This is the official forum post for Macmod:LIVE episode 19, titled Hackentoshes.

We talk about hackentoshes with our special guest Jon Fullmer, author of the book "Foundry Networks Certified Network Engineer - Official Study Guide". We share thoughts about the practice in general, and give our response to the recent Psystar hackintosh story.

Be SURE to listen in to the end where we kick off our first contest!

You can view the post for this episode here:
http://www.macmod.com/content/view/1351/219/

Direct link to the mp3:
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.macmod.com/media/modcasts/live_e19.mp3

Here is my opinion on the matter:
Apple does need to release a mid-class desktop. However, I don't think it should be too customizable. Microsoft has had so much trouble because they are forced to support everything that comes out. The Mac platform is different in that the hardware is carefully selected so that it all works and we won't have to worry about bad drivers. The hackintoshes may work well for geeks who have the knowledge to get them to work but the average user won't know what to do. I think Psystar could ruin some of the loyalty to Apple products as they have a reliability that apple answers to, not a multitude of companies that blame each other for product failure. To summarize my point:
Apple needs to open up their desktop line a bit more but they can't let go of the reins and let outside companies start making computers for os x unless they are restricted in their part usage. Even then I am not too sure that I would buy a clone over a real apple. Jus my thoughts on the issue. Have a great day.

[censored] in the hands of the masses. Otherwise, its a nightmare in the making!

Exactly. Now the only question is can Apple continue complete control of the systems and still gain in market shares. I think it is possible and that it is the only way we can have a good computing experience. However, I think there will still be those who need the versatility offered by a windows/linux system that can be changed and upgraded whenever, although Vista is limiting the upgrades .

I think the mentality of having to reach everyone is bad. But, being a public company, Apple has to appease the share holders, and they want to see continued growth. Once Apple hits a certain point, they are almost destined to open it somewhat. Or, enter other markets, which is what they have been doing more recently.

Offtopic:
oojacoboo, we joined the same day four years and almost three hours apart
Ontopic:
I hope for Apple's sake they don't expand too rapidly and in a way that they can't control their products. Their stores are an example of this cautious approach. They could open tons of stores and have a lot of business but have the chance of overextending their resources. Instead they have taken their time to slowly plan their deployment and I hope they continue this with their products. I certainly find an Apple computer that works and looks nice to one that is riddled with problems and has no support...I guess it all comes down to the individual.

I don't know if I agree with that. It seems like if you have a stable, well designed OS, that nothing should crash with a bad driver except the hardware in question. Obviously if it's a video card doing the crashing then you're SOL (cause you can't see anything), but mac's already have 3rd party video cards, so that point is moot.

I'd like to think that OSX would be more graceful about handling exceptions when they happen and not bringing down the whole system, which means that the blame will be rightfully placed on the company in question, not Apple.

I guess, MS hasn't figured it out yet...

That is a good point. OSX does support some 3rd party video cards. However, I would think that apple spent a lot of time testing to make sure the drivers work well, even if there are some bugs that is bound to happen. I don't want to see apple to and include all hard though because that may bog down the system with extra material and slow apple's release of a new os.

when was the last time a company offered up a mac compatible system? i remember one a while back similar to this one. this was after the clones of course

But did they offer to install the os too? That is the question. Because if they sold the system maybe with linux and said it was osx compatible then I apple couldn't do anything. Except of course release an update to kill all hackintoshes. Just don't update your systems!

I think that a more open Apple platform would be great. However, I do think in order to avoid the Microsoft problems there needs to be some kind of hardware certification on Apple's end. I mean if they are going to take the time to certify open apps for the iPhone surely they could dedicate a few resources to certifying more hardware as well. This would give all of the "power users" the reassurance that all of the hard work and money they put into customizing their systems is not going to mean they can never do a software update. I like Psystar's thinking, but I wish the first step towards a more open Mac had come from a more reputable source. All of the issues Psystar had in the beginning really made it seem like a shady operation which in my opinion damages the idea of an open Mac instead of promoting it.

Then you end up in a mess again. Think about the Microsoft certification for vista...vista ready, capable, etc. Intel used to have different certification as well but I believe they dropped it. I think consumers would become confused about certification unless it was super controlled and was just a yes/no, and not maybes. Then again if I had the choice between a nice apple made system and an apple clone by gateway, or someone else, I would go apple. Plus you get the cool logo

The thing about this statement is that Power Computing gave Apple a run for their money. I had very strong brand loyalty to the fruit logo so I ended up getting a PowerMac 8500/120 but I really wanted a PowerWave (forgive me if i got the name wrong but its been a while).

Yea competition would drive apple to innovate more but still I would go with apple over a third party company.

Sadly, I would say that the point is not moot. The problem is the diversity of video cards. For example, many Macs use ATI video cards, and the standard Mac OS X has good support for ATI cards. The problem is that it doesn't support ALL of them. ATI makes a lot of different cards. I'm still trying to get Quartz Extreme working on my Thinkpad T43 with ATI Radeon Mobility.

If Apple would just open source Aqua, this kind of support would come so much easier! ::)