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Hackintosh store opens in Europe

Brad Sams   on 04 February 2009 - 20:34 · 43 comments & 7721 views

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When Apple made the switch to Intel processors it opened up its software to potential piracy to non Apple branded machine. Fast forward to today and PearC has opened a store in Germany that is now selling hackintosh PC's with OSX 10.5 installed.

The company is doing exactly what Pystar has done in the US and the site says that it has found a legal loophole in the German law that should prevent Apple from taking it to court.

The site allows for a wide array of configurations including Steve Job's famous "bag of hurt" Blu-Ray. But as with any hackintosh, support of the PC is unknown as well as how updates will affect a purchased system.

"The standard configurations are the: Starter, Advanced and Professional. The Professional Version comes standard with Intels i7 Processor and allows upgrade to the 3.2Ghz Extreme Edition, as well as an Nvidia 9800GTX with 2GB of memory. While the starter and Advanced both offer dual cores as standard the Advanced has more configuration options allowing for Quad Core CPU's and high end graphics cards. the Professional Version is by far the most powerful of the Mac Clones released to date."

The stock prices for the systems are as follows:
Starter: 499 €
Advanced: 749 €
Professional: 1499 €

Will Apple be able to take down PearC? Only time will tell but if your in the market for a Hackintosh, you now have one more option.

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#1 Beastage on 04 Feb 2009 - 20:48
Haha awesome

I doubt Apple has any chance to sue in Europe.
#2 testman on 04 Feb 2009 - 20:52
Somehow I don't think Apple has no chance to sue. They'll sue, there's no doubt.
(1 reply) #3 +Aero_Rising on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:03
I doubt apple will sue in europe because if they did then they would draw attention from the eu and then they would be in trouble considering microsoft got in trouble for anti trust things then apple for sure will because they try and lock their whole market.
#3.1 testman on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:17
Don't be silly. Apple are an multinational company and like any other multinational company, they will protect their trademarks (in this case, the OS) like a lion protects their cubs (i.e. aggressively).
(1 reply) #4 Lucas on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:10
I am pretty sure Apple has international stores with their patent everywhere and what not. I am also sure they can sue them and take them down.
#4.1 Glassed Silver on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:21
yes... because EULA beats national law... right? NOT!

i know of that "loophole". It's there. They are safe for now...
But the lobbiests are already busily working in Berlin, I guess...
Successfully or not, we don't know, we'll see.
(1 reply) #5 Recon415 on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:12
Hehe, and with prices that kick the sh*t outta Apple too!
#5.1 rakeshishere on 05 Feb 2009 - 10:26
You win the Internets for stating the truth
(1 reply) #6 Silverskull on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:14
I agree, this is awesome. Mac clones that are cheaper and more powerful than the real thing. Take that, Apple!
#6.1 mmck on 05 Feb 2009 - 12:37
They're still not cheap though.

Matching spec to a Windows PC I picked up... Intel Core 2 Quad 9550, Geforce 9800 GT, 1GB HD @ 7200rpm, 4GB Ram (faster that PearC site), along with all the other standards card/reader DVDRW etc. etc. they get over £1000 GBP, whereas it only cost me £650.
#7 +Berserk87 on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:21
in before apple takes them to court...
#8 Unkoil on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:25
I wonder how ugly the towers look?
(11 replies) #9 LTD on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:27
Eins, zwei, drei, bye PearC!!

The site says that it has found a legal loophole in the German law that should prevent Apple from taking it to court.

I'm quite sure Apple will have no problem taking the fight across the ocean. Apple has plenty of time and money to bleed these little rats out of business. We've already seen how keen Apple is on protecting their trademarks and IP, as they have every right to. And they're usually very aggressive about it.


Last edited by LTD on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:32
#9.1 Richard Hammond on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:44
LTD said,
Eins, zwei, drei, bye PearC!!

The site says that it has found a legal loophole in the German law that should prevent Apple from taking it to court.

I'm quite sure Apple will have no problem taking the fight across the ocean. Apple has plenty of time and money to bleed these little rats out of business. We've already seen how keen Apple is on protecting their trademarks and IP, as they have every right to. And they're usually very aggressive about it.

Why are they little rats, because they dared to take on your precious Apple Inc.
#9.2 ZeroHour on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:46
That is harsh to say the least fanboy!
#9.3 LTD on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:47
Richard Hammond said,
LTD said,
Eins, zwei, drei, bye PearC!!

The site says that it has found a legal loophole in the German law that should prevent Apple from taking it to court.

I'm quite sure Apple will have no problem taking the fight across the ocean. Apple has plenty of time and money to bleed these little rats out of business. We've already seen how keen Apple is on protecting their trademarks and IP, as they have every right to. And they're usually very aggressive about it.

Why are they little rats, because they dared to take on your precious Apple Inc.


No, because most of them profit from that which they have no legal rights to in the first place (i.e., Psystar.) It's theft.
#9.4 teriba on 04 Feb 2009 - 22:10
LTD said,
Richard Hammond said,

LTD said,
Eins, zwei, drei, bye PearC!!

The site says that it has found a legal loophole in the German law that should prevent Apple from taking it to court.

I'm quite sure Apple will have no problem taking the fight across the ocean. Apple has plenty of time and money to bleed these little rats out of business. We've already seen how keen Apple is on protecting their trademarks and IP, as they have every right to. And they're usually very aggressive about it.

Why are they little rats, because they dared to take on your precious Apple Inc.


No, because most of them profit from that which they have no legal rights to in the first place (i.e., Psystar.) It's theft.

Right just like Dell is profiting off of Microsoft. It's not theft, it's a computer maker installing an OS......
#9.5 mclaren05 on 04 Feb 2009 - 22:28
LTD said,
Richard Hammond said,

LTD said,
Eins, zwei, drei, bye PearC!!

The site says that it has found a legal loophole in the German law that should prevent Apple from taking it to court.

I'm quite sure Apple will have no problem taking the fight across the ocean. Apple has plenty of time and money to bleed these little rats out of business. We've already seen how keen Apple is on protecting their trademarks and IP, as they have every right to. And they're usually very aggressive about it.

Why are they little rats, because they dared to take on your precious Apple Inc.


No, because most of them profit from that which they have no legal rights to in the first place (i.e., Psystar.) It's theft.


No, it isnt theft. They bought a copy (and more importantly a license) and are just modifiing some files so it can be installed on a PC.


LTD 0
PC users 1
#9.6 LTD on 04 Feb 2009 - 23:37
mclaren05 said,
No, it isnt theft. They bought a copy (and more importantly a license) and are just modifiing some files so it can be installed on a PC.


That's the problem.
#9.7 Brandon on 05 Feb 2009 - 00:35
LTD said,
That's the problem.

Or its not a problem at all
#9.8 BanneD on 05 Feb 2009 - 02:24
LTD said,
That's the problem.

i'm sorry for my comment but i can't take it anymore, when some ........ "people" pretend it's apples' or any other company's right to go against EU laws and to become winner(we don't care about US, their patents' system is crappy) against EU company... And regarding you... LTD, you should get around and figure out that there's life on another side of Atlantic Ocean... where "stupid" rules do not protect large companies and **** like that...
#9.9 Jaron on 05 Feb 2009 - 02:41
Are you saying, when you write a piece of software, book, music, movie etc.. you don't want absolute control over it?

Ultimately, Apple as the intellectual owner should have the right to sell its product to whoever it choose. Let say for whatever reason Apple can't win in this court case, it will still have the choice to not licence the OS in Germany/Europe. That means "No Soup For You. Next."
#9.10 BanneD on 05 Feb 2009 - 02:57
Jaron said,
Are you saying, when you write a piece of software, book, music, movie etc.. you don't want absolute control over it?

Ultimately, Apple as the intellectual owner should have the right to sell its product to whoever it choose. Let say for whatever reason Apple can't win in this court case, it will still have the choice to not licence the OS in Germany/Europe. That means "No Soup For You. Next."

I used to develop some applications in Delphi and i couldn't care less where they ended up at... in my opinion knowledge is treasure, so share it. That's why we have become who we are now... And as long as i, as a customer, can purchase Mac OS license, i feal that i have the right to download some sort of a "patch" to install it to what ever hardware i prefer to. And yes, i do buy my licenses or use freeware software and on top of that i do buy only cell phones which aren't locked to a network. Oh and.. i'm not an apple customer, i hate the way they deal with them... tie them up to an outdated but nice looking boxes... wow... i prefer my Windows boxes in fact.
#9.11 Richard Hammond on 05 Feb 2009 - 10:16
LTD said,
That's the problem.

No it clearly isnt, EULA arent legally enforceable, the most Apple could do is refuse to support your OS X licence since you have modified the OS and broke the EULA.

Apple cant stop people from selling Mac clones, all they can do is try and claim that they are breaking the lockout so you can only install the OS on a Mac PC.
#10 Renec on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:44
"Only time will tell but if your in the market for a Hackintosh" should actually be "Only time will tell but if you're in the market for a Hackintosh"
(1 reply) #11 ZeroHour on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:45
GO PEAR PC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#11.1 roadwarrior on 04 Feb 2009 - 23:15
ZeroHour said,
GO PEAR PC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Not Pear PC, it's PearC
#12 ir0nw0lf on 04 Feb 2009 - 21:53
I'd be VERY interested in this loophole they claim to have found.
(1 reply) #13 Angel Blue01 on 04 Feb 2009 - 22:01
Rats, I can only afford the Starter model, even if it was affordable to have it shipped across the ocean. PearPC still exists?
#13.1 roadwarrior on 04 Feb 2009 - 23:17
Angel Blue01 said,
PearPC still exists?

Not Pear PC, it's PearC. But, yes, PearPC still exists.
#14 craybox on 04 Feb 2009 - 22:03
man if you wanna buy that 10 year old ugly piece of crap go right ahead.
(1 reply) #15 Soldiers33 on 04 Feb 2009 - 22:04
haha nice 1. finally people start taking on apple
#15.1 MentalDisturb. on 04 Feb 2009 - 22:41
Soldiers33 said,
haha nice 1. finally people start taking on apple


Finally? This cat & mouse game has been going on for a while...
I'm interested how the trial will go. I'm pretty sure that the European Union will go bananas over their anti-trust laws... which, in fact, isn't the worst thing for the consumer.

But then again... Apple can keep sueing them for all kinds of things, and they'll run out of money.
#16 ChrisJ1968 on 04 Feb 2009 - 22:58
It's a shame that it takes this incident to wake up a giant like the EU. I'm sure the EU will scrutinize Apple Inc.
as for anti competitive practices? this could be the case. European laws AREN'T US laws. this should get real good real fast!!!

#17 Raa on 04 Feb 2009 - 23:00
Okay, so what IS this big loophole they're touting?
#18 Nelsoon on 05 Feb 2009 - 02:40
Pystar is subject to the laws of US while PearC is subject to the laws of Germany and perhaps the one of EU.
But EU commission is known to be serious about antitrust. So Hackintosh computers are more likely to be legal in EU than in US
(2 replies) #19 CoolBits on 05 Feb 2009 - 06:41
The problem here is that you get OSX license only when you buy a MAC... DVD in store is just an UPGRADE DVD...
Because you cannot buy a mac without OSX...
Apple should just require a serial # of your mac when you purchase an upgrade DVD.
So no go for clone makers in any court...
#19.1 Airlink on 05 Feb 2009 - 13:56
CoolBits said,
The problem here is that you get OSX license only when you buy a MAC.

You're dam right it's a problem. In fact, it should be illegal! How is it that Apple can get away with insisting that you can only buy OS X if you buy a computer from them? Screw them! If I want to build my own hardware and put OS X on it, I should be able to.
#19.2 CoolBits on 05 Feb 2009 - 19:43
Airlink said,
You're dam right it's a problem. In fact, it should be illegal! How is it that Apple can get away with insisting that you can only buy OS X if you buy a computer from them? Screw them! If I want to build my own hardware and put OS X on it, I should be able to.


Then its a problem with nokia too as you buy symbian with it...
#20 Airlink on 05 Feb 2009 - 13:50
So long as they're selling a legal copy of OSX, I don't see how Apple can sue them. If you want to pay someone to install an OS for you, that's your right.

Let's say I build you a mac: I provide for you the proper mac drivers, and configure the hardware to be mac friendly. So far, I'm not breaking any laws. Then you buy a retail copy of OS X from me and pay me to install it for you. How I chose to install it is up to me, and I should have the option to pre-install or use a drive image if that's what makes business sense for me. If Apple doesn't like it because I'm undercutting their overprices products, they can go suck beans.

Why should it be that I have to be licensed by Apple to build a mac when none of the hardware came from Apple? Even Microsoft isn't THAT anal. Yes, you need to be MS-licensed as an OEM if you want to sell the OEM versions of Windows, but not if you're installing the retail copy. The difference is that there's no such thing as an OEM version of OS X.
(1 reply) #21 computergeek83 on 05 Feb 2009 - 15:31
If your dumb enough to buy one you get what you deserve..... However, whats good for the goose is good for the gander... have I used enough metaphors?

If I can install Microsoft Windows on any piece of computer hardware I want from any manufacturer then why can't I do the same with Mac?
#21.1 CoolBits on 05 Feb 2009 - 19:56
computergeek83 said,
If your dumb enough to buy one you get what you deserve..... However, whats good for the goose is good for the gander... have I used enough metaphors?

If I can install Microsoft Windows on any piece of computer hardware I want from any manufacturer then why can't I do the same with Mac?


You cant do the same with OSX because apple does not sell it (the OS) only UPGRADE DVDs.
When you buy a mac you get a fully functional device (hardware + software)...
MS makes ONLY software and DELL for example makes ONLY hardware... so that why you ca buy that separate... MS + DELL = complete package
But i say it again... with apple you get a complete package, take it or leave it.
Same when you buy a smartphone... you get a complete package.
Why not install symbian on a motorola LOL
#22 +techbeck on 05 Feb 2009 - 18:17
Another funny article..

This is just more things to come for Apple. You grow and become a bigger business, then these issues will come up. But knowing Apple and their winy attitude, I am sure they will try and do something about this.

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