Beige Box Apple Clone?

steve.m writes "Finally it looks like I'll be able to get a cheap box to run MacOSX on, but not from Apple! John Fraser is (sort of) getting into the clone business 5 years after Apple shut down their 3 year long 'experiment' in licensing the hardware. Based on off the shelf apple components in a custom pizza box style case with no bolted on display, a barebones 'iBox' will be around 300 USD and require a processor, disk and memory (and the OS). Complete systems (again, without the OS) should start at around 650 USD."

Re:What will you run on it?

[JabberWokky]

Had you read the article, he's using Apple motherboards - bought from Apple. You know - "Apple Hardware".

--
Evan

Re:Doesn't sound that special

[nath_o_brien]

So I'm not sure what you are gaining over a regular Mac

What you are gaining? Not having to spend all the cash you'd pay for an Apple for a start...

looks really professional

[asv108]

Take a look at the website [2khappyware.com], besides the illustration this thing looks really suspect. The archive of the site [archive.org] doesn't help either. I have no doubt that someone can build a box with spare parts, but manufacturing it and selling is a whole other story. Journalists will print anything if it will sell. Especially Wired journalists who are willing to write an article about anything as long as it involves a mac.

Misleading title

[binaryDigit]

This is not really a Mac "clone". It's simply using used Mac parts and repackaging them. It's not like the PC market where you can build a NEW and current pc. Hardly a beige box like clone. People have been doing this for years, I have a repackaged Mac SE (it's in a rack mount case) from way back when.

Re:Apple's business model

[Millennium]

I don't believe there is any money to be made from hardware sales. The profit margin is too small.
Apple's margins on its machines averaged 28% across all lines last quarter. Highest margins in the industry by an absurd degree. They seem to be doing fairly well with that.

Re:What will you run on it?

[w1r3sp33d]

Yellow Dog Linux, thanks.

Re:What about VMWare?

[Ponty]

Only the lower parts of the OS are open source. As a result, the other parts are binary form only and that is compiled for PPC.

Re:Bring your own CPU

[TheRaven64]

he's not providing the CPU? What's the fucking point then?

From the article:

Fraser will build full-featured configurations to customers' specifications. A fully loaded iBox will cost between $650 and $2,000, depending on the speed of the chip, the size of the hard drive and other features. He plans to offer configurations with dual processors, just as Apple does in its current line of PowerMacs.

So, yes, he will supply CPUs, but if you can get PPCs direct from Motorola / IBM, or a reseller cheaper, then you can plug your own one in.

Re:attack of the clones

[slyguy420]

You can already build your own Powermac G4, requires quite a bit of modding to get everything to line up... but it will work

http://www.macopz.com/buildamac/

shades of MagicSac...

[The Lynxpro]

Had this guy owned an Atari ST way-back-when, he'd know the problems of relying upon Apple parts meant for repairs. Many Atari ST owners bought the MagicSac and SpectreGCR Mac emulators which consisted of a cartridge that you bought and plugged in Apple Mac OS Rom chips, and then slid it into the Atari ST's cartridge port. They were great. You could have a far more powerful Macintosh (and the ST was more powerful to begin with) at a savings of more than half the cost of an actual Macintosh. When Atari brought out its laptop (the STacy), with the emulators, it became the first Macintosh laptop. This infuriated Apple, and they threatened to sue any Mac repair shop/dealership that actually sold Mac Roms to people not actually requiring repairs... The better route to a Mac clone is to get IBM and Nvidia to produce an NForce type mobo chipset for the PowerPC 970 under the guise of having another platform to run Linux on with a 64bit chip and no chance of Palladium being placed in the BIOS (since AMD and Intel are both vying for the Microsoft payments). Then someone could come out with a hack for OS X Panther to run on it without shutting down due to not detecting an Apple BIOS or whatever protection scheme they have cooked up... It would be pretty funny; IBM turning the clone strategy on some other company. But then again, this would cater to the PC enthusiast market who do not normally buy Apple anyways, and as long as they actually purchased the OS and didn't pirate it, this would benefit Apple tremendously...

Lost sales and/or lower profits for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Had you read the article, you'd know he is using motherboards Apple sells for repair and spare part purposes. Manufacturers supply boards like that with much lower than retail markup because they're intended to serve its existing user base.

So future Apple consumers will have a choice: Buy an Apple system from Apple for $N, of which X% is profit for apple. Or buy an Apple clone from someone else for less than $N, of which less than X% (of a much lower amount) is profit for Apple. This doesn't exactly pad Apple's bottom line like they need it right now. I'm all for competition, but this could cannibalize Apple's revenues at a time they need all the help they can get.

Re:clones are bad

[evilviper]

I've heard this story before... I don't know how people can actually believe it.

He is using Apple hardware and sticking it in a different box... How is that going to make it difficult for OSX to find the firewire port and the camera connected to it? You do realize that software doesn't have to know the PHYSICAL LOCATION of the firewire port don't you? :-)

The hardware will be the same, hence the drivers will be the same, and all the software will work the same. In fact, even if the hardware was different, installing the proper drivers is all that is required to get it to work exactly the same. In other words, you could replace the Superdrive with some other burner, and as long as you have some way of installing the proper drivers for the new burner, it should operate identically to the Superdrive.

Re:Lost sales and/or lower profits for Apple

[Krow10]

JabberWocky wrote:

Had you read the article, he's using Apple motherboards - bought from Apple. You know - "Apple Hardware".

To which some AC Responded:

Had you read the article, you'd know he is using motherboards Apple sells for repair and spare part purposes. Manufacturers supply boards like that with much lower than retail markup because they're intended to serve its existing user base. ...

Technically correct. This has nothing to do with the point that JabberWocky was addressing; namely, this statement by (perhaps some other) AC:

Apparently nobody is aware that Mac OS X CAN'T BE RUN (legally) on non-Apple hardware?

See, since this is Apple hardware, running software that has a "you can't run this on non-Apple hardware" clause in it's license does not violate that clause of the license.

-C

Re:clones are good

[pi radians]

What are you talking about. IBM didn't "open" their architecture to other companies. Quick history lesson:

From ExtremeTech.com [extremetech.com]:
Compaq, on the other hand, was the first "PC clone" company. It's a term that sounds rather quaint today. At the time, though, Compaq sent a shudder through the industry. Compaq reverse-engineered the IBM PC BIOS without ever looking at the BIOS code. That was harder than you might think, because IBM actually published the assembly code for the PC BIOS in its technical reference manuals. Compaq was able to prove that its engineers never looked at the code or disassembled the original BIOS to come up with their own.

This would probably never happen in today's lawsuit-happy technology industry. Today's IBM might sue a Compaq just to run the clock out. But back then, IBM--perhaps still skittish after its own set of antitrust battles with the Justice Department--kept quiet. Compaq opened the floodgates, and a host of PC compatibles soon hit the streets, and the PC industry was never quite the same small, insular community.

IBM didn't want this to happen.

Apple's hardware, on the other hand, is pretty open. The firmware [openfirmware.org], the motherboards [ibm.com], and a lot more. The only thing you can't use is their ROM without their permission. And they will sue the second someone tries to.

Re:attack of the clones -- NOT --

[ygbsm]

He's not really building clones . . . he's simply repacking Macs . . . if he takes a Biege G3 ZIF motherboard and puts it in a box with no memory, hard drive or processor . . . what's he really doing?

Clones implies different (compatible) hardware, the original Mac clones were great becuase they actually pushed apple in areas they probably wouldn't have moved too (at least under the leadership at the time).

This guy just sounds like someone destined to go out of business.

I really think the article is worded wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

A clone is something that is made to be compatible with an existing model base, but in fact is physically different hardware. These are simply repackaged Mac hardware (motherboards) that this guy is reselling. Nothing more. It would be like me going out and buying a iMac then possibly upgrading the the processor, then putting it one of my own custom cases.

These are not clones in any way.

Re:clones are bad

[mslinux]

I don't want to pay Apple's prices, but I'd like to run a PPC.

I just bought an 700Mhz ibook with a 30GB hdd and an airport card for $ 1,078.00. The Apple Care plan costed me an extra $187.00. An entry level Dell laptop (that had a 799.00 base price) would have costed me roughly $100.00 more than the ibook after getting service and support comparable to Apple Care. The only difference between the two laptops was proc speed... the Dell was a 1.4Ghz.

I love my ibook. It runs Debian PPC GNU/Linux, MacOS 9 and MacOS X. Everything works right out of the box with no fighting with stupid driver conflicts like cheap x86 hardware has. I can reinstall either MacOS in less than 30 mins and it's just like it was from the factory. I've never had an x86 laptop that could do that.

So, before slamming Apple's prices, compare a bit. Sure, they cost more than cheap x86 HW and yes, they are slower. But, they're better built, they have no HW/SW conflicts, and they're a hell of a lot nicer to look at.

Re:clones are bad

[Lproven]

You can already get inexpensive PowerPC home computers. The Pegasos [domicile.fr] is shipping now and the Amiga One [amiga.com] is nearly ready - weeks away from shipping, if Eyetech is to be believed.