Hackintosh clone surfaces in the Argentine
'Applications may not function properly'
First Psystar, now OpeniMac. It appears that Apple's lawyers may soon be playing Whac-A-Mole with upstart cloners.
Apparently, Psystar's latest legal troubles - the dismissal of the company's anti-trust complaint against Apple and the upgrading of Apple's suit against them to include alleged DMCA violations - haven't deterred Argentina-based OpeniMac from dipping their toes into the faux-Mac waters.
Under the banner of "Prestaciones de Mac. Precio de PC" (which, according to our junior-high Spanish, translates to "The capabilities of a Mac. The price of a PC"), the web site of these plucky pampas-pounders advertises two versions of their sure-to-be-a-trademark-violation-named OpeniMac and OpeniMacPRO.
What you see may not be what you get
The entry-level OpeniMac promises a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, a double-layer 8x SuperDrive, eight USB and four FireWire 400 ports, and an ATI Radeon HD PRO (no indication whether a 2400 or 2600) with 256MB of VRAM, all for $990. The company will also toss in a 19-inch LG display for an additional $340.
The OpeniMacPRO features a 3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive (in one of four drive bays), the same SuperDrive and USB/FireWire ports, an Nvidia GeForce GS (again, no indication of which GS) with 1GB of VRAM, and a 20-inch LG display included in its $1,710 price.
The web site's "Terminos de la licencia" includes a few interesting caveats. For one (our translation): "OpeniMac does not guarantee that any application will function properly as it would on an Apple computer." Also, "OpeniMac will not be legally responsible for the use of the computer by the user in any way."
Those disclaimers certainly give you a warm and fuzzy feeling of security, don't they?
And then there's the small print at the bottom of the web site that says, "Las fotos son meramente ilustrativas." Or, in English, "The photos are solely illustrative" - which, in any language, translates to "What we're showing you may be total horse pucky." ®
COMMENTS
@ Chris
Because to Apple, hardware and software aren't two separate products (integration of iTunes/iPod, for example). Apple drives hardware sales with their software (sort of the reverse of the games console strategy), and although software's role is increasing, a large portion of Apple's revenue still stems from hardware sales (Mac OS X/Macs, iTunes/iPod, etc).
Because in order for Apple to successfully make significant money from an unrestricted, licensed OS, the company would have to go to great lengths to prevent widespread piracy. Not to mention deal with an almost infinite variety of machines rather than a handful. Which means your beloved OS would be encumbered with serial numbers, activation woes, driver issues, and a higher price to counter the extra resources needed to tackle those problems. All of which Microsoft have struggled with (and take more flak for than they deserve, in my opinion).
And lastly, because there are alternatives out there. If you disagree with Apple's business strategy that strongly, there's always a Windows or Linux flavour waiting for you.
Top Price For 3 year old hardware?
My 8 core Mac Pro cost less than the equivalent Dell when I purchased mine! Yes some parts of the range are overpriced but the Mac Pro is actually very reasonably priced and when running either XP or OSX spanks everything else into the ground.
I hate the irrational and uninformed Apple hate as much as I hate the smug Apple fanboys. It's all as stupid as my Spectrum is better than your C64/Amstrad.
"Capabilities of a mac, price of a PC"?
So it's still useless, but at least it is cheap?...
I thought the point of these was to help mac addicts - they buy one initially with a crappy OS, then as they learn about actual hardware, they can format it and install Linux, then they are actually using a good OS on good, non overpriced hardware.
No company..
guarantees software will run on a given [non-bespoke] machine , not even the software comanies will make any similar claims. Do Apple guarantee shit will work on Macs?
@Chris
If you have a licensed copy of OSX then go ahead and run it on a PC.
Only problem is that Apple do not sell stand-alone copies of OSX. You either get a full license with your Mac or you buy an *upgrade* to an existing license in a retail box.
Apple owns OSX and they can do whatever they like with it as, unlike Microsoft, they haven't been charged let alone convicted of being an abusive monopolist.
Because that's the closest I could get to an icon that looks like a Troll.
