Mac Cloner Psystar Ships First Service Pack 468
Preedit writes "Not only is Mac clone maker Psystar continuing to defy Apple's ban on third-party Leopard installations, it's supporting the hardware with updates. Psystar Mac clones shipped as of Monday will include a 'service pack' that features fixes for a range of problems, some of them inherent in Apple's own software, according to InformationWeek. The fixes address a range of troubles, from glitches in Apple's Time Machine backup feature to quirks in the Keyboard Viewer and Character Palette entries in Leopard's system preferences menu. There's also support for the latest version of Java and other updates. According to the story, by offering a full menu of support, Psystar appears to be daring Apple to attempt to enforce provisions in the Leopard license agreement that forbid third-party installations and sales." We've been discussing Psystar clones for a while.
Once Again... (Score:3, Interesting)
Slow News Day? (Score:3, Interesting)
From TFA:
To me it seems more like daring suckers to send their credit-card information to a fairly shady operation. As in the last slashdot article on Psystar, has anyone besides a few high-profile writers with 'protoypes' actually seen a Psystar -- in the wild, so to speak? InfoWeek cribbed a breif website notice and apparently created a whole 'article piece' based on it
Anway... Instead of becoming a noble defender of user's EULA rights, it seems far more likely they'll take the submitted order money and disappear into the night.
Apple doing nothing is best response (Score:5, Interesting)
... medium size ones..? (Score:4, Interesting)
Andy
Re:Slow News Day? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dell doesn't sell a Mini competitor, and Apple doesn't sell a headless low or mid-end desktop tower, so those products were impossible to compare.
Apple's MacBook line, iMac line, and Pro line are all very comparable - even cheaper right after a refresh - to their Dell counterparts.
Go try it
Please stop calling it a clone! (Score:5, Interesting)
This box is NOT a clone, it is a hackintosh [wikipedia.org]. Please refer to it as such, but not a clone. A true clone would have EFI firmware, not EFI emulation. It would require no hacks to install OS X, it would cleanly install and be recognized by the OS.
I believe this would actually be a desirable system if it really were a clone... but with that fan noise problem and all, how many people would really want one?
Re:Apple doesn't dare sue them (Score:3, Interesting)
More likely, Apple will stop selling their OS as a boxed product.
No, all they have to do is stamp the words "Upgrade: for computers with OS X 10.3 or earlier only" on the box - which is effectively what they're selling anyway. If a court decided to rule that illegal it would set some very interesting precedents for Microsoft et. al.
Wasn't the ruling in the recent Skype vs. the GPL case (where they tried to use antitrust law) something along the lines that, if a copyright holder wanted to specify that their software should only be distributed in a green envelope, such was their right?
Plus, this bunch are re-distributing the software in a "new binding" (i.e. on a shiny new Psystar computer rather than an Apple CD) so I doubt they would have the same potential "one sided contract/first sale" defenses against a EULA as a regular punter might.
Apple doesn't have to be the one... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bet ten to one (Score:3, Interesting)
One of three things can happen (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple can sue Psystar and seek to get legal enforcement to EULA that right now has the illusion of authority. If they lose, they null and void all the EULA's in existence. Sometimes the illusion is effective enough.
Apple can make a deal with Psystar by liscensing the OS or buying out the company. That action will only encourage further cloning
The more likely action is Apple will wait an see the impact on the hardware business while planning on instituting a technological barrier for 10.6. Right now, these guys are selling systems that are not competing in Apple's price point nor are those can Psystar competing on quality. Also, Apple's hardware sales are higher than they ever been. Moreover, Apple isn't responsible to support the clones or the OS but still gets revenue from the sale of the OS. Eventually these guys will start to cut into Apple's computers business, however, it will probably happen right around 10.6 release.
Re:Much as I hate to defend Apple's prices... (Score:2, Interesting)
I create pretty complex and effects-heavy videos using Final Cut and Motion on my middle of the road iMac; the card is fine for anyone who isn't making Pixar movies or playing the very latest FPS. (Oddly, the two have pretty much the same system requirements.)
The idea that you need to upgrade your video every 6 months to a year is one of the worst things to happen to the PC. It's certainly the reason gaming is a shell of what it once was.
If I were (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Much as I hate to defend Apple's prices... (Score:2, Interesting)
That said, you're right though. Many who complain about Apple's pricing fail to make appropriate comparisons. The closest Dell to a Mac Pro is the Precision Workstation. The Mac Pro is not an el-cheapo Dimension/Inspiron.
Apple just doesn't do bargain basement. Even their "budget" Mini has gigabit ethernet, firewire, bluetooth, IR, DVI, optical audio and wifi.
-- Rob
The problem is (Score:5, Interesting)
Thus it is overpriced if you don't need the hardware they are trying to push. They don't have a mid range tower at all.
You can go down to their all in ones, but of course those come with their own problems. A big one would be why do I want to get a nice monitor, if I am going to have to get rid of it when the computer attached to it is obsolete? Monitors last longer than computers, particularly nice ones. You get a nice 24" IPS LCD, man, that's a keeper for a long time. However, the computer is going to get outdated at the same rate all computers do, which is to say fairly quickly. So if you buy the all in ones, you have to get a monitor every time you want a computer upgrade.
That's a waste of money to most of us. Pretty much everyone I know keeps their monitors well past their computers. Either they buy cheap monitors, in which case they generally keep them until they break because they don't want to spend any more money on a display than they have to, or they buy good monitors, and they keep them because the monitor is still a good monitor and works for many years.
I have a nice 26" IPS panel that I plan on keeping probably until it fails. Hell, first thing to go out on it will be the backlight, and I can and most likely will buy new tubes and a new ballast and replace it. It's a great display and when the day comes that I retire it from my primary system, it'll work very nicely on my guest system. No reason to throw it away in a couple years. However if it were tied to my computer, well that's what would happen. I upgrade my system very regularly. My monitor though, that lasts.
So that's where the complaints against Apple's price tend to come from. It isn't that they are necessarily bad if you do a straight 1:1 comparison. It is that they don't offer many choices, and one of the choices they exclude is one of the most popular choices: consumer desktop/tower and separate monitor. People like that choice, and businesses REALLY like that choice. If you want a separate monitor, you either have to get a very low end system, with no upgradability (mini) or an amazingly powerful workstation (pro). Nothing in the middle range. Thus for most people, the pro is what they'd look at and it is expensive.
Show me a mac tower with a single dual core processor and regular DDR2 RAM and then we can talk. Until then the choices are a system that isn't powerful or expandable enough or a system that is overpriced.
Re:OS X EULA text, interpretation (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as you're looking for interesting ways to read the end user license agreement, isn't that a license between Apple and the end user? PsyStar is reselling the OS, not using it.
Re:These guys have balls (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Much as I hate to defend Apple's prices... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Much as I hate to defend Apple's prices... (Score:2, Interesting)
I like the Air because of the beauty and the size. As a travel buddy it would be ideal for me. (I'm quite often on the road.) I figure it would be a lot less effort to simply use a Mac but I simply don't prefer it. I don't like KDE or Gnome either really. And, again, it isn't from lack of trying or from me not being open-minded. I simply prefer the Windows layout/method/experience. At home that is my OS of choice. (Specifically Windows XP Professional Edition but Vista's good enough if you turn off all the new features.)
Right now I tote around an older HP that doesn't weigh a whole lot but is beat to crap through the past year's abuses and beer spills. The Air is really impressive and the size/performance makes me really want one. I would say that Jobs And Crew have done an excellent job (no pun intended) at realizing and capitalizing on the idea that when people find something that they really want they will find the money to pay for it without regard to the markup. They make very high quality hardware and great aesthetic choices.
Hmm... I wonder if I can put Windows on it (without the Mac OS) and not need bootcamp. I should look into that. Hmm... I wonder if I do then if I can go get a refund like the people buying OEM Microsoft products who then turn around and use a different operating system? *g*
Re:How the hell... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Apple doesn't dare sue them (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that even in that kind of case, you'd have to define the market as operating systems that can run on intel machines. Even if you narrowed it to just the configuration that psystar is selling, that would still put windows as the dominant os for the market. I think it would be unlikely that anyone would suggest mac os has a monopoly influence over a hardware platform it wont even run on without an emulation layer for the bios.
I'm not trying to be belligerent, i'm just curious what definition of the market you feel would make anti-trust law relevant in this case.
Maybe i'm taking your argument backwards and you are defining the market as hardware platforms that can run mac os?
Re:Much as I hate to defend Apple's prices... (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's see; no c&d from Apple Legal, Apple gets their cut for the OS, Apple looks like the good guy by letting someone "stick it to the man", This isn't hurting their margins.
Where's the downside for Steve? Maybe this is Apple's way of testing the waters?
exagerating apple prices (Score:3, Interesting)
"One version of Psystar's Open Computer features Apple's Leopard OS X 10.5 operating system ported onto generic PC hardware that includes anIntel (NSDQ: INTC) Core2Duo processor at 2.66 GHz, a 250 GB hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT graphics card.
The system is priced at $804.99. A similar, Apple-branded computer could cost more than $2,000. "
They are here comparing their core2due based system, to the mac pros which *8 core harpertown xeon* system with a 1600 mhz bus and 800 mhz memory. They aren't in the same class, the mac pros are heavy duty workstations, and what they are selling are dinky gaming boxes.
The mac pro processor, straight from intel, costs *alone* more than these guys entire system. So the comparison isn't even close to valid.
The truth is that apple's higher end stuff has maybe a 10 or 20% markup over what you could get form dell *with the same hardware*. People often look at the 2000 or 3000 dollar computers and think they are overpriced, but what they aren't taking into account is that apple tends to use very expensive components, like the 1600 mhz bus harpertowns (most expensive cpu on the market), 800 mhz ram, maybe a raid card so you can use SAS harddrives.
The mid to low end systems and the laptops are actually the systems where you are really paying the apple tax; however, even there it's never a 5 times the cost of the competition like they are claiming.
The main problem the lineup apple has is that it has a limited range of products. They have good options for the low end, and the very high end, but they don't have the cheap but upgradeable desktops that gamers like, and they don't offer a whole lot in the server market (they have *1* model of server).
Really, since gaming on the mac sucks anyway, what I'd like to see is some kind of generic osx for servers, or at least a better darwin that's actually usable. That way, you could develop on real mac dev machines, and deploy to a darwin server.
Re:Much as I hate to defend Apple's prices... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Much as I hate to defend Apple's prices... (Score:3, Interesting)
Dell has fingerprint reader, white LED screen, bigger hard drive, with option for SSD, better remote which isn't £15 extra, options for faster processors up to 2.6ghz, integrated mobile broadband option, card reader, more speaker jacks, array microphones, metal finishes and a larger keyboard.
Macbook has S-video/composite out.