OpeniMac is now selling Mac clones

First of all, from the position I'm writing from, I admit to some bias against Apple. I built computers all my life, I earn my living from consultancy, servicing and so on. As such, I had ample dealings with the generic PC world and the wonderfully horrid world of Apple. Well, I actually was an Apple fan, up to the point when it threw out everything "Apple", and went into the world of generic x86 hardware. Up to that point I went through all kinds of hell to get Apple hardware (I live in East Europe, not a really good market for big A), but after the change... Well, why would I pay extra, for a normal PC which happens to be in a stylish case? Because lets face it, fanboys included, Apple is nothing more. Generic pc hardware crammed into a closed system. Overpriced closed system, with the only difference being the allmighty MacOS.

What is Apple selling exactly? From my point of view, it is selling the IDEA of being different, of being trendy, of being stylish. And yes, it is all that, except the "different" part. People buy it out of wanting to belong to a community, to a trend, to a style.

Now, lets get to facts: an Apple iMac, 20'', Intel C2D, 2gigs of ram, 320 gb, Ati Radeon 2600 with 256 ram. Bought it for Xmas, girlfriend wanted one. It set me back around XXXX USD. Lets face it, in terms of performance its a pretty middle-to low-end computer, at least in my part of the world. Well kids, for that kind of cash, this summer I built myself a quad-core monster, featuring terrabyte hard drives, 8 gigs of ram and all sorts of goodies.

So...remind me...why in the world would I buy Apple? For the questionable honour of "driving" MacOS? Hehehe, no way.

Liquidmark: What nearly killed Apple as a company before Jobs' revamp of the product line was offering too many vaguely labeled models (to this day, I have no idea of the difference between the 7x00 and the 8x00 model lines) and running an OS which was unable to cope with the demands of modern computing. The old Classic UI was quite good, but the guts of the system were lacking. If anything, Apple was saved by the shift to OS X. I hardly think that offering its customers a few more model options, or maybe just an easily upgradable Mac Mini (the current one is a joke, and basically a dumping ground for leftover Macbook parts) or iMac is going to put Apple in the gutter again.

I live in Argentina.
.com.ar domains are free here, and this particular one was created a month ago, I guess this is a succesful joke more suited for april 1st.
The prices shown are really expensive by local standards. My 2 cents (of peso)

Apple has technical means to block x86 if they want to. They can raise the price of OSx, change the install disks, add code to check for Apple specific hardware, and whatnot.

I must say that Apple's hardware for tower computers is lacking. I don't want a Mac Pro -- its too much for what I do. I want something with more muscle than a Mac Mini, and I already have a monitor, so I don't need an iMac.

If Apple would only release a lower-end Mac Pro like they did back in the PowerMac days, the market for clones would disappear.

Hell, just take the guts of the iMac, revamp it with the MacBook Pro NVidia chipset and release it as a beefier Mac Mini and I'd be happy.

cool.

check this article -

Apple MacBook Pro MA895LL-A Laptop For Developers -

http://www.techreviews4u.com/?p=1822

Wow! Another accompanies to Pystar. I dont know why people like to spend time with Apple's lawyers.....

But I'd still go for the Mac mini as I can have 100% compatibility and Apple support.

"As for their looks ... no one said clones had to be pretty."
Well, if the original is pretty, and the clone isn't... it must not be a clone, but a cheap rip-off. ;-)

NIce post. BEFORE Engadget... well written... funny... Welcome Back, TUAW.

If Apple would just produce an entry level tower I think they'd go a long way towards quieting the cloning market without legal action. I'm not suggesting they offer up a reasonably priced expandable system (because let's face it, this is Apple) but at least offer a tower under $3,000.

As it stands users like myself, who'd been purchasing entry level towers for over a decade, currently have no product options whatsoever. My choices with Apple are a $1500 dead-end all-in-one or a ridiculously over-priced (or over powered depending on your point of view) $3,000 tower.

Is there any real mystery why clones are appealing? Right now I can build a quad-core system with a terabyte of storage, 6gb ram and a 512MB video card for about $700. And let me tell you, it's tempting. Truth be told, though, I'd buy the same system from Apple at double the price - if they only offered it.