Continued

 

 August 20, 2008: PCMech Radio [4:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As Rich reported yesterday, Apple finally got around to filing a lawsuit against Psystar. The lawsuit was filed in the northern district of California and alleges all of the obvious charges, including license infringement, copyright violation, etc.

Psystar very blatantly entered this market - almost as if they were wishing they’d get sued. They very blatantly poked Apple in the eyes and started selling hackintoshes. The only mystery is what took Apple so long to react.

But, filing a lawsuit isn’t enough. Now Apple is asking Psystar to issue a recall on all the Mac clones they sold since Psystar’s debut in April. “Psystar’s actions have been committed with intent to damage Apple and to confuse and deceive the public,” Apple claims (according to ZDNET). “As a direct and proximate result of Psystar’s infringing conduct, Apple has suffered and will continue to suffer lost sales and profits in an amount not yet fully ascertained in an amount to be proven at trial.”

IT goes to show that Apple is going for the jugular on this one. However, a recall isn’t practical. People paid money for Psystar systems (bonehead move, but they did). Do you really think somebody who purchased a system is going to send it back? So, a recall is likely wishful thinking.

Winning the lawsuit, however, is not. I expect Apple to wipe the floor with Psystar in court.

Apple. Who else?

From the Captain Obvious and Duh Files, sources say (as if there weren’t enough of them) that Psystar has been sued so bad they’ll be owing money to Apple well into the next century (give or take a decade).

Steve Jobs himself has said that the reason people want a Mac is because of OS X. And he’s right. Granted, the box looks nice and all that jazz, but the utilization of the hardware inside (which is what counts) is from OS X itself. But you need a true-blue Mac to experience what OS X is all about.

I make it no secret that I’m not a Mac person. But if I were, I’d never buy a cloned Mac. Ever. The packaging, design and execution of Apple products can only be experienced when you specifically buy Apple products and not cheap knock-offs.

More or less everyone universally agrees that Psystar was asking to get sued into oblivion. Well, they got their wish.

In what seems like an even more deliberate attempt to rile Apple, Mac-clone maker Psystar is now releasing a “service pack”.

Out of the many drawbacks to the Psystar hardware, one of the biggies was that you couldn’t get updates from Apple. Why? Because you’re essentially running a hacked computer. And just like you really can’t get Windows updates when running pirated Windows, you couldn’t get Apple updates because you’re more or less running a pirated version of OS X (not really, but for all practical purposes, you are).

So, what does Psystar do? Release a service pack, of course! “Safe updates, as well as bug fixes and workarounds, are now available,” Psystar said in a note Monday on its Web site.

The update can be downloaded from the Psystar website and will be integrated automatically with all hackintoshes shipped by the company as of this last Monday.

When I hear updates to this story, I get pictures of David running all around the ankles of Goliath, trying to piss him off and crapping on his shoes. Psystar is blatantly doing pretty much everything they shouldn’t be doing and they are doing it with a big grin across their faces.

Source: InformationWeek

Gizmodo has a true-blue video of a real Psystar box with OS X running.

And yes it’s is OSx86 Project OS X that’s running on the box. Now you know.

The only people who really care about the Psystar are Mac owners (including Dave).

Personally speaking this is not really a hot item to me, but evidently this is news.

So.. what can be said about the Psystar?

• It’s a computer box.
• It’s loud.
• You could build one much cheaper than buying one.
• Um.. that’s it.

What people have been taking from this (aside from the full-on Apple-EULA breaking aspect) is that maybe Apple should consider licensing their OS to companies other than their own.

Well.. what can be said about that? Dell has been wooing Apple for years almost begging to build Apple-compliant boxes for them. And yes I am one of those people that truly believe Dell could build a great Mac.

Before you Mactards out there rip me to shreds for the above, consider this:

How cool it would be if you could get same-day on-site support for your Mac? No more lugging (or shipping) the Mac out when it breaks (and yes, they do). You call support, a tech comes out and fixes your Mac - at your home or business. How cool would that be? Very cool. Dell can do that for individual purchases. Apple absolutely, positively won’t (even with AppleCare).

Wouldn’t you rather see an officially licensed stringent-QC spec Apple-approved Mac built by a known manufacturer instead of a company like Psystar?

You want more people using more Macs? You need better deployment. Apple (with the exception of educational institution delivery) completely sucks in that department. Dell on the other hand has the resources at-the-ready to do it - right now.

I don’t want to hear one word from any Mactard saying “I’d NEVER buy a Mac built by Dell!” because all you guys said the EXACT same thing right before Intel processors were put in Macs over the previous-gen Motorola procs. I heard more than a few Mac-faithful state “Intel in a Mac just isn’t right! It’s too ‘Microsoft’!” Well, we all know what happened. The Intel proc was put in the Mac and it absolutely destroyed the previous-gen Moto proc. Have you noticed how no Mactard now calls PCs “Wintels” anymore? It’s because they can’t since Macs now use Intel procs.

Trust me, you want Dell to build Mac computers instead of have a EULA-breaking Psystar box as your only alternative to running a box with OS X.

The Mac faithful get sick to their stomach if you mention “Dell” and “Apple” in the same sentence. However if they were willing to pull their heads out of their butts for a moment, they’d realized a Dell-built Mac would look absolutely identical to a Chinese Mac and have the same QC spec. And yes, in case you weren’t aware, many Macs are delivered direct from China. At least with a Dell-built computer they’d be built, housed and delivered just a tad closer to home.

Also consider that Dell isn’t 100% Microsoft with their boxes. Perhaps you weren’t aware they already sell boxes with Ubuntu installed? So you can’t claim Dell is “Microsoft only” territory either.

Think about it. Psystar or Dell? The choice is obvious. And no, “neither” isn’t an answer. People are going to continue to build EULA-breaking OS X boxes. Better to go with the established company (that would be within EULA) rather than a small outfit that builds loud obnoxious substandard boxes.