Psystar says it's shipping Open Computers, anyone get a tracking number?
By Nilay Patel 
posted April 21st 2008 9:17PM
posted April 21st 2008 9:17PM
It's been a pretty hectic few days for wannabe Mac cloner Psystar -- its former credit card processor shut off its account when it learned what it was trying to sell, no one could figure out the company's true address, and company president Rudy Pedraza still has the disconcerting habit of not answering any questions and promising to call everyone back with a formal statement that's never arrived. Still, the company posted up a blurb today saying it's gotten a new credit card processor and that Open Computers are now being shipped in the order purchases were made. Of course, Rudy's been promising us a test machine since day one, so we're curious to see if he follows through -- has anyone gotten a tracking number? Anyone have their credit cards charged? Let us know.Read - Psystar: "Store up and running"
Read - News.com article about Psystar's former credit card processor
Read - ZDNet article on Psystar's address
Yup, They did charge my credit card.
Here a little proof: http://www.num-ya.com/img/psystar-charged.jpg
no spamming!
all you do is ruin the integrity and fun of the comments section here at engadget. stop trying to give yourself free advertising when other deserving business/authors and the like pay for it, even if they sell $10 or under products. As far as i'm concerned, your "comments" are not welcomed here.
Did anyone notice that the website also has a computer called the openpro, which STARTS at $999. the system has 400MHz extra for processor, same ram, extra 500GB, and 8600GT.... this is nearly as expensive as upgrading from apple directly.
It's weird. There's hardly any difference between the cheapest online vendor and the Open Computer upgrades. Totally great pricing.
The Open Pro is just the opposite. Very overpriced upgrades, so you'll end up buying from third parties, just like you would if you bought an Apple.
Either one is still a great deal, if handled properly.
Wouldn't it be nice if Apple would just sell you their OS for use on any computer and then only support a small set of hardware? I'd consider buying the OS X if this were the case. I love the openness of Linux, so I'm using that. If Apple products were less closed I'd move in that direction. I'm not happy with their recent attempts to lock down everything they make (iphone, the whole line of ipods). For goodness sake, just tell people to hack at their own risk and be done with it.
I do, however, think it's a little sleazy for Psystar to try and make a product out of this.
You're not allowed to sell something without support. Ie, you can't ask a buyer to waive his right to expect the product to work. Therefore, apple can't do what you're suggesting.
Don't sweat it, Eddie- KDE4 is going to blow them away anyhow, and we have more native games than they do.
@ Chris C
Sure you can, you sell something with limited support (everyone does this anyway). I.e. you own something you can hack it, you just waive your rights to collect on the warranty if something goes wrong. Locking stuff down isn't something that's a necessity to provide support. Same deal with the OS, don't make it difficult to install on other machines, just don't support it unless it's installed on an Apple computer or a limited list of supported hardware. Not an issue. I was wondering what was going to happen with this with the switch to Intel when they were still only talking about it... it's been much harder for them to maintain the uniqueness of their hardware when they're using the same chips as everyone else.
Honestly, I don't care if I get support... most manufactures and software companies have such poor support that it's basically non-existent anyway (I don't remember the last time I got real help from someone that wasn't posting to a forum) although arguably Apple has pretty decent support - especially given the competition.
@ethana2
I'm looking forward to seeing where KDE 4 goes. I love Linux and I'm never planning on going back to anything by Microsoft, but I do find Apple software a little less quirky than many of the Linux offerings.
My main problem with Linux is not a problem with linux at all, but a problem with the software companies who won't release titles for it. I'm missing Ableton Live on linux. I'm actually considering buying a mac just for this one program.
How is this lame company going to support their "macs"? It's not like you can just run update on osx86 like a real mac especially for kernel upgrades like when 10.5.3 rolls out.
Let me guess-- update repositories hardwired?
tsk, tsk, tsk ...
hard coded**
Actually, you probably could. My non-apple OSX machine runs the "vanilla"/apple kernel, and everything hardware-wise is enabled with EFI-strings supplied pre-boot. Might still break when .5.3 is released, of course, but there's a good chance it wont.
Marketing really isn't your forte is it?
@Quasi
Another great book is Trolling for Dummies. It gives great advice on how to be the ass of the internet and best of all its free no preorders or postage. Just check around any number of popular websites and your sure to find fantastic....oh wait....never mind....
Sorry, I know that I am going to get burned for this but....
I would never buy a mac again;
1.the OS is ok, but not as intuitive as XP and Vista.
2. but the quality of the hardware has a lot to be desired. I had nothing but trouble with my mac mini. Troubles I never had with my Dell's.
No, sorry, I think that this company has a point in trying to bring some alternatives to the table.
What is Apple so afraid of? If they have good enough software, (which as I say, it is not too bad), then why not allow it to reside on hardware other than their own.
Can they compete ? They don't think so, so it seems.
That's what I'm thinking. And really, for their OS, there's no way they can keep up with the joint effort by IBM, Sony, Intel, RedHat, Novell, Canonical, Tungsten Graphics, Mozilla, KDE e.V, the Gnome foundation, and the teams behind blender, pidgin, inkscape, the GIMP, OpenOffice, and so on and so forth..
I'm pretty sure we outnumber them by now, developer wise.
Sorry to hear you had trouble with your Mini, but you're the exception, not the rule. Apple products are very well built for the most part. OS X is very intuitive, the problem is when people try to use it like it's Windows. It's not Windows and it doesn't work like Windows.
XP is blatantly counter-intuitive, but people just get used to how it works, and then they think it's weird when other OSes don't work that way.
And I'll tell you exactly what Apple is afraid of: losing hardware sales. Apple has allowed clones before, you know. You know what happened? Clone sales cannibalized Apple's existing customer base. See, Apple makes money on hardware, not software. The software exists to sell the hardware. That's why you're not going to see licensed clones again. Why would Apple intentionally decrease their own hardware sales?
Well, they wouldn't. Hence the no clones thing.
I don't think this company is fake at all.New yes, green yes, fake no.
I find myself asking who benefits from this "fake" rumor and why these beneficiaries have an interest in this company not happening or at least appearing not to be happening.
Its not so unbelievable , i built a hackintosh with better specs than what they ship for about $500.00 its fully supported without issue. I still wouldn't always trust the apple updates though, they probably make you wait and get the approved updates from their site (would make sense)
And another point lost for humanity in my book....
macs aren't for everyone. its that simple if you think its overpriced, then you'll probably have remorse. don't buy one. seriously, don't sit here and bitch about how overpriced they are because you want one and can't afford it. there are plenty of adequate, alternative solutions. i did extensive spec research and found that even though the macbook pro ends up in the upper half price-wise, there are several models by sony, hp, alienware that were more expensive spec-for-spec. none of them even offered a graphics solution on par with the macbook pro [4 months ago].
explain to me how controlling the hardware support at the os level isn't contributing to more reliability. there is generic ram for very cheap that works just fine [9 months now]. sure seems to me like there are plenty of graphics options.
you get what you pay for .... meaning that the retail price of something should reflect the time and resources required to make it [not some woot.com price that you got a great deal on]. who gives a shit anyway. you can either get it or you can't. quit being so attached to something you 'hate'. it only makes you look stupid.
how would you change apple. make cheaper computers? what do you think draws you to them in the first place. is it the os [try osx86], the way they look [try sony], the quality of build [try toughbook] ... you want it all together, cough up the extra 10% [at most] and enjoy owning a mac. otherwise, buy a windows machine. but don't try to tell me that apple should make the same mistake microsoft did and open their os to any and every piece of hardware on the market. diversity people.
i uninstalled an application earlier ... by deleting the file ... and emptying the trash. there are shitloads of dynamic link libraries spread all over the computer and registry entries requiring a script to execute that may not even get everything. its simple and it works.
... and for you that love your linux, keep loving it. but don't over sell it. linux is an os made by developers FOR developers. there will always be more open source developer than users. its how that equation works. look at osx as the bridge that takes the strengths of unix to users in a way that works... i don't want to compile installers and neither does anyone else.
Okay Jake,
Psystar is not selling notebooks. At all. Your personal experience means nothing on this topic.
"don't try to tell me that apple should make the same mistake microsoft did"
Yes, wouldn't it be horrible if Apple had 85-90% marketshare, cash reserves of 60 or 70 billion dollars and didn't even bother with hardware? What a mistake!
"i uninstalled an application earlier ... by deleting the file ... and emptying the trash. there are shitloads of dynamic link libraries spread all over the computer and registry entries requiring a script to execute that may not even get everything. its simple and it works."
This incoherent paragraph misses the point that "deleting the file" left a LOT of other associated files on your hard disk, taking up space and clogging your storage.
Yes, in OS X.
I use Linux and I'm not a developer. I'm not even in the tech field. There's been some serious momentum towards end users in the Linux community and I'm assuming that this will continue.
As a Linux user I agree with you that controlling the OS at the hardware level has major advantages, but Apple could stand to make things more open and still keep this control over what they support. If they would do this I would probably buy a mac as my next computer - yes, at their prices.
Mac's aren't magic, people. They work the way they do because their OS is designed around a very specific set of parts. Anyone could assemble those same parts and build their own computer to be exactly as stable as a macintosh. The replies on this very forum make that perfectly clear.
I never put much stock in the "macs are computers for dumb people" line, but stop treating it like it's some secret family recipe handed down to Steve Jobs by his grandmother.
To the above poster, the point isn't what does a mac need today, but what will it need in three years. When my current iMac shuts down on me, I have to scrap all of it, including a perfectly good monitor, power supply, hard drive, etc. May as well just fix what's broken and get more use out of the rest of the system. This is a welcome development, in my eyes.
I suspect that your iMac is going to last you much longer than you expect.
I used to build and rebuild my PCs from the ground up every 6 months or so for years just so that it would run (windows) efficiently.... and always using high end parts available at the time.
Today, I'm running an almost 8 year old PowerMac G4, that I have upgraded the hard drive from UltraATA to Serial ATA, I've upgraded the graphics card several times, I've burned through several optical drives, upgraded the RAM, and have even upgraded the processors.... and all of these I was able to do much more easily, and much more quickly than I was ever able to do in a PC.... and never had any issues afterwards. Everything just kept on running. (this last paragraph is mostly directed towards those who were ranting that Macs can't be upgraded.....)
Anyhow... By now, if I hadn't drop kicked my PC out my apartment window when I did.... literally, I did... I would have spent hundreds of hours, and exponentially more money building PCs over the past 8 years.
And to boot.... my 8 year old PowerMac loaded with Leopard runs circles around my wife's 1-year old Dell running Windows XP in every application. To this day, the only time my Mac shows its age, is when I'm doing heavy graphics work in CS3. Apart from that, every other function blows a newer PC away. Other than games which I don't give two squirts of piss about anyways.
So yeah... in short... I think you'll have your iMac for much longer than you expect and will definitely get your money's worth out of it. For your very reasons though is part of why I opted for the full desktop system, plus the upgradeability.
You all are missing the point on Apple completely. Apple is first and foremost HARDWARE company. That is why OS X is locked down to Apple hardware.
Apple is also concerned about creating an OS that has unparalleled stability. I used Linux (extremely stable) on a computer about 10 years ago. It was great...until I tried to log on to the internet and my ISP wouldn't communicate with my computer (I know this is not a problem anymore). Macs work so well because they are designed to run on the hardware they ship with. They are designed for intel processors and nvidia video cards. They are NOT designed to run on other hardware. This may make fans of ATI video cards or AMD (CRAP!!!) processors unhappy, but Macs offer stability that you cannot find in a Windows OS. They offer an easy to use, intuitive GUI (which Microsoft has tried to copy with Vista). And finally, any time you take your Mac out in public, there is the "wow" factor that you get...I always enjoy people staring at my hardware. It makes a man feel good.
"Apple is also concerned about creating an OS that has unparalleled stability"
I've been a Mac user and technician since 1985, so I can say Apple is concerned about that, but often doesn't back up that concern with enough work to make it happen as much as they could. Any of the Mac troubleshooting web sites can confirm that. Same goes for the hardware.
I have been charged for the Open Computer I ordered last week. No tracking number yet, but I called the company and they said machines are "shipping with-in 7 days" of placing order.
Just to pick a less-than-fine point, for the benefit of people not familiar with the OSx86 project, but Psystar isn't selling Mac clones--they're selling PCs for which they claim they've carefully hand-picked hardware that works better as a Hackintosh than some other PCs, but we'll see how good they are at that. Then they install Netkas' PC_EFI firmware emulator, which allows the installation of Leopard (Psystar says they haven't tested earlier versions of OS X), and then give you the option to either have Psystar install Leopard on top of that, or let you do it, using your own commercial copy of Leopard (the copy that came with your Mac won't install, since it's model-specific), for about $155 less than Psystar would charge for the convenience (if you have them install Leopard, you have to buy Leopard from them). This is what's usually known as a Hackintosh. Clones are supposed to work just like the originals, but Hackintoshs are known not to work exactly like Macs under all circumstances, particularly for OS updates, for which you often need to wait until a patch is released by the OSX86 community before you can install it.
Psystar's Open Computers also don't have built-in Firewire ports, wireless, or Bluetooth--these cost extra. Firewire is gotten by installing a PCI slot Firewire card, but that immediately takes up a PCI slot that some users (though not most) might have wanted to use for something else. Wireless and Bluetooth can be gotten by plugging in USB or Ethernet adapters, saving PCI slots, and that generally works well without needing extra drivers, but we'll see how well that works with Open Computers. Psystar says they'll soon be offering a wireless card as an option, but without info to the contrary, that may take up another PCI slot.
As for the desirability of having a non-Mac tower from Psystar, in hopes of upgrading it with hardware you buy (not easy or possible with the comparably-priced Apple product, the Mac mini), that should be fine, but for the average person who can't provide their own tech support, be prepared to rely on tech support from the vendors of the parts you install, and not Psystar, who says:
"Psystar will offer approved upgrades to the computers at a future date. At this time any upgrades not purchased through Psystar may cause problems with your operating system. We only support the original configuration of this system."
I'd also like to know the maximum amount of RAM that can be installed--their online specs page doesn't say. The basic Open Computer has only two RAM sockets, and comes with two gig of RAM standard (presumably two one-gig RAM boards). Can those sockets support four-gig RAM boards, or eight-gig RAM boards, for people who need it? The lack of basic info like this, and a lot more, on the Psystar web site, is one thing has me wondering about their preparedness in other ways. But maybe, if they get enough orders coming in from the first curious buyers, proving people are interested, they'll clean up their act.
I suggest potential buyers visit the Psystar web site and read all the FAQs posted there. From the comments posted to a lot of blogs, it seems that few people are doing this, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people pulling out their credit cards haven't done that either. These and other issues may make a Hackintosh not the right choice for the average, non-technoid user, but may be fine for a subset of more technically-capable users. The extra knowledge required isn't much, and if things go right, you don't need much more knowledge than the basic Hackintosh knowledge, but most people aren't interested in spending extra time learning or doing anything extra just to get their computer to run like any other Mac, so if you're someone who just wants a computer that runs OS X with as few hassles, extra work, etc. as possible (sometimes the extra hassle for real Mac users is enough extra work), a Hackintosh may not be the right choice, at least not quite yet.
Just to pick a less-than-fine point, for the benefit of people not familiar with the OSx86 project, but Psystar isn't selling Mac clones--they're selling PCs for which they claim they've carefully hand-picked hardware that works better as a Hackintosh than some other PCs, but we'll see how good they are at that. Then they install Netkas' PC_EFI firmware emulator, which allows the installation of Leopard (Psystar says they haven't tested earlier versions of OS X), and then give you the option to either have Psystar install Leopard on top of that, or let you do it, using your own commercial copy of Leopard (the copy that came with your Mac won't install, since it's model-specific), for about $155 less than Psystar would charge for the convenience (if you have them install Leopard, you have to buy Leopard from them). This is what's usually known as a Hackintosh. Clones are supposed to work just like the originals, but Hackintoshs are known not to work exactly like Macs under all circumstances, particularly for OS updates, for which you often need to wait until a patch is released by the OSX86 community before you can install it.
Psystar's Open Computers also don't have built-in Firewire ports, wireless, or Bluetooth--these cost extra. Firewire is gotten by installing a PCI slot Firewire card, but that immediately takes up a PCI slot that some users (though not most) might have wanted to use for something else. Wireless and Bluetooth can be gotten by plugging in USB or Ethernet adapters, saving PCI slots, and that generally works well without needing extra drivers, but we'll see how well that works with Open Computers. Psystar says they'll soon be offering a wireless card as an option, but without info to the contrary, that may take up another PCI slot.
As for the desirability of having a non-Mac tower from Psystar, in hopes of upgrading it with hardware you buy (not easy or possible with the comparably-priced Apple product, the Mac mini), that should be fine, but for the average person who can't provide their own tech support, be prepared to rely on tech support from the vendors of the parts you install, and not Psystar, who says:
"Psystar will offer approved upgrades to the computers at a future date. At this time any upgrades not purchased through Psystar may cause problems with your operating system. We only support the original configuration of this system."
I'd also like to know the maximum amount of RAM that can be installed--their online specs page doesn't say. The basic Open Computer has only two RAM sockets, and comes with two gig of RAM standard (presumably two one-gig RAM boards). Can those sockets support four-gig RAM boards, or eight-gig RAM boards, for people who need it? The lack of basic info like this, and a lot more, on the Psystar web site, is one thing has me wondering about their preparedness in other ways. But maybe, if they get enough orders coming in from the first curious buyers, proving people are interested, they'll clean up their act.
I suggest potential buyers visit the Psystar web site and read all the FAQs posted there. From the comments posted to a lot of blogs, it seems that few people are doing this, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people pulling out their credit cards haven't done that either. These and other issues may make a Hackintosh not the right choice for the average, non-technoid user, but may be fine for a subset of more technically-capable users. The extra knowledge required isn't much, and if things go right, you don't need much more knowledge than the basic Hackintosh knowledge, but most people aren't interested in spending extra time learning or doing anything extra just to get their computer to run like any other Mac, so if you're someone who just wants a computer that runs OS X with as few hassles, extra work, etc. as possible (sometimes the extra hassle for real Mac users is enough extra work), a Hackintosh may not be the right choice, at least not quite yet.
I forgot to add: Apple, so far, won't provide OS X tech support for people with Open Computers--when you call Apple for tech support, they ask for your Mac's serial number, and when you tell them you don't have a Mac, I doubt they'll be willing to help, even if you're willing to pay the $49 per trouble incident. This won't be a problem for people who can provide their own OS X tech support, but for the average Mac user who at least wants to retain the option of support from Apple, that may not be available. Some people feel that if Apple takes Psystar to court, that may be one issue that may be decided not in Apple's favor, since some people say that if you sell an OS, even if the EULA says installing it on another computer violates the EULA, that you still have to provide tech support, but we'll see.
Sorry about the double post.
Sorry about the double post.
Psystar had immediately charged my card, when I placed my order on 4/14. I had then cancelled my order the next day 4/15. I am still waiting for a refund!!
They had charged my card before they shipped anything, and they don't respond to my emails or requests for refund!
STAY AWAY!