phone home and make sure that there's a proprietary chip running some code all the way in there. This could explain why Apple bought a chipmaker. If they design a custom chip that gets called loads of times by loads of apps--something rather easy to do by redirecting some cocoa calls there--, then it becomes almost impossible to hack it, because making chips involve companies, not "anonymous" hackers.
Does this make any sense?
I think a point you are all missing is that you cannot buy a separate copy of OSX to install on a fresh machine. Apple ships OSX with a machine. Apple sells *upgrades* to OSX in a separate box. That makes any comment about the EULA irrelevant: copyright law applies and neither Psystar, nor anyone else, has a license to install OSX on a fresh box. It's exactly the same law that allows the GPL and Open licenses to work.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I'm confused, haven't they already come out with that?
When I see more than one person in every million using an Apple Mac, then maybe I'll start thinking of Apple as a "goliath"...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Alright. Label me a troll. A fan-boy. A zealot. I don't care.
Why can't a company create a product for the market they want? What gives us the right to buy a product that clearly states what it's for, then, get upset about when it doesn't work the way that we want it? Why do we feel that we have the right to create a market for a product that the creator didn't intend to?
Seriously.
Apple created Mac OS X. They specifically state that it's for Apple computers. They aren't hiding it from you. They made the decision to make this software for their hardware only. What's wrong with that? Why can't a company limit it's own market?
I don't want to hear this "Apple is monopoly" bullshit. They aren't a monopoly, they are a brand. Ford has a "monopoly" on Ford cars that run Ford engines and Ford computers and Ford seatbelts. Sony has a "monopoly" on the Sony operating system that's runs on the Sony Playstation. The operating system is an Apple product for Apple hardware. They just happen to also sell it in a box. Just because its in a box, on a shelf, and you can buy it, doesn't give you the right to decide that you can change what its for. No one is forcing consumers to buy Apple computers. There are other competitors in the market. Nope, no monopoly here.
It's just so aggravating to read the posts. Fuck Psystar. They deliberately tried to tired to sell a product created and sold by another company in a way they didn't want it to be done. Why shouldn't they go down?
Really. Someone explain it to me? Why is Psystar entitled to do this? Why are we entitled to install Mac OS X on hardware Apple tells us not to?
Anyone?
Is it anything more than people who just want to get their way. Why doesn't Apple make a headless Mac for me? Why can't I run Mac OS X on my Dell? Why why why... I want I want I want... wahhhh...
It's like reading a collective bunch of three year olds. Apple doesn't want to sell you their product, for whatever reason they see fit. Shut up and deal with it. It's not an issue of EULA's and copyright and DRM. It's the fact that people are just pissed of they can't get their way. It's why this country is going to shit... people going out of their way- way beyond the realms of common sense and moderation- to obtain their way. Your sense of entitlement sickens me. The fact that Apple is successful without you getting what you want pisses you off even more.
Honestly, you can replace Apple with any other company. It doesn't matter.
Operating systems exist out there that are licensed that you can do whatever you want with them. Go try one out. If you don't like it, learn to code so you can make it something you like.
And yes, I have more custom built Linux systems in my home and in my place of employment than I do Mac or Windows systems. So don't give me a lecture about free software or the GPL.
I feel better now. End of rant.
So there is a recall on the machines.......what if the end user (owner of a Psystar) says no and doesnt want to give it back?
Apple is $100 off commodity hardware and sometimes cheaper? May I introduce you to the latest Toshiba Qosmio laptop which is listed on the Slashdot page today as being the first laptop to use cell processors:
http://www.hothardware.com/News/Toshiba_Launches_First_Cell_CPUbased_Laptop/
The price? $1549.99 for this:
* Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1, 64-bit)
* Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1, 32-bit)
* Tohiba Quad Core HD Processor
* Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P7350 (2 GHz)
* NVIDIA® GeForce 9600M GT
* 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz SDRAM
* 500GB: Two 250GB 5400rpm hard drives
* DVD-SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) with Labelflash drive
* Atheros Wireless LAN (802.11b/g/n)
* Bluetooth V2.1 + EDR
* 18.4" Screen
Compare that against any Apple laptop and see if the Apple laptops have anything of the same specs and then compare the pricing on Apple.
Also, Toshiba makes good laptops and Qosmio is top of the range. This ain't some no name player and this ain't any commodity hardware.
Apple's success is not tech or the quality of its products, it is a success built up on branding and marketing.
Because they can.
How does this not apply to the Vista pricing scheme, fucknut?
Okay, so you loathe the Mac Mini.
I loathe it too, but primarily because Jobs "switched" without ever putting an MPC8641D in any model. (I'm not a fan of iNTEL, you see.)
As someone noted, the Mac mini sells pretty well. And they don't have a disproportionately large representation in the used hardware department.
So, your tastes are different from other people's tastes. No big deal.
However, if you look around the web, you can find people who tell how they do, in fact, expand the Mac Mini. Some people simply hang firewire drives on it. Yeah, yeah, 400MHz or something, but it's fast enough for most people who buy them.
Some people take the motherboard and electronics out of that little, stylized lunchbox, and install them in an ordinary whitebox case+PS. (I don't remember reading what such people do with the Mini's PS.)
You can expand the thing. You can even earn geek points doing so, although it's a bit harder than with x86 stuff.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I do photography for hobby, I am also a graphic design apprentice and I often try to teach myself while at home. I've seen iMac(the white one) at pro-photographer, and I a design-company I visisted a short time(for learning) I saw that they used current generation 24" iMac. And they're quite caught up in details, correct colors and so forth. My own 20" iMac does not widest view angle (have to look pretty much straight at it to get 100% correct colors), but it's still better than 95% of computers I see around. The 24" iMac seem to be much better here. The glossy screen is only a problem if you have strong/sharp lightsource. It's quite detailed, esp. in darker tones(compared to other screens.) Not as good as say... NEC MultiSync LCD2470WNX, but still quite good. The Mac Mini does indeed suck, it haven't been updated since 2006.
It was probably just slashdotted at the time, or maybe down just for maintenance...
They want to fight this battle.
Over and over and over and over and ...
It's a rather profitable battle to fight. Well, pwhateverstar is not so much so, but all the techs like yourself who think 10,000 computers is a large number of computers to sell are a prime source of ideas, and the war of words you (we?) engage in is a big part of where Steve gets his clues about which directions to head next.
I'm not sure Apple really wants to win this one easily.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
That says it all really....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That's good information, thanks. I still believe that Trusted Computing has more evil uses than good, and that it should be resisted vehemently. Unfortunately, TPMs have been snuck in to most modern PCs and it's only a matter of time before they're used to enforce a DRM dystopia. I expect they'll be a nice market for "pre-ban" PCs in a few years.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Why can't a company create a product for the market they want?
They can. But if there's unmet demand (for example, for a conventional desktop Mac) people will meet it.
I have more custom built Linux systems in my home and in my place of employment than I do Mac or Windows systems.
And I'm one of the original 386BSD patchkit developers, and was a FreeBSD committer for many years, and I'm working on Linux-based software in my day job, so I've learned how to code and I can make the OS something I like... but I still want a conventional desktop Mac. Apple hasn't made one of those since around 1997, and I stretched my "beige G4" out as long as I could before finally settling for a Mac mini.
Look... people don't buy computers to run operating systems, they buy them to run applications, and I'm no exception, and no matter what I do to FreeBSD or Linux it's not going to get Windows developers to write their applications for UNIX. I've fought that battle one way or another since I was doing code monkey scripting for 4BSD at Berkeley, and contributing ports of UNIX libraries to Dr Dobbs Journal, and moderating Usenet sources groups... and after almost 30 years even hardcore open source guys can figure that one out.
I'm not going to go out and make a Hackintosh or buy a computer from a company like Psystar, but I understand why people do, and until Apple figures it out it's going to keep on happening.
Shouldn't that be
----------- Your head
Big empty space
----------- My comment
?
No.
So your reply to the parent went *under* his head?
I've not heard that expression before 'I was being so funny that you didn't notice.... Woosh, It went right under your head.'
Some of your points are fair, (aftermarket video cards are a problem for Macs, though there are a few out there you can put in on your own and have them be compatible) but you can certainly put more than just a hard drive into a MacPro. You can put any number of PCI cards in there, though these days I'm not really clear what you would need to put in there that isn't likely already built in, but I guess if you wanted to put in a fiberchannel card, or extra firewire ports or something you could do that. I can't speak to the situation with failed drives in MacPro's, but that sounds a little odd. Older Mac towers certainly don't work that way. You also don't have to pay Apple for RAM upgrades, you can (and I have) do it yourself on any model of Mac, without voiding any warranties or anything like that. Yes Apple charges you out the ass for RAM upgrades, but you don't have to pay them for it, you can do it yourself. All computer makers charge too much for RAM, Apple is no different (though they might charge slightly more than some other companies), but just like with Dell or Gateway or whatever, you don't have to pay them for it if you don't want to.
Exactly! I have an 8 year old 400mhz G4 that is still up and running (one of the firewire ports doesn't work, but that's the only real hardware problem it has) as we speak. It was my primary computer until I finally upgraded to an iMac G5 about 2 years ago. I recently put Yellow Dog Linux on it, as I'm taking some *nix classes and wanted a box at home to do projects on and such. Still runs great!
Have the system requirements for Starcraft II/Diablo III been released?
You have given the reason yourself: You can buy a Fort and rip out engine and put it into an VW. (Ok, most countries will require some form road safety test after such a change - but that is a different matter).
And actually for a short while in the '70 in Germany it was "en vouge" to put an Porsche 911 engine into a beagle. Nothing I would do but some people like that kind of stuff.
Martin
Apple demands a recall? Do they honestly think that people will ship back a heavy computer, with all their stuff on it back to the company for nothing? Is Apple THAT arrogent, and stupid? I didn't buy one, mainly because I knew this had to be a joke, but honestly. Does anyone see anyone sending their system back just because Apple demainds it? Maybe 1 or 2 people? Please... If I did, I'd tell Apple to give me a NEW Apple machine, with an exact or superior configuration first. - Kc
-- Kevin C. Redden kcredden@ gmail 392992
I can't believe that I'm replying to this. Here's a lesson in two dimensional spatial relationships.
Your picture:
----------- Your head
Big empty space
----------- My comment
Where is "Your head"? It is above the big empty space. Where is "My comment"? Below the big empty space.
Now let's look at my picture.
----------- My comment
Big empty space
----------- Your head
Where is "My comment"? Over the big empty space. Where is "Your head"? Under the big empty space. The implication? My comment went right over your head.
So your reply to the parent went *under* his head?
I've not heard that expression before 'I was being so funny that you didn't notice.... Woosh, It went right under your head.'
You are suggesting that my comment went right under his head. That concludes today's lesson.
2 Quad core 3Ghz CPUs (The Macs have Xeons, but the Dells don't. This is one the few real differences. It explains part of the price difference)
The Dells have Xeons. Only Xeons do multiple CPUs.
A great deal of your "premium" will come from Apple's crazy RAM prices.
No I did not miss any point - I just did not comment on it - basically because I agree with you - monopoly isn't the issue here.
The question is: Can Apple ban anybody from installing MacOS on any other computer. Note that this is a long going problem. Long, long ago I used an product called Aladdin on my Atari ST. Basically you could run MacOS - version 5 I think - on an Atari ST.
Apple did not like it but there was not much they could do as long as the Aladdin user had a set of original MacOS ROMs.
That's long ago and this year I finally bought myself a "real" Mac.
Martin
Also, Toshiba makes good laptops
You had me until here, then I couldn't stop laughing.
You see, I have a Toshiba laptop. Hardware specs are nice, and it is a beast, but it has a rather long list of things that are wrong with it -- not least of which is the complete lack of XP drivers.
Apple's success is not tech or the quality of its products, it is a success built up on branding and marketing.
You're thinking of MySpace.
I'll grant that Apple has always relied heavily on branding and marketing, but they have the tech and the execution to follow through.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
While I'm at it, I noticed you didn't list the dimensions... I've seen a Qosimo laptop, though not this generation. The one I saw was huge. Not a laptop so much as a slightly more portable desktop.
This is part of what I meant by "execution"... I had a Powerbook. The weight and the form factor was such that I could comfortably carry it around, to and from work. The curved corners helped it slide into and out of my bag, without catching.
It's that kind of subtle attention to detail that makes Apple more than just a brand and a marketing team. ...And, in the places they don't care about, it's that lack of attention (at all!) that makes OS X such a pain, if you start doing things they didn't expect. I found some bugs in their keyboard mapping that, to my knowledge, are still not fixed. (I don't use OS X anymore, so I don't know...)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Well, something is different about the CPUs, Dell have an option for a different 3.0 ghz CPU that was about $200 more per processor. I went with the cheaper one, but from what I can tell the Pro used the more expensive one.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Well, something is different about the CPUs, Dell have an option for a different 3.0 ghz CPU that was about $200 more per processor. I went with the cheaper one, but from what I can tell the Pro used the more expensive one.
Given Apple's slow hardware cycle, Dell probably have a newer, slightly different Xeon model (different clock speed, L2 cache, power usage, etc). Since, on their servers at least, the newer Xeons are cheaper than the older ones, that would explain your price discrepancy.
What is missing from apples lineup is an ordinary desktop machine. Apples desktop lineup consists of a SFF machine, an all-in-one and a high end workstation.
So if you want certain features (expansion slots, support for multiple monitors all of your choice, support for more than two monitors, support for more than one internal hard drive etc) that are either standard issue or low cost options on normal desktop PCs your only choices are the very expensive mac pro or the insanely expensive xserve.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Afaict with every big manufacturer the build to order options are a rip-off. Often it is cheaper to replace a part than to take the build to order options.
Of course there is no reason you can't buy a mac pro in near minimum configuration (you would proabblly want to get both CPU sockets filled to make sure you got the coolers for both) and max it out using parts obtained elsewhere (just be carefull to buy ram with mac pro sized heatsinks!)
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I think that the only missing option in Apple's offers is a eSATA port. Time Machine, iMovie and iPhoto use a lot of disk space. Most people's need of upgrade comes from the lack of internal disk space/internal HDD bays. This could be easily fixed with an eSATA port. Even the Mac Mini would be greatly enhanced with this.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
It did not increase when Apple was making clones.
I hate to tell you this, but your friends are not the middle of the bell curve.
Truth be told, your friends' friends, that think they depend on your friends for computer help, are the middle of the bell curve. They are precisely the ones Jobs is holding out for. A bit at a time, the see the hassles your friends put themselves through for exactly what it is, and recognizing that they don't need it.
And your friends are eventually going to come to their senses and either offload the technical periphernalia they don't need, or come to their senses and run Linux.
I myself want Apple to sell niche boxes, PPC powered NAS+ boxes, ARM powered ultra-portables in the eeepc class, dedicated word processors (laptop with built-in printer) for the Japanese market, router boxes you can load your own OS on, ...
But that's not the way Jobs sees things, apparently.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.