The attention-getting tale of a Miami company offering a cheap non-Apple branded personal computer spiraled wildly with several sites offering new aspects of the story.
A little-known company called Psystar attracted attention with its $399 OpenMac offer. Through the use of emulation, the company claimed it could get Mac OS X Leopard to run on a conventional set of PC hardware, at a vastly lower price than Apple offers.
The blogger behind Netkas claimed ownership of the PC EFI v8 emulator, which was designed to do what Psystar offers: provide an emulation layer between Leopard and the underlying hardware. “Redistribution and use in binary form for direct or indirect commercial purposes, with or without modification, is strictly forbidden,” the license reads.
When gadget-loving Gizmodo got on the track of Psystar’s physical location in Florida, their efforts turned up nothing but a residence at one address listed for them, and an entirely different company at another Psystar address.
“Not only does the Miami Chamber of Commerce and BBB not know anything about any company named Psystar, the actual physical address they listed on their website actually changed halfway through the day yesterday,” said Gizmodo’s Jason Chen. Gizmodo is calling Psystar a hoax.
If so, they got a lot of people with the gag, including no less an Apple luminary than Steve Wozniak. He told ArsTechnica, “I like the price, so I may get one.”
We advise him to hold off on giving Psystar a credit card number anytime soon. Even if Psystar suddenly starts churning out these machines, all it will take is one update from Apple to turn them useless bricks, as they did to people who modified their iPhones.
