Hackintosh
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German user turns trashcan into Hackintosh Mac Pro and other news from Jan. 14, 2013
There's little news that has yet to topple Monday's Google acquisition of Nest. So here's a look at a unique Hackintosh: a trashcan that has been repurposed as a Mac Pro, inspired by the look of the new machine. Click through to see more photos from the German user who crafted the machine. The image is from tonymacx86.com. Other news from this afternoon included: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak visits China and throws his support behind smartphone producer Xiaomi. On the other side of the world, Apple has launched its back-to-school promotion for the Australia and New Zealand crowd. Those taking advantage of buying any new iPhone, iPad or Mac other than the Mac mini or a Mac Pro will receive a gift card in addition to the standard education discount. Ahead of the Friday iPhone launch by China Mobile, the company has taken delivery of 1.4 million iPhone 5s units from Foxconn. Adobe has extended its Creative Cloud Photoshop Photography Program, which grants users access to Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5 and several other Adobe products for $9.99 per month. The offer has been extended until Feb. 28. Macrumors has the first images of the new Apple store going up in Brisbane, Australia. Apple has begun hiring engineers for its Mesa, Ariz. plant, which is dedicated to producing Sapphire material for iOS devices. Kick back and relax with some of these features: Tech support heroes DO exist Man spams App Store for fun and makes $2,800 in profit Why Apple didn't buy Nest
Quo offers motherboard to run "any OS"
Quo Computer has been making hardware capable of running OS X for years, and now, the company will soon start shipping motherboards that'll let you construct your own Hackintosh box from scratch. The new projectQ motherboards can run any OS including OS X, Windows and Linux. They will ship with a Thunderbolt port, Firewire 400 and 800 ports, Intel LAN, and a UEFI that'll boot the OS in under 20 seconds. The motherboards are available for pre-order in an expandable microATX form factor and cost US$219 each. Each board will ship with a three-year warranty. [Via The Mac Observer]
20" iMac G4 updated to Ivy Bridge
Apple's iMac went through several design permutations before the company settled on the current "all-in-one computer and display on aluminum arm" configuration. One of the most iconic designs was that of the iMac G4, which held the electronics of the device -- including an optical drive -- in a desktop half-sphere with a 15-, 17- or 20-inch LCD panel suspended on an arm. Modder "Dremel Junkie" (Jonathan Berg) has been bringing classic iMac G4s up to date with new hardware for a while, and his latest work brings a 20-inch iMac G4 into the Mountain Lion era with an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU. The system uses an Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) system neatly implanted into the heart of the iMac G4. It's not just as simple as plugging the Intel NUC into the base of the iMac; Dremel Junkie goes through detailed descriptions of all of the steps taken to make sure that this device remains true to the exterior lines of the iMac G4 while providing the latest in high speed I/O. Of course, since the Intel hardware isn't "official Apple," the device is incapable of running Mountain Lion without resorting to a Hackintosh solution. Dremel Junkie used an off-the-shelf copy of Mountain Lion and tonymac's Unibeast/Multibeast install method to get OS X running smoothly. If you have an old iMac G4 sitting around collecting dust and you're handy with a soldering iron and Dremel Moto-Tool, this may be a fun winter project to work on. Two videos are embedded below (about 30 minutes total) that explain the project.
I am become Middle Schooler, destroyer of Macs
I spent the morning dealing with the fact that my beloved daughter has killed yet another Hackintosh. It's not exactly her fault. For example, the drive outlived its years. The power connector on the device-side is broken, too. Neither one was worth fixing -- especially given the years of service we got out of the devices and our max investment of about US$300 (outside of OS and software purchases). So here she is, a middle schooler, with the need to do research and writing, organize her homework, and perform light email duties. I don't want to deal with the headaches of hackintoshing a new system -- much as I love our Hackintoshes, it's such a pain to do Sys Admin for them. When considering a similarly-priced, used Apple laptop, we're looking at 2006-vintage MacBooks, bought over eBay or similar, from untrusted vendors. I really don't want to go there. And so it occurred to me: how about an iPad? Could she do all her light computing, research, and writing (she's a terrible typist, so we're not talking about a big step down in efficiency) using a 1st or 2nd generation iPad? Over at Apple's refurb store, the 1st gen starts at $300, the 2nd at just $350. So I pitch the idea to her. I asked her about possibly using an iPad in place of a laptop and suddenly she perked up -- SURE! As long as she can print. Can she print? And I am all "Yes, you can print." And here she is, not just a little enthusiastic, but basically over the moon with the idea. I'm getting concerned here -- that level of enthusiasm seems out of line. What does she know that I don't? Is it that her Hackintosh doesn't have as many games as an iPad? That it doesn't offer as much engagement or fun? So I'm turning this over to the TUAW braintrust. Am I being an insane mother considering providing my child with a full-time iPad in place of a laptop? You tell me. I've added a poll here and the comments follow after. Please jump in and lend me the wisdom of the TUAW readership braintrust. %Poll-74247%
Psystar loses appeal in battle with Apple, told to ditch Mac clones for-ev-ver
We're sure Psystar, its lawyers and its tens of fans, didn't really expect to win the appeal it filed following the permanent injunction handed down against its commercial hackintoshes, but you can't blame the company for trying. A little over three years after the drama began, with Apple suing to ban Psystar's products, it seems the epic tale has come to an end. The company hasn't really been in business since December of '09 anyway, so today's ruling upholding the injunction won't make much of a difference either way. We're just sad that this may, in fact, be the last time we ever hear from Eugene Action -- let's take a moment to reminisce, shall we?
A giant white iPhone table with no multitouch
German enthusiast and iPhone fan Benjamin Bachmeier has constructed a table-sized computer called the iTableous. This behemoth was entirely hand-built and runs a hackintosh version of Mac OS X 10.6.7 as well as Windows 7 Professional. Dual boot, baby! As you can see below, the craftsmanship is fantastic. Many of the buttons on the "iPhone's" edge work as well as the Home Button. The base is hinged so that the whole thing can be flipped up so that it's at a 90 degree angle with floor. Perfect for watching movies. On a gigantic iPhone. The tech specs are as follows: iTableous features 4GB of DDR2 RAM, 500GB of internal storage, a 5.7 megapixel camera and 720p video recording, as well USB, HDMI and a 30-pin connector, just in case Benjamin wants to attach a real iPhone. We think it looks great. Nice work, Benjamin! [Via InsanelyMac]
Hackintosh repaired at Apple Genius Bar
So, you're in Shanghai, China with your fake MacBook Air when it suddenly stops working. What do you do? Make an appointment at the real Genius Bar for the Apple Store, Pudong in Shanghai and get help. Fortunately for the man who brought the "MacBook Air" into the store, the Geniuses behind the bar were in a good mood and actually helped him out with diagnostics and troubleshooting. I somehow feel this type of friendly and helpful reception might be lacking if a certain colleague of mine brought her trio of hackintosh netbooks into a local Apple Store here in the U.S.
Intel announces Core 2011 processor details; hackintosh fans post benchmarks
Intel, the company that makes the processors used in every Mac currently being manufactured, officially announced the details of the new Sandy Bridge processors, otherwise known as the Intel Core 2011 processors. These are the second generation of the Core processors found in many of Apple's products (i.e., the Core i3, i5, and i7 CPUs), and the new silicon could herald good news for future Macs. The Sandy Bridge processor family uses Intel's 32nm microarchitecture and is the first to put the processor, memory controller, and graphics on the same die. In a nutshell, this means more performance and better energy efficiency. TUAW reported back in early December that Apple has committed to use the integrated Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) of the Sandy Bridge processor in future MacBooks, providing speculation that most future MacBooks may do away with a separate GPU. At the current time, the entire MacBook family uses NVIDIA GPUs to accelerate graphics processing. By using the built-in GPU of the Core 2011 processors, the component cost of Apple's future Macs will be reduced slightly. Whether or not that will translate to lower prices for consumers is unknown at this time. More on the new hardware after the break.
Found Footage: The $900 'Mac Pro' in a cardboard box
Plato said, "Necessity is the mother of all inventions." He must have been talking about the guys at One Block Off the Grid, which is a cooperative of sorts for buying photovoltaic solar panels at a group discount. One of their staff members was running into issues trying to run Adobe After Effects on a slower Mac, so they had another staff member -- Kalvin -- build a fast hackintosh in the Amazon cardboard box that all the computer parts came in. That price doesn't include the labor involved in putting it all together, and it originally had a rather odd power switch, which was a standard jumper stuck on the end of a plastic cable tie. The computer itself has pretty good specs, with a 2.66 Intel Core i5 CPU, a 1 TB hard drive, 8 GB of 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM, and an XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB DDR5 Graphics Card. To run Snow Leopard on this computer, Kalvin used iBoot and MultiBeast. As noted on the 1BOG blog, "this procedure may potentially violate Apple's End User License Agreement for Mac OS X." On the other hand, it's a great way to get a fast computer and not spend a lot of bucks.
Psystar is dead. Long live Quo Computer
While we all know the story of Psystar, the company that crashed and burned by loudly selling non-Apple Macintosh computers with OS X installed, a much quieter and more polite company named Quo Computer seems to be doing just fine. Their mission is to get computers that can run the Macintosh OS into as many hands as possible, and they go about it in a much more reasonable way. Although their PR waxes eloquently about the virtues of using a Mac, Quo creates computers that can run any operating system, be it Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, or any combination of the three. In June of last year, they opened up a store located at 2401 West Main Street, Alhambra, California as a small mom and pop operation in a section of town that is going through revitalization. At the store, they offer classes including one on how to switch from a PC to a Mac. Their site speaks of getting free computers to low-income neighborhoods and offers to train teachers and work with them in order to get computers into more classrooms. They seem like nice people and not as litigious as some other company we know.
Quo's latest Mac clone to feature Asetek liquid cooling, Core i7
We just got off the phone with Quo Computers founder Rashantha De Silva. Remember him? Last spring, amidst all the hoopla surrounding Psystar and Apple, he announced the opening of a walk-in Mac clone shop in The Golden State. Since then, Psystar may have bitten the dust, but it looks like De Silva and co. are still in business... for now, anyway. Their newest (they haven't even had time to update the website), the Quo maxQ2, will feature an Intel Core i7 3.6GHz CPU, 12GB of RAM, a 240GB SSD, a 1TB HDD, and an Adobe Mercury Playback Engine-compatible NVIDIA 285 GTX GPU. In addition, this bad boy will come equipped with an Asetek liquid / copper cold plate cooling system, and believe it or not, it'll run OS X, Linux and Windows 7. Prices start at $3,765, and it should go on sale starting September 15. For about 18 minutes, or an hour and 18 minutes if Apple's lawyer crew just so happens to be at lunch. [Thanks, John Mayer (really!)]
Axon Logic's Haptic tablet can run a desktop's OS, has a desktop's price
Half a year ago, you'd have been forgiven for expecting that today both Windows 7 and Mac OS X would have flagship tablets representing them, in the shape of the HP Slate and the Apple iPad. Alas, one of those devices ran away to enterprise land and the other opted for a mobile OS. It's against this backdrop of disappointment that Axon's Haptic tablet enters, with confirmation that its Atom-based innards are fully compatible with Linux, Windows and Mac operating environments. With a 10.1-inch resistive touchscreen, 320GB HDD, 2GB of RAM, and a trio of USB ports, it's another of those devices you could classify as a keyboard-less netbook, but at least its OS versatility will give it a leg up. Then again, with a pre-order price of $750 and no bundled OS licenses, we suspect it might need a little more than that to succeed where so many have failed.
Ask Engadget: what's the best 13-inch Core i5 / i7 Wintel ultraportable for running OS X?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Dan Murphy [great name!], who needs to know which ultraportable on the market today is best equipped to roll both ways... if you know what we're sayin'. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "Real simple: what's the best Core i5 or Core i7 13-inch laptop (with discrete graphics) for running both Windows 7 and Mac OS X? I'm a video and photo guy who does marketing work for a university, and while I've been using a Dell M1330 to operate on both sides of the fence, I'm in dire need of a hardware upgrade. I'm not fussed by the Windows vs. Mac debate and use both on a daily basis, but I need as much power as possible in an ultraportable form factor in order to handle both of these operating systems (sorry, 13-inch MacBook Pro, but you aren't cutting it). Here's hoping your readers can help out!" We'd sure the master Hackintoshers out there would love to help out, and we're sure Apple will weep when realizing they'd have a sale if they would've crammed a Core i5 into their 13-inch MBP while refreshing the other guys last month. Go on, folks -- let this guy in on your secrets in comments below.
Hackintosh-friendly Dell Mini 10v discontinued
The Dell Mini 10v, choice of netbook hackintosh owners everywhere, has apparently been discontinued as of a week ago. I discovered that today when I couldn't find any on Dell's site, and confirmed it with a live chat with a support representative who told me it was discontinued last week. A message was left for Dell's Media Relations team but was not immediately returned. Dell's naming system is confusing, so it would be easy to see the "Mini 10" and think that it is available, but the "10v" has a chipset that works with Mac OS X; the regular Mini 10 does not. Coincidentally, last night I setup my first Dell Mini 10v running Mac OS X. I had my Snow Leopard DVD, the free Netbook Installer application, the instructions from Gizmodo, and an 8GB USB thumb drive; setting this up could not have been any easier. The results are pretty cool, if you are willing to accept the obvious tradeoffs inherent in a netbook. Today I even ran Software Update, and have the beast running 10.6.3 without a hitch. As of this writing, there are still a few refurbished models available at Dell's outlet. Although the Mini 10v has been a hackintosher's dream machine, I have no doubt that other computers will come along which prove equally as hackintoshable (I realize that these are made-up words). Update: A Dell spokesperson tells TUAW that the product was naturally end-of-lifed. Intel launched its Pine Trail Atom processor last year; Dell will be refreshing the mini line with that updated processor. The spokesperson could not clarify the degree to which updated units would be Hackintoshable.
First Look: iDisplay
iDisplay is one of those apps that you receive as a press release in your inbox and just when you're about to move on, it suddenly hits you exactly what that app does. And you go "Oh man! Yes!" In this case, iDisplay transforms your iPad or iPhone into a second monitor for your Mac. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet (I already downloaded the software but haven't received my iPad) but I am so looking forward to using it. It works like this: you install an extension on your OS X desktop system. (A Windows version is in the works, as well.) That extension looks like a monitor to the underlying operating system, which begins to send data through the extension to any attached device. The data is sent over Wi-Fi to the iPad (or iPhone, if you're using an iPhone, as it's a universal application), which acts as an extra monitor. It's not just a one-way connection. The on-device keyboard generates shared events for OS X, and the screen allows you to treat your second monitor as a multi-touch input device.
Not getting an iPad? Don't forget the 'netbook option'
With all of the netbook hoopla, it's worth remembering that Apple really hasn't filled the need for a full-featured, really small laptop. With Steve Jobs saying that they simply can't build a cheap netbook without sacrificing quality, Mac lovers who still want one are left, quite literally, to their own devices. myMacNetbook.com is here to help -- it has all of the latest news about getting OS X to run on a netbook in one place. It also has a valuable chart that shows you which netbooks work best with OS X, and links to the software that you will need to use in order to get a netbook up and running with our favorite operating system, and valuable, step-by-step directions for turning a netbook into your OS X dream machine. The compatibility chart assumes that you want to install Snow Leopard, and shows you which features will and won't work on a particular piece of hardware. As of today, it looks like there are 10 different netbooks that are completely happy with an OS X install. I'll probably hold out for generation 2 of the iPad, even though I am very tempted to buy one now. On the other hand, getting something smaller than my MacBook Pro that does everything that I need it to do, and for a lower or similar cost, sounds pretty sweet too. How many of you have already gone with an OS X netbook, or are planning to go that direction rather than getting the iPad? [Thanks Ed!]
How to: Get your 1984 Mac running Snow Leopard
Because of that, his instructions get a little technical (he actually replaced the innards rather than just trying to fit a Mac mini in there or something similarly easy). So this isn't a very good project for a first-timer for sure. But if you've got a little DIY experience, or just want to see what it looks like to take apart an old Mac and refill it with modern PC parts (he went Hackintosh on the OS), you should definitely check out his writeup. I wouldn't use the computer as a workstation any more -- because, come on now, who can really do any serious computing on a 9-inch screen? -- but as a music server or just a conversation piece, it's great.
Mac OS X 10.3 installed on Nokia N900 via PearPC, barely usable for impatient geeks
Curious folks around the world enjoy a bit of hackintosh every now and then (although once is enough for many), but no geek has successfully ventured as far as Toni Nikkanen of Finland, who became the first person to run OS X on a phone -- the Nokia N900. As you can see in the video after the break, Toni's hack relies on PearPC -- a PowerPC emulator -- to install good ol' OS X 10.3 (Panther), but the mammoth sluggishness means it's far from usable. Still, if you can spare 90 minutes for each boot-up plus plenty more for the snail-paced cursor, then head to the source to learn from Herra Nikkanen. [Thanks, Matija]
Hackintosh Clinic - Liveblog
Got a new Dell Mini 10v for the holidays? Looking to find a little peer support while you Hackintosh it? Grab your shrinkwrap Snow Leopard or Leopard DVD and join us for an informal clinic on getting your new system set up as a Macbook mini. If you've already finished your hackintoshing, come share your experiences and insights. Thanks to everyone who participated in the liveblog! The event is now complete; however, you can 'replay' the chat in the continuation of this post.
Join us Friday at 2 ET for a TUAW Hackintosh Clinic
Did you get in on the recent Dell Mini 10v hackintoshable laptop deal? (Even if you didn't, that $279 regular pricing is still a pretty darn good deal.) Now that Black Friday minis are showing up at the door, TUAW is holding a live Hackintosh clinic to offer peer support and insight. Join Joachim Bean (our newest Hackintosh expert) and Erica Sadun (who has been known to dabble) on Friday, 10 December at 2 AM 11 December at 2 PM Eastern time to chat live. Lend your expertise or ask your questions during this informal peer clinic.
