Psystar store is back up, orders on the way
Psystar finally managed to get its Internet store back up and running Saturday, and promised that all Mac clones ordered to date will soon be on the way.
if you haven't been following the saga of Psystar, check out our coverage this week. In short, Psystar is selling home-built Open Computers with Mac OS X Leopard preinstalled, which is a violation of Apple's licensing policy for Mac OS X.
The company has been besieged with orders, attention, and skepticism this week after news of its existence spread far and wide. Most of the attention focused on the fact that Psystar changed its address no less than four times over the week, and that its payment processor pulled its services from the company after learning it was selling products, not just IT services.
But Psystar is back once again, with a new payment processor, according to the company's Web site. And it's promising that all Open Computers or OpenPro Computers ordered this month will soon be shipping.
"To all, we challenge you: let's see if we can max this one out. Regarding shipping, orders placed the week of April 7 are currently being shipped. We will be shipping units out of our new facility starting Monday, April 21, including those orders placed the week of April 14," Psystar said on its site. "Orders are being shipped in the order that they were received--don't worry; you'll get yours soon. Upon shipment, an e-mail notification, including tracking information, will be sent to you automatically."
So we'll see if those orders start to come through. I ordered a Leopard Open Computer on Wednesday, and my credit card was charged on Saturday. I still haven't received a shipping notice yet.
While we're waiting, check out more photos of what is supposedly Psystar's new building, obtained by my colleague Larry Dignan over at ZDNet. It would be nice if we can finally put the speculation about Psystar's existence to rest next week, and get into the most interesting part of this saga: how does the company plan to fend off an expected legal challenge from Apple?
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
guy puts up a website and works out of his house with a photo
shopped picture of a computer and claims to put OSX on it.
That's it?!
There is no demo nor any proof that this actually works or that it
exists! I am just in awe over the publicity this is getting.
The guy is loving the attention he is getting and the tech media
industry obviously has nothing else to talk about or is too busy
to do any research of a story whatsoever.
I am going to register a website claiming to have fixed Vista.
Let's see how many orders I get without any proof.
And let's see how quickly you get arrested and/or sued for fraud after taking peoples' money and not delivering what you promised. Whether or not this happens to Psystar remains to be seen. The product that they're selling is feasible (do a search for "hackintosh"). I'm waiting to see a report from someone who receives one of their computers.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8538
Of course, I recall a little company called PCs Limited back in 1984 that had the audacity to sell IBM clones ? from an off-campus dorm room. Credit card processing? didn?t have it. Physical address? Didn?t have one. You mailed your money to a PO Box and crossed your fingers. Turned out to be just a college drop-out and some slacker friends assembling off-the-shelf parts and taking orders over the phone and by mail ? cash or check only. Delivery often took several weeks. And, of all things, they were charging people for doing what anyone with a copy of Popular Electronics could do ? build a IBM-PC clone.
That company evolved into what is now Dell Computers, the number one PC builder in the US.
And way back in 1977, if you wanted an Apple II, you would have found no Apple corporate address or Apple retail store. Instead you would have found two former high-school social outcasts toiling away in a two-car garage selling their home-brew computers by mail order. You sent your check or money order to a P.O. Box and crossed your fingers. We all know where those two pioneers of high-school Geek-Goth are now. One is still a daydreamer. The other is still trying to get even with everybody that picked on him in high school. But together they built a computer dynasty.
Just goes to show that it doesn?t take a winning personality to find a market and supply it. Or to be successful. Sometimes It just takes a vision and some moxy
Then they will of course come up with a work around, and back and forth it will go.
If a users wants to deal with that crap....hey its not my money.
inventing clones. It's utterly ridiculous.
And to repeat the nonsense they are the #1 PC maker. That would
be HP.
hope they do.
good computer slamming Apple and "mac"
Enjoy your Hyundai, or emachines or peoplePC.
Leave us alone.
Please.
that Enron was not located in a shady part of Houston.
I would bet that Apple's investigators were among the first to place
orders.
But - what a conundrum for Apple if these guys sell a lot. It is
obviously a good thing for Apple to have all these people
running Leopard at home. Brick the sold systems and you have
probably lost future customers - even if they are breaking the
EULA.
Let it go and you basically sanction everyone else to do the
same thing.
Also - if the OS isn't loaded until it gets to the purchasers house
- Apple is even in a worse position. They would have to go after
the purchasers (since they are the ones breaking the EULA).
Going after them would drop the favorable rating of Apple below
that of RIAA.
of Psyster's sails.
The thing that I always found interesting about EULAs, and the reason the courts are having such a hard time with them, is that noone can prove who pushed the "accept" button or even if it was presented (software by nature is sometimes buggy and it is possible that the EULA may not have appeared). Keep in mind that trial by juries are won by something as small as "reasonable doubt" being sown into the jurors' minds.
The cases you don't hear about are the ones that the big companies lose because someone asked them to prove they accepted a EULA. See: http://www.internetlibrary.com/cases/lib_case209.cfm
For the most part state law will supercede any company written EULA and some states seem to be anti-EULA whereas cases that make it to the supreme court could go either way (professional fence-sitters).
In any event it will interesting to see what action, if any, apple takes.
The standard for civil trials is "preponderance of evidence," (i.e.;
51% of the evidence. This standard of evidence is much easier to
prove.
I am not sure letting minors install the OS would work, either. At
the very least, the person/company that hired them to install
OSX would be guilty of conspiracy and, probably, could be held
responsible for what their employees due. Regardless of their
age..
bid by now if any had shipped, don't you think? I don;t know - I would love
someone to post a picture of a received unit if one ever ships.
shipping. Probably would sell for more than they paid, just for a
collectible...
Weird how eBay has become a thermometer of pop culture, (It's not
on eBay, therefore it can't exist.)
Some may use Linux, but the majority of us can't be bothered, whereas OSX is actually more user-friendly than that Redmond virus-magnet that people actually pay to have installed. Finally, an antidote has arrived!
Of course, Apple may have something to say about this, but ever since they switched to PC-style Intel hardware, they must have known they were creating a universal OS. Anyone switching to it this way, though should be very careful about their configuration and be sure they can handle it if something strange happens with auto-update. Apple surely will not try supporting unusual hardware. In fact, if they don't play ball with all this and in fact make auto-update difficult, Windows 7 (or whatever) could well erase a lot of their recent gains.
best, Linux to some extent (except commercial stuff) and OS X
WORST.
After those people figure they can't install latest software from
Apple, security updates, that archaic BIOS failing, they will HATE
OS X and install Windows XP SP2 or Vista.
I remember the odd statement from Apple, when OS X was introduced (or was it when the Intel Macs were introduced?), to the effect that they wouldn't (or couldn't) try to prevent anyone from figuring out legal ways to get around OS X's built-in blocks for running it on non-Macs. Apple actually has tried, but there's still a thriving (though still small) Hackintosh community. Were all of Apple's prior attempts limited to actions against methods that violated their intellectual property (posting entire OS X installers on bittorrent sites, reverse-engineering non-Open Source Apple code, etc)? Maybe Apple's few attempts thus far, to stop OS X on non-Macs, have been a smokescreen, or a "guiding hand", as they waited for someone to "properly" figure out how to get around OS X's blocks to this, in a way that Apple couldn't legally win against.
greater Miami, FL area.
A large percentage of businesses in Miami do not openly
advertise their existence in office structures like this - many
times the only way to find out where a business resides is the
phone book or Internet. This is mainly due to most of these
firms being startups and leasing 'cheap' and efficient space from
property management firms in the local area - evident when
driving down US-1 alone, especially in the Coral Gables area.
I have an PI associate who said he will try and drop by the
address tomorrow if his schedule allows.
a legit way , not like this way putting a cheap white box PC and
hack a OS to run on it.
I really want to know who the payment processor is since I got
serious doubts about a company who gets involved in a clear
illegal activity money transfers.
In fact, this thing is also a trickery since you never get a true
Apple Mac experience on a white box PC regardless of how well
you hacked it. Consumers running PCs all their life can't know
this so they will be tricked thinking they are buying a "Apple"
for cheap price.
Just one example: Intel Macs run EFI for firmware, PCs run BIOS,
that archaic thing from 1980s.
Either it will do great/okay or it is all a scam.
Then if it does show - will it last as long as a real Apple Mac computer?
The world (or at least a bunch of techies) is waiting.
Windows and Office have helped build Microsoft's business over
the years, Apple doesn't lose sleep over this. Look at the media
buzz and the feeding frenzy. And it gets the geeks playing
around with OSX. Now they tell all their friends "I have OS-X
running on my Clone box!!"
'Uh-huh. and why do you want to go through all that to run
OSX? I guess what they say about windoz being crap is right. All
the geeks want to run OS X.'
And you can do a mac clone on the cheap. Just rip out the
device drivers and recompile the kernel and make sure you buy
the right MOBO with the proper SATA drive and....
Or buy a Psystar and make sure you don't update your software
when the critical vulnerability patches are released or you'll hose
your clone. Make sure you wait until Psystar releases a patch in
about a week and a half. In the mean time just unplug your
internet connection. (who really needs internet anyway).
Or for real people with real lives, it's easier to just buy a mac.
(And so the market share grows).
When someone infringes Apple IP for money, that is war. Apple will take their time. They will line up all ducks in a very precise row and get the biggest gun they can find. I would not want to be Psystar.
- Long live the Hackintosh!
- by Andy kaufman April 20, 2008 8:31 AM PDT
- People should be free to choose that PC OSX runs on without Apple suing them over it.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- And Apple has the right...
- by MTGrizzly April 20, 2008 10:42 AM PDT
- ...to tell Joe he can't install their OS on a no-name Windoze box...
- Like this View reply
Processing -
- Also missing
- by John Sawyer April 20, 2008 4:44 PM PDT
- Psystar's Open Computer also lacks a keyboard, mouse, and monitor.
- Like this
-
- Perhaps because...
- by shycelticwitch April 21, 2008 3:10 PM PDT
- That $399 Dell will last about half as long as the Mac Mini... and
- Like this
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (99 Comments)If Joe Sixpack wants to buy a $399 Dell and install Mac OSX on it, that is his business. Why pay more for a $599 Mac Mini that lacks a keyboard, mouse, and monitor?
I wouldn't count on the fact Apple won't address this, sooner,
rather than later.
will be obsolete in 2 years...
Whereas I still have a Mac Classic that runs superbly... albeit with
older OS.