[Jarmo]

Interesting to see what happens next.
I've been advocating a miditower Mac since... forever i think.
If this was 100% more expensive and from Apple, It'd be great value.
Don't mention the high quality Apple parts. Apple has great design,
but the parts and construction come from the cheapest bidder.

[macwilf]

It seems like most comments are US-centric. The average income in the US is higher than in most, if not all, other countries and to me it also seems like Appleʼs pricing is US-centric. I do not know how seriously they regard the global market or if they just cater to the absolute top level of this, to the few who can afford computers which are even more expensive outside the US, due to local taxes etc. Maybe they are content with the situation as it is, but then they cannot expect to increase the global market share by much, compared to the success in the US. That it still increases, speaks much for the high quality of their products.

The iMac and the Mini are the products many of us who actually live by our Macs outside the US, often see as the top models we can afford. As these are not very expandable, one has to buy a new machine to replace the old with certain intervals.

I had a dual 450 ghz G4 and expanded it as much as I could, with more RAM, a better graphics card and a PCI-card to get more ports etc., but in the end it was too slow, of course. I gave it to my ex and her son and it is still in daily use, though.

Anyway, a mid-range tower would be gefundenes fre?en as they say in German:)
As for this tower mentioned here, it would be a nice alternative even if it would cost the equivalent of 700 dollars or more, because you can actually expand it.
There are those here who can afford a Pro tower as well, but I would think the number who can, are fewer than in the US.

I donʼt know what strategy Apple has in store for a situation if the global market share should reach the same level as in the US or even higher. Would there not come a point when it would be difficult to maintain the high standard, keeping control over the software as well as the hardware, and they would be forced to change the strategy in some way or another?

Just my two ?res worth - and that isnʼt much!

[Jarmo]

US-centric is right.

The "default" MacPro is currently 2,499 euros in finland (including vat.).
At current exchange rates that amounts to 3.957 USD.

$4000 for the base tower, you should see why an option starting at $399 sounds appealing.

[mdawson]

Where in any of my posts do I state or insinuate that people buy laptops because they are all-in-ones? What I did state is that most people—the non-techie masses—have little to no issue with a system being an all-in-one as the sales of laptops and ten-year success of the iMac would indicate. Yes, many people buy laptops for mobility, but many more buy laptops because they are compact, non-intrusive systems and can be easily tucked away when not in use. Desktops
generally take over the space they occupy and cannot be easily set aside when space is needed for something else.

The decision to purchase a laptop has as much to do with overall convenience and compactness as it does with portability these days, particularly as many laptops are just as powerful as most desktops sans workstation-class pro systems. I know a number of people that own laptops that (almost) never leave their home, but chose that form factor because it allows them to have a computer without the need for a dedicated space. The Mac mini comes closest to that in terms of a true desktop and was initially designed for that purpose as well as being a Switcher testbed.

Simply put, for many people today, the fact that a desktop is an all-in-one design is not an issue. The average computer user can have their needs served by an iMac for many years because the average user is not a technophile that obsesses over hardware upgrades. The people that do take issue with all-in-one systems are those that would be limited by such a computer and IT types that are always worried about maintenance logistics. Corporate IT actually has less credibility with the anti-AIO argument as laptops, which are again all-in-ones, have become the primary work computers for an ever increasing number of corporate types over the past 5+ years. So in the business world, repairing/replacing an all-in-one desktop is no more or less a hassle than dealing with the increasing number of laptops in corporate use.

As to fewer wires, I never made that argument as I find it to carry little weight, as an all-in-one desktop only eliminates the need for a display cable and a second power cord. Please do keep other people’s point of argument separate from mine. Lastly, please reply to the poster with whom you are in discussion and not the story post.

[folklore]

dreyfus said:

>

Quote

If I recall the last quarterly report correctly, desktop sales have increased as much as the laptop sales did. Apple needs more variety to gain more market share. The insistence on AIO designs and crippled Minis is a failure, not offering a conventional computer below 5,000 bucks (Mac Pro plus AppleCare plus sufficient HDs plus sufficient RAM plus GPU upgrade plus display) is a failure. It is as wrong as insisting on one-button mice for ages, as wrong as SJs comment that nobody wants video on a MP3 player and that nobody wants to rent movies. They (Apple) are good, yes, I fully agree. They are by no means error-free.

If sales are increasing, how is the current strategy a "failure"?

Apple's core market is home users. Apple has never been much for the enterprise - which, as your post demonstrates, is where most of the legitimate need for a mid-tower Mac lies. We can argue about whether Apple should make more inroads into the enterprise, but a consumer-based focus has worked remarkably well for Apple over the past several years - it's been far from a "failure" by any measure (sales, stock price, etc).

[MorrisTheCat]

>Also, whatever the company did to make it run OS X might run afoul of Apple's copyrights on its firmware.

I would say that will be their biggest problem, and Apple will likely find a way to stop this. We all know it takes more than just a box with an Intel roc, hd, mobo and ram in it to run OS X. If that's all it took, there'd be plenty of Wintel boxes running it right now. Yes, I know about the osx86 project and what they're doing, but I'm not sure if this company is using that information or some home grown method. We'll just have to sit back and see how Apple responds to this.

Concerning this as a whole, I really do wish Apple would come up with some mid range semi expandable tower at a lower price than the iMacs, but more powerful than the mini. Even if it were priced at $999, it would be a great product. There is a HUGE gap between these two models that is really disheartening to me. So in that respect, I can understand why Psystar is making this. (BTW, how is that name pronounced? It looks too much like shyster to me for comfort)

[daneb]

"Virtualized" EFI? Hardware not supported by Apple? One Miami-based firm for technical support? I'm going to call their bluff. This is a joke--at least it should be. I for one hope to never see OS X or any Apple OS for sale by anyone but Apple. That's the whole idea of Apple computers in case anyone has forgotten: Hardware and software put together by one company. Full support of both. That's why it all works so well.

[zarmanto]

That's actually quite amusing... if you read this page: http://www.psystar.com/openmacosx86compatible.html

... and then this page:

http://www.psystar.com/canirunupdatesonmyopenmac.html

...you'll quickly realize what they're really doing here. They're not even pretending to sell legitimately licensed computers which run the standard retail installation of Leopard -- in fact, they're actually freely admitting that their computers are "hackintosh" systems! In the second page noted above, it specifically states that some of Apple's updates are "non-safe" for installing on Psystar's Mac-clone -- and the reason is that some of Apple's updates will verify whether or not you're installing the software on legitimate Apple hardware, and disable the operating system if you're using a hackintosh.

I wouldn't buy one of those buggers for anything... but it is VERY interesting to see this company poking their finger in Apple's eye, and I'm looking forward to reading what happens next. ;-)

[rickcarl]

I agree with z. There's no reason to think these boxes are functionally equivalent to a Mac. Perhaps Macworld will buy one and review it for us.

[Steve_S]

I had a Mac clone (Power Computing) back in the day and would certainly consider it again if there were really viable options. This isn't one of them. Really, this is very much a "non story". Unless Apple chooses to or is legally forced to support clones, it's not going to happen. Even if someone was able to get their hardware to work properly with the current Mac OS (which is a big if and has yet to be verified), Apple has the ability to shut the door with the next point release. Apple also has the ability to modify future Apple hardware to make it more difficult to copy. In short, an investment in an unsupported clone would be a waste of money, no matter how cheap it is.

[Schneb]

You miss the point. I want to add extra USB ports, and no, hubs do not
work with my music keyboard or EyeTV Hybrid. I want more power than a
mini offers and ability to swap and upgrade drives without having to
use a myriad of external enclosures. Apple continues to upgrade the
MacBook, yet has not gotten it through their thick skulls that we want
a prosumer level, half-height MacPro!!

[Schneb]

>I don't think that Apple clones are a good idea...

Remember PowerComputing? They were better than Apple's hardware so they pulled their license because they were outselling Apple's overpriced junk.