macnn
05/06/2008, 4:30pm, EDT
Tuesday, May 6th
Another Mac-clone maker surfaces on eBay
Psystar's flagrant disregard of Apple's licensing agreement has opened the proverbial floodgates for individuals selling non-Apple Mac OS X systems, with a seller by the name of "chris555" offering $550 clones of his own design. AppleInsider reveals that the individual has configured a similar setup to that of Psystar, with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of DDR2 667MHz RAM, 250GB hard drive, a 20X DVD burner, and an Intel GMA 950 graphics card.
The system reportedly runs a genuine copy of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and "chris555" has built two such systems, which are available on eBay.
Apple has remained silent in regards to Psystar, which is unusual for a company that is typically quick to slap down unofficial products which offer vast similarities to those that it makes. Apple's silence could relate to the perception that refusing to allow an operating system to run on hardware of a user's choice constitutes antitrust behavior. Precedent was set in the matter by the US Circuit Court of Appeals in 1984, while the US Supreme Court allegedly refuses to review the case.
Filed under: industry
Other story tags: Mac OS X, Psystar, clone, eBay
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Stop the presses!
Someone's selling something of questionable validity on eBay!!! What next! E-mail that CLAIMS to be from a Nigerian foreign minister, and it isn't???
Pricing
Looking at the specs and the cost of the Mac OS I can't see how you would make any money with this.
Who is would buy this?
All it takes is an Apple update and these systems could be rendered useless. Apple reserves the right to do this because they are not required to support these systems and I fully hope they do. Both the illegal cloners and the people that have tried to get away cheap deserve it!
Re: Pricing
Do you really thing that Chris555 is going to ship an actual retail version of Mac OS X with the system? Of course not, he'll either not send an OS disk at all or at the best he will make a dvd copy and print an inkjet label on top of it.
Legal precedent of 1984?
MacNN, what are you referring to? If this is Apple v. Formula International, then neither has it any bearing on this case, nor did the District Court of Appeals overturn the original verdict (it was affirmed). The injunction against Formula stood. They were in fact trying to sell a computer similar to Apple II, but they supposedly wrote their own operating system that was compatible with Apple's.
Let's also not forget that we are now more than twenty years away from that verdict. Operating systems are now significantly more complex than back then.
Either way, there is no way Apple could be silent as a consequence of the 1984 verdict; if anything, they could use that as one of many precedents to build their own case against Psystar.
anyone who buys
this kind of machine from some dude on eBay will get exactly what they deserve.
no market
There's no market for hackintosh builders. Either people prefer to build the thing themselves and install hacked OS X or they do not want the hassle and so they buy a thing that just works out of the box. Can you say "just works" about Psystar machines? Will you say "just works" a couple of updates later? And people are supposed to install updates, because unlike they have it in Windows world a good chunk of software requires latest version of OS X. And people will buy a Mac.
updates
Apple indeed won't support these clones but i don't think that they will target these machines with the updates, its to risky and it won't stop this market. Some DELL laptops only need a EFI update to act as a Mac, some machines are 99,9% compatible. If anything, this is a sign that the Mac-market is growing to be big.
Cheated? Game Over, Loser
As ever, Apple will update the OS and brick the clones. In the case of these eBay clones, the suckers who buy them won't know what hit them. Boohoo. Psystar, however, advise their suckers to wait for officially approved Psystar compatible updates. Should Psystar alter a Mac OS X update in any way, THEN Apple can sue off their butts with ease. This anti-trust hardware exclusion legal boogie monster may be out there, but without question it is forever illegal to alter the proprietary published work of anyone then provide the result to others.
Conclusion: Darn! Your clone only runs 10.5.2. Oh, and Psystar was sued into bankruptcy. You own a white elephant museum piece. EnJoY!
gone from ebay
Chris555 clones have been removed-sold or "told"?