Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 23rd Jun 2008 22:13 UTC
PsyStar introduced its Mac clone to much media attention back in April, causing many discussions about the company's legal status, the validity of the Mac OS X EULA, and even PsyStar's very existence. It soon turned out PsyStar was a real company, and was actually shipping the OpenComputer Mac Clone to its customers, to generally rather favourable reviews - not stellar of course, but acceptable, with the biggest downside being the inability to use the Software Update tool, forcing users to download OS updates straight from PsyStar's servers - to prevent updates from Apple hosing the OpenComputer. We're a few months later now, and a few things have changed.
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Member since:
2006-04-03
To determine if this is a bad thing for Apple or not we need to consider a number of things. Firstly in the article you talk about companies putting together off-the-shelf clones to run MacOS. This is true to a certain degree - but these clones still use the same chipset, graphics sets, etc that are available in current Macs. This may change, but for the moment that means that the suggestion that Apple's claims about how they keep the system stable being untrue is itself not quite correct.
Secondly, we need to consider how much Apple actually make from hardware. Due to the scales involved and type of materials used in Apple's manufacturing it is no doubt costing them a little more than the cost of your average clone to build a Mac, so the argument could be raised that they really make most of their "Mac" money from the OS and Apps - which they are still doing with the Pystar clones out there. So to some degree it would be more advantageous for these clones to exist.
Thirdly, I think we are missing something in this whole mix - Knowledge Navigator. That is where Apple want to be. Look at the concepts in that video then look at iPhone. They aren't there yet, but make no mistake they will be - maybe not exactly as per the original concept, but I believe that is the place Apple want to be. The desktop market the way we know it will ultimately die, so I don't believe this is as big a threat to Apple as hype would want us to believe. I don't think we will see Apple do anything about Pystar because I think its actually good for them.
Only time will tell...