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Psystar's Cyber Monday

Paving the way?

Get It

Try It

Thorn in Steve Jobs' side Psystar are still shipping their Mac clones and for 1 December only offered slashed prices and additional perks.

Apple sued Florida based Psystar back in July; the case is still being tossed about the courts; Groklaw's Pamela Jones has an update here.

One of Many

Psystar doesn't just sell (possibly illegal) Mac clones. They also offer Windows and Linux boxes - and they're all dirt cheap with the Linux systems starting at a very attractive $299.

Macworld tested the Psystar 'OpenPro' last April; benchmarks and performance were very good. As with Rob Griffiths' 'Frankenmac' test clone the renegade box can often beat Apple at crucial benchmark tests.

Go Buy One!

So for up to 75% savings and an equal if not better performance - why not go get one today? After a lot of sleuthing by Gizmodo and a lot of real estate maneuvering by the Psystar owner the renegade cloners seem to have a legitimate office address at last. And they are indeed shipping. And the boxes do work and work well.

So why not buy one? Rob Griffiths points out several reasons in his 'Frankenmac' articles.

Those Apple geniuses aren't going to be particularly helpful.
You can apply software updates but you have to be very careful.
According to Apple it violates your Licence Agreement with Steve.

That being said, there is probably zero chance Apple are ever going to sue you for using a clone (or building one yourself).

The Good News

But there's good news too - potentially lots of it. Psystar claim Apple are monopolising the market as Microsoft have done. Certainly a lot of people would agree with that. Psystar have run into difficulties making this case in the courts but anything could change.

Should Psystar be able to beat Apple in the courts the way would be paved for Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and all the major computer OEMs to ship their products with OS X pre-installed.

This would inevitably result in a surge of demand for OS X and the concomitant (and long awaited) disintegration of the disastrous Windows hegemony. This would mean the average Internet camper is both safer and happier.

This would inevitably result in more and more serious developers and software houses turning to OS X as a money platform. The quantity of third party titles would increase significantly but even more importantly the quality of these titles would start showing real progress for the first time.

So it looks mostly like a win-win situation. All one can do is wish Psystar good luck. Steve Jobs and many of his coworkers may never sleep well again but the world at large certainly will.