Don't miss Joystiq's up-to-the-minute live coverage of E3!
Posts with tag Psystar

Apple demands Psystar recall Mac clones

We noted yesterday that the Mac clone maker, Psystar, was sued by Apple for copyright infringement, among other things. According to a recent ZDNet post, Apple wants Psystar to recall all of the Mac clones sold since April. "Psystar's actions have been committed with intent to damage Apple and to confuse and deceive the public," Apple claims.

"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," Apple notes.

I really don't see how Psystar will be able to recover all of the Mac clones sold since April. But, if you bought one, would you send it back? I certainly wouldn't. Engadget, our sister blog, is also looking deeply into this high-profile lawsuit. They take a look at what each allegation means for both Apple and Psystar.

Apple sues Psystar for license violations, copyright infringement


Like we didn't see this one coming: Apple is suing Psystar for copyright infringement. Psystar is the interesting little startup Mac-clone maker who allowed Mac OS X to run on their systems without the consent of Apple. In its license agreement, you are not allowed to run Mac OS X on any non-Apple hardware.

Apple filed the complaint in a federal district court in California saying that Psystar violated its shrink-wrap license and trademarks. Apple is also alleging copyright infringement. In recent months, Psystar had begun cloning Mac OS X servers, which definitely made us feel a little uneasy about this small company.

[via Engadget]

Psystar tests luck with OpenServ rackmount servers



Amazingly, the commercial hackintosh maker Psystar (whose efforts in building non-Apple machines running OS X we've covered at some length) still hasn't been beat down by Apple Legal and now they're back for more. They are releasing the OpenServ series of rackmount servers which they offer with a variety of OSes including OS X Leopard Server.

There are two models: the 1U OpenServ 1100 (starting $1599) and the 2U OpenServ 2400 (starting $1999) either of which can be purchased with OS X Leopard Server pre-installed for an extra $155 (no clients), $525 (10 clients), or $1025 (unlimited clients). This machines are obviously in direct competition with Apple's Xserve. Frankly, I'm amazed that Psystar is still in business, and they keep pressing their luck. I wonder if this will be enough to push Apple over the edge.

[via Gizmodo]

EFiX USB dongle for installing OS X on a regular PC

A while back the Mac web was abuzz about Psystar, the first commercially available hackintosh. Now comes EFiX, an USB dongle that will supposedly allow you "to install Mac OS X straight from the original DVD [onto a regular PC] without having to worry about patches, replacing files and anything like that." Above you can see a video from netkas.org partially demonstrating a PC booting a MacBook repair disc.

They say the product is in "the final testing phase," with release planned for June 23, 2008. Whether Apple's lawyers will ever let this see the light of day is something else entirely.

[via Gizmodo]

ZDNet: Benchmarking the Psystar Open Computer

It's a big day for the Psystar Open Computer -- the quasi-Mac clone based on PC hardware and a cracked version of Mac OS X. ZDNet today published their comparison of the Open Computer with a Mac mini, and all three flavors of MacBook.

The results? The Open Computer fares pretty well against all of its Mac cousins. It scored nearly 147 with Xbench 1.3.

It beats the Mac mini, its closest price competitor, by nearly 50 percent. The Open Computer outperforms even a MacBook Pro (with a 2.4GHz Penryn processor) by 10 points. Not too shabby at all, if you can stand the sound of a jet airplane on your desk (Just kidding. Apparently the noise isn't too bad).

ZDNet promises results using GeekBench soon. UPDATE: the GeekBench results are here, and the Open Computer still leads most of the Macs, but by a narrower margin. The MacBook Pro, though, edged out the Psystar 3327 to 3244.

Engadget goes hands-on with a Psystar

Earlier this month, Psystar announced their intention to sell Leopard-ready, Core 2 Duo minitowers for $399US. The announcement drew a lot of attention, including that of Apple Legal.

Still, a few machines have arrived in the wild, and yesterday some lucky owner posted a very brief video of his Psystar hackintosh booting. That was interesting enough, but check this out. Our friends at Engadget have gotten their hands on one, and intend to put it through the ringer. Performance tests, software, hardware, you name it. Right now, they've got some great unboxing photos up.

As for testing, they're open for suggestions. Have you got a certain test in mind? Drop them a line and perhaps they'll try it out for you. Have at it!

Video of Psystar's Mac clone

Much has been written about whether or not Psystar's Mac clone, the Open Computer, actually exists, let alone if it's legal. A Gizmodo reader sent in some video of his Open Computer booting up and running Leopard. Software Update doesn't work, and the chances of Apple supporting this thing are less than zero.

I'm not against the idea of Mac clones (though I doubt Apple will ever officially sanction it) but if I were in the market for a Mac clone I would want one that was well built. As soon as the Open Computer is turned on the fan is running at full tilt, and it is far from whisper quiet. That's not exactly the mark of craftsmanship.

What say you, TUAW readers, is a super loud fan and boring case design outweighed by the savings and customization that a Mac clone offers up versus gear from Apple?

Psystar: What's the French Word for Lawsuit?

Yesterday, Mike posted about the new commercial hackintosh from Psystar. Many of our readers noted that, wow, that was a lawsuit waiting to happen -- or as Fake Steve put it, Psystar is French for "We're about to go out of business". Update 11 am Tuesday: InformationWeek is reporting that Psystar believes that Apple's EULA is anticompetitive and violates US monopoly laws. Interesting.

Here are a few of the high points that TUAW is aware of:

The Mac name Using "Mac" in the product name was probably a bad idea. Psystar just re-named the platform to "Open Computer" instead.

Pre-installing Leopard It would seem that installing Leopard on non-Apple hardware is a violation of Apple's EULA. Virtualization vendors such as Parallels and VMware have already acknowledged this constraint in their product development; otherwise, both would offer VMs capable of running Leopard on any PC and not just on Mac OS X Server.

Unlicensed PC_EFI It looks like Psystar is using an EFI bootloader without properly acknowledging the actual author or receiving permission to distribute the software.

If you haven't yet checked out the discussion thread on Digg, I encourage you to do so. It's especially useful with its discussions about hardware limitations and hackintoshes.

TUAW Features

iphone app store tuaw tests
Mac 101 ask-tuaw
Mac News
WWDC (251)
.Mac (64)
Accessories (639)
Airport (75)
Analysis / Opinion (1358)
Apple (1659)
Apple Corporate (561)
Apple Financial (190)
Apple History (48)
Apple Professional (54)
Apple TV (162)
Audio (447)
Bad Apple (120)
Beta Beat (152)
Blogging (85)
Bluetooth (17)
Bugs/Recalls (56)
Cult of Mac (873)
Deals (219)
Desktops (115)
Developer (262)
Education (99)
eMac (10)
Enterprise (139)
Features (403)
Freeware (386)
Gaming (376)
Graphic Design (33)
Hardware (1286)
Holidays (37)
Humor (578)
iBook (65)
iLife (235)
iMac (184)
Internet (334)
Internet Tools (1321)
iTS (977)
iTunes (814)
iWork (22)
Leopard (370)
Mac mini (112)
Mac Pro (53)
MacBook (202)
MacBook Air (79)
Macbook Pro (220)
MobileMe (35)
Multimedia (445)
Odds and ends (1450)
Open Source (279)
OS (915)
Peripherals (210)
Podcasting (182)
Podcasts (91)
Portables (197)
PowerBook (135)
PowerMac G5 (50)
Retail (594)
Retro Mac (48)
Rig of the Week (42)
Rumors (633)
Software (4344)
Software Update (417)
Steve Jobs (252)
Stocking Stuffers (50)
Surveys and Polls (97)
Switchers (112)
The Woz (34)
TUAW Business (242)
Universal Binary (281)
UNIX / BSD (61)
Video (905)
Weekend Review (83)
WIN Business (47)
Wireless (85)
Xserve (39)
iPhone/iPod News
iPhone (1618)
iPod Family (2064)
App Store (80)
SDK (19)
Mac Events
One More Thing (27)
Liveblog (1)
Other Events (226)
Macworld (489)
Mac Learning
AppleScript (3)
Ask TUAW (103)
Blogs (85)
Books (26)
Books and Blogs (62)
Cool tools (445)
Hacks (464)
How-tos (486)
Interviews (44)
Mods (187)
Productivity (590)
Reviews (112)
Security (156)
Terminal Tips (59)
Tips and tricks (567)
Troubleshooting (168)
TUAW Features
iPhone 101 (34)
TUAW Labs (3)
Blast From the Past (17)
TUAW Tips (144)
Flickr Find (36)
Found Footage (86)
Mac 101 (94)
TUAW Interview (31)
Widget Watch (198)
The Daily Best (1)
TUAW Faceoff (5)

RESOURCES

RSS NEWSFEEDS

Powered by Blogsmith

Sponsored Links

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) bloggers (30 days)

#BloggerPostsCmts
1Cory Bohon854
2Robert Palmer5939
3Steven Sande5523
4Dave Caolo480
5Mat Lu4211
6Scott McNulty330
7Erica Sadun323
8Mike Schramm221
9Brett Terpstra201
10Michael Rose1329
11Giles Turnbull80
12Christina Warren822
13Chris Ullrich30
14Joshua Ellis23
15Kent Pribbernow10
16Jason Clarke10

Featured Galleries

Macworld 2008 Keynote
Macworld 2008 Build-up
Apple Vanity Plates
DiscPainter
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
Macworld Expo 2007 show floor
Apple Texas Hold 'Em
The Macworld Faithful in Line
iPhone First Look

 

    Most Commented On (7 days)

    Recent Comments

    More Apple Analysis

    More from AOL Money and Finance

    Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in: