AOpen's Pandora Mac mini clone opens box of legal trouble
By Peter Rojas 
posted May 31st 2005 11:10AM
posted May 31st 2005 11:10AM
At the moment everyone might be buzzing about that
Mac mini-alike
concept PC from Intel, but it's AOpen that's throwing out
the lawsuit-bait. Their new Mac mini clone, codenamed "Pandora," is based on Intel's reference design, runs on a
Pentium M chip designed for laptops, and should be out by September.
[Thanks, Jan]
----How about a shape that doesn't look like a card-board box??
That's what I'm saying MaxSmoke!! You have a company that makes a computer that looks like a cardboard box that no one would want, then you have another company copying the cardboard box look!!! At least the Cubit is interesting looking (snicker)
----They innovated absolutely nothing here except a pretty case.
And that's exactly the "case". TWO YEARS since the Cubit for AOpen or ANYONE ELSE in the industry to come up with something smaller with rounded edges and an aluminum look. What, were they asleep for the last two years???
----Ever heard of VIAs EPIA line?
COOL MOTHERBOARD...ummm, where's the PC built around it?
----Look at it this way, if you were designing something this small, would you implement a tray-load optical?
Nope, got a Tray loaded DVD player that's smaller than this.
Well said OSXP..
[quote]not sure whther this has been mentioned, but i would like to point everyone here http://mini-itx.com/store/ . the mac mini definitely wasn't the first product of that design. but at least it was not some cheap copy - they actually put in new design elements.
i agree, this aopen is a blatant copy of the mac mini, modelled almost exactly after it just because it prolly would help sales.
BUT IT HAS AN OH-SO-SEXY PENTIUM M![/quote]
Specifications: Measures 430 x 370 x 90mm.
that is 16.9291 x 14.5669 x 3.5433 inches.
real close to 6.5 x 6.5 x 2 inches.
Kevin is right -- not acknowledging that AOpen is blatantly ripping off, and 'Piggy-Backing' on Apple's design.. is willful blindness. I forgot who the original author of the phrase 'There is none so blind as he who will not see.." was, but it applies here. Some may argue and nit-pick over legallities and contorsions of logic and extreme rationalizations, but what's going on here is obvious. Apple has invested untold millions, over decades now, and the culmination of these efforts and technologies is Mac Mini. No PC manufacturer, by whipping up some catch-up, bastard-child amalgamation/mish-mash of hardware and software, crammed into some Made-In-China plastic factory knock of case that should be sold through Walmart of Toys-R-Us, can begin to compare. Yah, might look good on paper, but wait for the reviews. And what'll it run, XP? What a joke. It's like putting a diesel engin in a sports car... doesn't compute (pun intended).
This thing is a law suit waiting to happen, and AOpen will lose, as it should. Apple perfected a concept, and now the PC bottom-feeders will try to piggy-back, counting on undercutting the price of the Mini, and on the guaranteed percentage of clueless new PC buyers who will confuse this piece of crap with a real Mac Mini.
"Exhaust port beside rear i/o panel(same as PC)
-And you've never seen PC's with exhaust ports on the side? Sheltered life, 'eh?"
Ken, open you eyes and look at the pic at the top of the page. There are NO exhaust ports on the back of the AOpen, they appear to be indentations only, with no purpose.
Also, do not link to my picture to somehow try to lend yourself credibility.
Kevin,
Take the stick out of your ass and read the original post I was responding to.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000577045099/#c272735
And if you don't want anyone linking to a graphic, don't post the URL, simple as that. The point I was making in response to the post (if you had been paying attention) was that these things mentioned as REQUIRED by a small form factor machine could have been done very differently, well outside of copying a Mini.
Clearly, AOpen is getting a lot of free press and publicity by showing a device that bears a striking resemblance of the Mac Mini. To say they "borrowed" the look of the Mini would be putting it mildly.
It seems the vast majority of the press and people with at least 20/200 vision (PC fanboys and anti-Apple fanatics aside) see an obvious attempt by AOpen to create a Mac Mini rip-off.
http://tinyurl.com/d7uu8
Is there any other reason why the AOpen Pandora is getting so much attention?
We have some real PC haters and Mac haters here, but even still, admitting our biases, can we look at this issue of blatant copy-catting, and design rip off... objectively? I use both XP and OS X, and having lot's of experience with both, feel qualified in my lauding of Apple and also in freely voicing disparaging remarks about PCs/Win-Tel. Apple afficionados get nasty in defending Macs, and with good reason. We're not just 'blinded' by pretty packaging, as some above accuse. We pay more up front (and much less down the road!) for quality, for a better products, and with OS X, for a much superior product, for a totally integrated system, and that's an educated, objective opinion. And as far as the congenital 'Apple Haters'... in my experience, it's a combination of their having heavilly invested in the PC world.. and need to justify their investment... and an almost total lack of first-hand experience with Apple products, and OS X in particular. I think subconsciously, they're terrified of actually sitting in front of an Apple, because once they use OS X, they'll never be satisfied with Windows again.
Now, the issue here is whether AOpen's 'Mac-Mini' clone (see headline above) will 'open a box of legal trouble' .. I think this is a slam-dunk, a forgone conlclusion. Apple and AOpen's attorneys will no doubt be talking, if they haven't aready. When you have AOpen incorporating DESIGN elements of the Mac Mini which serve no purpose on their own box (as Kevin pointed out above), we have a blatant case of copy-catting. In fact, the only thing that can explain this design/engineering oversight is a mad rush to bring a clone/copy-cat to market, make a ton of money, drag the (inevitable) law suits out in court, then close shop and reopen under another name.
We have some real PC haters and Mac haters here, but even still, admitting our biases, can we look at this issue of blatant copy-catting, and design rip off... objectively? I use both XP and OS X, and having lot's of experience with both, feel qualified in my lauding of Apple and also in freely voicing disparaging remarks about PCs/Win-Tel. Apple afficionados get nasty in defending Macs, and with good reason. We're not just 'blinded' by pretty packaging, as some above accuse. We pay more up front (and much less down the road!) for quality, for a better products, and with OS X, for a much superior product, for a totally integrated system, and that's an educated, objective opinion. And as far as the congenital 'Apple Haters'... in my experience, it's a combination of their having heavilly invested in the PC world.. and need to justify their investment... and an almost total lack of first-hand experience with Apple products, and OS X in particular. I think subconsciously, they're terrified of actually sitting in front of an Apple, because once they use OS X, they'll never be satisfied with Windows again.
Now, the issue here is whether AOpen's 'Mac-Mini' clone (see headline above) will 'open a box of legal trouble' .. I think this is a slam-dunk, a forgone conlclusion. Apple and AOpen's attorneys will no doubt be talking, if they haven't aready. When you have AOpen incorporating DESIGN elements of the Mac Mini which serve no purpose on their own box (as Kevin pointed out above), we have a blatant case of copy-catting. In fact, the only thing that can explain this design/engineering oversight is a mad rush to bring a clone/copy-cat to market, make a ton of money, drag the (inevitable) law suits out in court, then close shop and reopen under another name.
Apple and their die hard, fall on their sword fanbase piss me off with there elitist attitude. I don't deny they come up with some nice product, but it all ends up on the landfill. I'm always happy to see them get ripped off.
Apple fanatics, Steve Jobs is naked covered in honey and rolling around on a bed of your hard earned cash, dreaming up new ways to rip you suckers off. I could laugh all day at that.
All you do is rage on about how great Apple is. Your life is short, do better things with it.
Oh, right, at $499 the Mac Mini sure is a rip-off. :rolleyes:
Moron.
To many peps have fallen for the hype of Apple. Most people buy a ipod because everyone is doing it. They don't realize there are other better products out there. This Aopen PC looks like the mac mini but who cares. Its a different color and like one of the comments said, did Apple copy the tower, hmmmm?
--Cobalt were making cubes in the 90's...long before Apple 'designed' the G4 cube...--
Steve Jobs at NeXT created a black cube in '89. I'd do my research on both sides, first. Also, he is also not rolling around in money since he gets paid a buck a year as CEO of Apple. Sure, he has stock, but so do a lot of other people.
Nothing on the Mac mini did not first appear (in part) in some other Apple product, except for the tiny size. Don't bring up mini atx, etc. since these are no where near as small as the mini.
I'll wager that if you opened it up, it would look a hell of a lot like a mini inside, as well as out.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ... makes no money from Apple ... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
He must be laughing his dick off at you guys ...
A buck a year ...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I love reading threads like this ...
no really ... it brightens my day.
It's not very likely to make it to market, but if it does, I think Apple have some grounding for a legal case. This product (or even something similar, but they can't do much about that) reaching the market would be very bad news for Apple, it may well be entirely the small form factor and low price of the Mac Mini that makes people want to buy it. As stated before, if AOpen introduce this product at a similar price-point with the x86 platform they're used to, people who would have bought the Mac would probably buy the AOpen instead to stick to what they use. I very much doubt the mini will sink in the way the cube did (as beautiful as it was) - in fact the Mac mini appears to be selling very well to my knowledge.
You're right about Mac zealots, but it's equally true of x86 zealots (who appear to form the majority of people complaining about Mac zealots)...
However you look at it, it's like comparing Apples and Oranges. I have Macs and x86 machines (would people stop referring to "Macs" and "PCs" - both are PERSONAL COMPUTERS) and can use either to complete most of the tasks I need to do. I can usualy do it a little faster on the x86 machine, because of the raw CPU power advantage, but overall I much prefer working with Mac OS than Windows/Linux/traditional BSDs - it's easier to use, more intuitive, more stable and much less harsh on the eyes. That said, I wouldn't really use my Mac to play games on (well, I was addicted to Escape Velocity a long time ago). Gaming's why I have a GeForce 6800 Ultra in my PC ;)
I think everyone needs to calm down and it's really sad that any conversation about Apple machines results in a load of zealots from each side throwing meaningless fire at each-other rather than actually having a useful discussion about the product in question.
Isn't the mac mini just a mini-itx? There have been aluminum itx cases for awhile now.
Who cares if they ripped-off Apple's design, that's not at all important. The Max Zealots might yell "we did it first" but the question is who did it best? Ford did the combustion-engine car first, but Ferrari sure does it a lot better. Catch my drift.
Others did the GUI way before Apple, but Apple does it better.
Who did it first isn't important.
The Aopen machine is a whole lot more powerful than the Mac Mini... anyhow failing to see that very obvious fact has some issues (Pentium-M, 533MHZ dual channel bus, integrated BlueTooth and WIFI... dunno about the video board though). However, it's also likely to be a fair amount (possible a heckuvalot) more expensive.
The Mac Mini is an entry-level machine (1.42 G4 with a slow 167MHz FSB and no L3 cache and the video card... will Quart Extreme even run on that thing? It's less powerful than an eMac - due to the video card) aimed squarely at the iPod crowd, who wouldn't want to pay Apple Tax for apples pretty sweet designs (it's kinda funny that in print ads about their machines apple says of itself "from the makers of the iPod).
If you want a REAL Mac you'll get an iMac (though I like the previous design way better) or a Power Mac... not a Mini. You get a Mac Mini if you already have a computer (for the screen, keyboard, mouse), but you're kinda curious about OSX and you like the look of it, but you don't want to send a lot of money.
The BIG question is: does Apple have a design patent or ANY actual copyright on the Mac Mini design (and yes you must apply for both).
Copyright could be tricky because you can't really copyright a hardware design (like a car or a plane, for instance)... that's normally what a design patent is for.
If Apple has a design patent Aopen would be pretty dumb to make an obvious rip-off... they'd be sued and lose; end of story.
If Apple doesn't have a design patent, things are trickier. They could argue that the Aopen thingy is deceptive and would confuse consumers who mistakenly believe that it's a Mac Mini. They could have a case there... Aopen won't likely market the thing very much, but would reply on Mac Mini buzz (however much there is) to move their product.
But, like I said, if Apple does have a design patent Aopen is toast.
Who cares if they ripped-off Apple's design, that's not at all important. The Max Zealots might yell "we did it first" but the question is who did it best? Ford did the combustion-engine car first, but Ferrari sure does it a lot better. Catch my drift.
Others did the GUI way before Apple, but Apple does it better.
Who did it first isn't important.
The Aopen machine is a whole lot more powerful than the Mac Mini... anyhow failing to see that very obvious fact has some issues (Pentium-M, 533MHZ dual channel bus, integrated BlueTooth and WIFI... dunno about the video board though). However, it's also likely to be a fair amount (possible a heckuvalot) more expensive.
The Mac Mini is an entry-level machine (1.42 G4 with a slow 167MHz FSB and no L3 cache and the video card... will Quart Extreme even run on that thing? It's less powerful than an eMac - due to the video card) aimed squarely at the iPod crowd, who wouldn't want to pay Apple Tax for apples pretty sweet designs (it's kinda funny that in print ads about their machines apple says of itself "from the makers of the iPod).
If you want a REAL Mac you'll get an iMac (though I like the previous design way better) or a Power Mac... not a Mini. You get a Mac Mini if you already have a computer (for the screen, keyboard, mouse), but you're kinda curious about OSX and you like the look of it, but you don't want to send a lot of money.
The BIG question is: does Apple have a design patent or ANY actual copyright on the Mac Mini design (and yes you must apply for both).
Copyright could be tricky because you can't really copyright a hardware design (like a car or a plane, for instance)... that's normally what a design patent is for.
If Apple has a design patent Aopen would be pretty dumb to make an obvious rip-off... they'd be sued and lose; end of story.
If Apple doesn't have a design patent, things are trickier. They could argue that the Aopen thingy is deceptive and would confuse consumers who mistakenly believe that it's a Mac Mini. They could have a case there... Aopen won't likely market the thing very much, but would reply on Mac Mini buzz (however much there is) to move their product.
But, like I said, if Apple does have a design patent Aopen is toast.
lol dude steve jobs does only get payed (on paper) $1 USD per year, he is in the guiness book of records for lowest CEO for Company in the world - im sure he would get ALOT of other benifits ie -house,car,stock,travel for nothing.
my 2 cents.
Re: Jobs' pay at Apple.
From 2001, but interesting.
http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/2001/20010618.shtml
Trade dress infringement is exactly what's going on.
Check out this link and be enlightened:
http://copylaw.com/new_articles/tradedress.html
Any news on a PC with this form factor and an AMD/nForce motherboard? That would rock.
"To be protectable, trade dress must be inherently distinctive or possess "secondary meaning" (the public associates the packaging with a single source). Further, the trade dress must be non-functional."
Seems to rule out mac-mini
"Look for the Label: The prominent display of a well- known company's name or logo is often a deciding factor in reducing likelihood of confusion. However, there is no guarantee that such a "disclaimer" will work if copying goes beyond common or functional features."
As does this.
i wish it was white, or black, instead of slathered in ugly silver paint. why do manufacturers paint EVERYTHING in silver paint these days? its ugly. and i dont like it.
you all need to take a look at a little box called the cappacucino as well as other brand name mini PCs which have been out since the pentium III then the pentium IV and now the Centrino Pentium M. Looks almost exactly like the mini-mac, wonder where Apple got the idea?
The Aopen box does not look as Gay as the Apple. Anyway, I guess that Aopen has little to learn from apple!
There has already been other smaller mini pc's available for years, with many more features and options as well, just take a look at some of these from:
http://www.stealthcomputer.com/littlepc.htm
and
http://www.littlepc.com/
[img]http://www.stealthcomputer.com/images/FS_menu.jpg[/img]
I own a Mac mini, an iMac, and a bunch of Windows PCs.
The mini is 100% form, and very little function. It's painfully slow, the video quality is poor even though it's DVI, and the non-Superdrive version of the CD/DVD player vibrates badly playing audio CDs. And whoever put the power button on the back should be fired. The mouse and keyboard (not included but designed to match) are also all about the look, and very poorly built.
I'm hoping the pc versions of the mini form factor will focus on functionality so Apple can borrow from them and make a mini2 worth owning.
Apple did sue eMachines for the iMac copy but this isn't as blatant of a rip-off design. I think it looks a bit like a hard drive or CD Burner. They are nice spacesavers though for those with limited work areas.
- I prefer all in one designs starting with the 20th Anniversary Macintosh- one of the most futuristic designs from Apple... I'm not too hot on the iMac G5 for beauty.
I quote #59: "mac fanboys" have the right to say what they say because their product is superior to pc's.
Explain to me how Macs are "superior" to Intel or AMD-based PCs. The only thing that Apple has going for their machines is the PowerPC architecture which is much cleaner and faster than the Intel architecture, but now they've decided to drop it and switch to x86. Why would I pay $1300 for a low-end iMac G5 when I could spend approximately half of that for a PC that is far better? Yes, Apple products are damn sexy, we all know that, but I'm really not willing to shell out hundreds of dollars more just to get a nicer looking PC. Besides, if you're into it enough and you have an imagination, case-modding makes for a very fun project.
Instead of bitching and moaning about how one is better than the other, mac users need to get used to the fact that no matter how pretty that white a gray box is, it WILL say Intel Inside in the very near future (2006). I don't see this as a bad thing, my Mac Mini is too damn slow, and right now I think I'd much rather have a DELL XPS Laptop than a PowerBook (which I used to be a huge fan of, but not having any performance upgrades for a year now, It pretty much blows, performance wise that is).
And by the way Mac's OS is excelent, never crashes, looks nice and runs pretty smooth (on a decent mac) but not releasing the software from mac community will cost it greatly. Windows Vista(I know Bill Gates is satan, blah, blah blah) on the other hand has embraced different MODS from the Linux community, stuff from apple, and any good things XP has to offer (if any) which will very posibly result in one of the best OS' ever, put that together with Intel's new line of microprocessors (forget pentium M this is better, launch date 2006) and I have the OS-CHIP setup I've personally been waiting for to replace my mac for ever.
Don't believe me, check out Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com) Guide for info on Intel's new chip line released at IDF, same thing with Vista, I don't like Bill Gates controlling every computer in the world, but if what THG says is true, then that is one sweet OS.
By the way: AOPEN Macmini Ripoff = $399 Linux
$499 XP
anyone knows where can i purchase a AOpen mini PC?