The first German Apple is a pear.

The new Mac clone comes from Wolfsburg: Fight With prices and without ambitions for the design calls for a young company out Apple. The replicas, it is believed there were under German law, not to dispute.

 

No, a Mac is not. He does not look that he bears no apple logo and the Apple Store, you can not buy it. And yet he can exactly what Apple's Macintosh computers more than anything else, from standard PCs is different: On the device that its manufacturer Pearce has called, runs the Mac OS X, Apple's operating system and perhaps the crown jewel of the company. The Pearce is a Mac clone, a replica, built and offered, without Apple's blessing - and therefore perhaps on thin ice - constructed.

Actually there should be such Mac replicas do not exist. At least not when it goes after Apple. In the end-user license agreement, called the EULA (End User License Agreement) for Mac OS X, Apple provides the unmistakably clear. Apple does not allow it, "the Boot ROM code and firmware" his computer "to copy, modify or re-distribute," it says. In simple words, Apple's software may be used only on Apple hardware to be installed.

And it offers a young company from Wolfsburg, the Hypermeganet UG, now open to the public and apparently without Scheubeck computer that does not come from Apple and on which Mac OS X is already installed. At prices starting from 499 euros, the "
PC with Mac OS X "on the website of the company offered. A similar attempt to Apple with replicas compete with, had been in the past year the U.S. firm
Psystar undertaken - and now provides
months since a dispute with the California company. Psystar Ausgebremst was hitherto not, however, still offers its "Open Computer" called pseudo-Macs.

"In Germany, the legal"

Fear of a legal dispute with Apple also has not the young company. From the perspective of Hypermeganet is the German law on the side of the Mac clone. "End User License Agreements are in Germany only to part of the contract, if you purchase before the software have been agreed. The restrictions that Apple for its Mac OS X in the EULA does so in Germany have no legal explanation," said company spokesman Dirk ONLINE Blößl blogs.

The core of his argument: The user experience of Apple's ban on Mac OS X on non-Apple computers to install, only after he has purchased the operating system. The Terms of stuck in the software package, you can before you open the same not be viewed. Hypermeganet assumes, therefore, that the product (meaning the Mac-clone) in Germany is legal. "

Apple keeps on the matter, as usual, covered. "The comment we do not," said Apple spokesman Georg Albrecht blogs ONLINE. So no saber-rattling, but no Kleinbeigeben.

How come Mac OS X on PC hardware?

Pearce that the Apple software on a replica up and running, is a trick to thank for. Although Macs basically on standard PC-based hardware, Apple's system is not easy to install them. Such attempts, Apple has an end, by the operating system with Apple's hardware was almost married. The most important copy protection makes the so-called EFI which (Extensible Firmware Interface), the basic program of the computer. This ensures that Mac OS X on the hardware can address.

Opportunities, such protection to be overcome, however, there is a long time. On the one patched, so additional software using modified versions of Mac OS X, its core, the kernel, with programming tricks is to persuade, not to standard hardware to disturb. These variants are just tedious to install, its components must be piece by piece from the network load. Moreover, it is Apple's automatic update feature, you have the PC with such a patch for the Mac made. Every update of the installation would be useless.