Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica:
Thanks to more modern PCs, a wider install base for Intel Macs, and dedicated enthusiast communities and forums like TonyMacx86, it’s not too hard for anyone comfortable with PC building to assemble a Hackintosh using off-the-shelf parts. Community-developed apps and tools streamline the process of creating install media and setting up drivers, and while you’re probably going to have to do a little bit of Terminal work getting everything to function perfectly, most major setup problems are easy enough to overcome for anyone who has been building and maintaining their own PCs for a while.
And:
At this point I should mention this article is in no way intended to be an install guide or an endorsement of Hackintoshing. Today, as has always been the case, installing macOS on non-Apple hardware is a violation of Apple’s licensing agreement.
And:
Apple has done surprisingly little to shut down the Hackintosh community. When companies attempt to commercialize PCs running Mac software, as a long-gone company called Psystar briefly did back in 2008, Apple shuts them down swiftly and decisively. But macOS itself doesn’t do more than a surface-level check for genuine Apple hardware—the underlying hardware needs to be close-ish and special bootloaders spoof things like the model, firmware information, and serial number. These OSx86 enthusiast communities have existed for years without so much as a cease-and-desist. Contrast this with Apple’s much more stringent approach to iOS jailbreaking: the company releases new updates to disable old jailbreaks pretty quickly, at least in part because these jailbreaks rely exclusively on serious security flaws to work in the first place.
There is so much more to this article, well worth the read. But it is interesting that Apple has allowed the Hackintosh universe to survive and even to flourish.
Also interesting is the thought of what form Apple’s coming Mac Pro will take. Will Apple build an upgradeable tower, one designed to last longer than a generation? Given Apple’s reluctance to update a machine with relatively low sales numbers, I think they’d do well to build something that they can release into the wild, let the user community update and upgrade with third party parts, with a nice long extendable life span.
A win for the “Pro” community (not sure of a better label here), a win for the small army of parts suppliers who will seize on the opportunity to sell parts and supplies, a win for the communities who will benefit from product produced using these ultra-powerful machines.
“and while you’re probably going to have to do a little bit of Terminal work getting everything to function perfectly, most major setup problems are easy enough to overcome”
I am reminded all too powerfully of the open source zealots who keep saying “switch to linux, it’s not so bad, you only run into severe problems that are daunting to most people every so often.”
Have one. Love it. It’s a better machine than Apple makes at least than half the price. IU would have bought a Mac at any price if they made the machine I want.
I have a PC GPU installed on my 2008 Mac Pro. It’s the only reason the machine is till kind of viable for what I do. It’s quirky at times. No boot screen and Adobe software does not seem to like it to much.
Apple’s treatment of the hackintosh community reminds me a bit of Paramount’s attitude toward Star Trek fan-film makers. Years of tacit tolerance, until one or two outside bad actors decided to try to profit from the corporation’s IP.
I would be happy if, along with pre-built Mac Pros, they also offered a couple of capable, official Apple motherboards with Apple firmware and core technologies that one can build from – maybe an ATX version and a mini-ITX version. Heck, charge me a few dollars for the OS, if you’d like.
I do worry a bit that they’re overthinking what a pro machine needs to be at Apple. they have one more chance to nail this and if they don’t, I think the pro market that can do their stuff on Windows will just leave.
I get that drivers are an issue and simply dropping in the latest AMD card or some off brand sound card can cause issues, but they need to have drivers for the major, recent GPUs, to work with vendors who want to write drivers to have them certified somehow and to use standard, not proprietary interfaces for storage, etc.
If this turns into them developing some wacky connection stuff, it will die.
to be fair if you follow the TonyMac stuff these seem pretty stable. You usually can’t do Continuity/Handoff and Messages but once running they seem OK. AS for OS updates… it sounds like you just need to break the habit of updating ASAP that many of us have.
I agree. They don’t need to redefine what a professional workstation is. They tried that with the trash can and it didn’t work out. All they need to do is modernize the cheese grater.
And a big win for what’s to me the MOST important thing: macOS! After all, that’s IS the Mac. Yeah, I like nice looking hardware as much as anyone, but it’s macOS, THE SYSTEM, that has kept me with Apple since I started on System 3.0. Please Apple, build it (heck I love my Power Mac G4 Quicksilver design!) and we will come.
Which GPU have you got in yours? What sort of allergies is Adobe exhibiting with it?
I’ve got an R9 280X in mine, but sadly, I suspect its performance is just bottlenecked by the old CPU these days.
It’s a Nvidia GTX 670 with 4GB of memory. The issue with Adobe is if I turn on GPU Performance on, Illustrator will crash almost immediately. The thing is that on my Macbook Pro 2015, I have that feature on by default, I never see a problem. So I am going to chucked up to Apple/Adobe not really supporting that GPU with the Nvidia web driver.
Who knows what they will come up with. I think that if they somehow could integrate it to an iPad Pro to be used as a monitor/tablet, that would bridge the desktop and iOS in a way that we have not seen before.
it’s a bit overstated, you usually don’t need to do do something as “complicated” as using the terminal for setting up a hackintosh. but it’s for sure more complicated than buying a mac. that’s one of the trade-offs for getting a machine that’s more powerful for a third of the price. on the other hand, if something breaks down, you can usually fix it yourself and don’t have to send in the machine for days. and it’s not as if an original mac doesn’t get stuck, needs to get a clean re-install from time to time or needs you to use the terminal if you play around with it a little bit. if you’re that kind of user, it’s not much of a difference. i’d say dowtime between my hackintoshes and original macs is about equal.
i’m a little bit worried about the press hackintoshes are getting lately. i hope apple doesn’t do anything against the community now. but it’s a good thing that you usually have to own a mac to download osx to use on a hackintosh – so they still get some profit.
My last paycheck was $22500 for working 12 hours a week online.Start earning $97/hour by working online from your home for few hours each day with GOOGLE… Get regular payments on weekly basis… All you need is a computer, internet connection and a litte free time… Read more here
!wr490c:
➽➽
➽➽➽➽ http://GoogleFinancialCashJobs490OfficeMedia/GetPaid$97/Hour… ★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫:::!wr490u:…….