Portfolious

Ever heard of a Hackintosh?  It is when someone hacks their computer to allow a hacked version of OS X to run on their computer, get it?  Well a company named Psystar, who is famous for selling Hackintosh computers, has just made this process a lot easier.  They are now selling a program called Rebel EFI, which will run on your PC and tell you if it is able to run Mac OS X, after it does that it will configure your PC and all you will have to do is insert a retail disk of Mac OS X, and you will have yourself a Hackintosh.

This might sound great, but is it really?  This basically takes away the “Macs are too expensive” argument.  This also gives an opportunity for more people to own a “Mac”.  In my own opinion though, I honestly think this is a bad thing, mainly because you do not get the entire Mac experience.  If something goes wrong with your computer you cannot take it into an Apple store and get it fixed for free, you wouldn’t be able to get it fixed at all.  If Mac’s were to gain market share in this way, it might bring more attention to the OS, but in a bad way. One of the biggest reasons Mac OS X does not have many viruses is because they simply do not have as big of a market share as Microsoft.

I understand why many people will use this process.  It really is great for those people who cannot afford to go out and buy a brand new PC or a Mac.  Some people are saying that this could be the end of the Mac, but I wouldn’t go nearly that far.  People who buy Macs, buy them for the entire Apple experience, not just for the OS alone.  In the long run, I feel like this will hurt Apple more than it will help them, and I’m sorry to everyone who is excited about this, but I hope Apple does something to stop it.  What do you guys think?

-Bill Savage