How much longer will Hackintosh be possible?

[Essenar]

Wait...

You honestly think they care about the Hackintosh community? BWA----HAHAHAHAHA! Oh man... That's rich.

Apple makes... billions... On iPhone sales. I'm talking.... BILLIONS... Their biggest battle is in the court room and against Windows 8.1 and Surface Pro tablets. Their only challenge is getting people in the door on the road toward a MacBook Air instead of on a Surface. They literally care ZERO percent about people who can't afford a $600 Mac Mini. Because anyone who can't afford that, is not sustainable in the Apple eco system. Apple wants people to fully invest in Apple's products. That means an iPad for bed, an iPhone for work and on the road, a MacBook for computing, a Mac Pro for developing and an iWatch for updates and while you're running into the office or in between meetings.

The only reason companies like Microsoft care about pirating is because it costs them money. Anyone who builds a Hack probably wouldn't buy a real Mac anyway because they either can't justify the cost or can't afford the one with the specs they need. That's why I built a Hack in the first place and if I couldn't build a Hack I would've just survived on Windows.

Anyone who can't afford a Mac isn't even in the market for one and isn't even on Apple's radar. Their price market has spoken for itself. Find a MacBook for an MSRP of less than $850 and I'll start pooping gold bricks right now. Their entry level MSRP is $899 for a complete machine not called the Mac Mini and they've held strong profits with it.

They don't care, AT ALL, about Hackintosh builds. Hell, if anything, Hackintosh building is good for them. I'm sitting here using a MacBook Retina, debating between an eGPU solution or a cheap Hack so I can play games and compile separately, all because I built a Hack back in 2009 and fell in love with OSX. Hackintosh is the reason I bought a REAL Mac and have been using real Macs since 2012. I started with a Classic MBP 13" Ivy Bridge, moved up to an early 2013 Retina 15", sold it because it was way too expensive and settled on a 13" rMBP.

Hackintosh ends when Apple's relationship with Intel ends and that will NEVER happen. Period. Apple fought against using Intel, by using PowerPC for as long as they could. Intel is just too strong. No one has the core performance Intel does on the full computer front. At all. AMD's best can't even hold a candle to the bottom of the bucket i3.

 

[MangoIce]

to be honest I never used iMessage and FaceTime

 

[trs96]

Building your own Customac and not buying an iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro or Macbook, which are very minor parts of Apple's total revenue, isn't hurting that company's bottom line. The people who build their own Customac and then buy FCP X, Pro Tools and other apps from the Mac App store are good revenue sources for Apple. Here's a quote from Apple Hot News, January 2015. The first week of January set a new record for billings from the App Store. Apple customers worldwide spent nearly half a billion dollars on apps and in-app purchases, and New Year’s Day 2015 marked the single biggest day ever in App Store sales history.

1/2 Billion dollars in apps in just one week of the whole year. Building a Customac and being part of the
Apple ecosystem isn't in any way detrimental to Apple or a threat to the success of their business. If someone runs just Windows on their PC hardware all they really can buy is content from the iTunes store.
If you look at the user profiles here, many have an iPhone that they sync up with their Customac and
others have Macbooks for a mobile solution when away from home or just surfing the net from the couch.

Here's the numbers from just the 1st quarter results of 2015


Here Mac = more than 11 separate products that Apple sells. So just over 95.8 million iPhones and
iPads sold while only slightly over 5.5 million Macs were sold. Apple would triple Mac sales over night if they sold them at prices comparable to Windows desktops and laptops. They'll never do that because
it would dilute their brand and also cause them to lose most of their profits from Mac sales.

Of all the hardware sold, 60 billion in revenue came from the iPhone and iPad. Just under 7 billion in revenue from whole Mac lineup. That includes all laptops, desktops like the iMac and Mac Pro. Why is
the iPhone so big ? Because people that use them feel they're such an important part of their life that they can't live without them. They upgrade on average every 2-3 years. It's got an over 32% profit margin, simply amazing when no one else but Samsung profits from smart phone sales. But I digress.

When folks like you and me build a PC to run OS X on we are generally trying to save some money but
it's also because Apple doesn't make the specific machine we need. We also need builds that are easy
to repair and upgrade. Nowadays that is extremely hard to find in the whole Mac lineup.

Those that cannot afford a New 2013 Mac Pro, who would otherwise have to use Windows and Premiere Pro or Audio production apps other than Pro Tools, are staying in the Apple ecosystem. Even if they didn't buy any Apple hardware they are still contributing to Apple's bottom line. As mentioned by Essenar previously, they may in the future buy some expensive brushed Aluminium hardware that again helps support Apple.


click on image to enlarge it.

Notice how Samsung makes more revenue but less profit than Apple does. To take in over
one million in revenue every 3 minutes is mind boggling. Microsoft fell from the top of the heap
in the tech world after the 1990's were over because they thought their Windows/Desktop
dominance would go on forever. They didn't have any success with their mobile devices and Apple overtook them in the latter 2000's. Now MS is completely copying Apple's biz model, even giving away Windows 10 for free. Who would have ever predicted that back in 1999 ???

So after that long talk, is there a bright future for the Customac in the midst of all of Apple's current success ? I think so. If Apple were to make it's walled garden ecosystem into a max security prison they would eventually lock themselves inside. They're never going to make "cheap" products, either in cost or quality, but I don't think they have any plans to try and shut down the so called "Hackintosh movement." It's a win win for OS X users and them. Just think what it would cost Apple in payroll to support everyone (like here on this site) paying tech support people 12-15 dollars per hour to talk folks through installing OS X on their PC. Probably billions and billions of dollars every year.

 

[andfa]

That's why the company name has been changed from apple computer inc. to apple inc.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1054770/applename.html

 

[gubaguba]

Probably quite a while. Apple's policy regarding OS X has always been pretty liberal as it has its roots Berkley Unix. In the scheme of things the Hackintosh community is a cult in a cult, its pretty small and I don't think they are investing a great deal of energy or money to limit it. Apple uses the Intel chips because its in their best interest to do so. Economics of scale allow for Apple to get the processors cheaper then they could make it themselves. There was a time IBM made more money on each Mac sold then Apple did. An ARM chip for say a MacPro would cost a lot to research and then produce while the market to support it is shrinking. An ARM chip for iPhone makes sense as they sell millions of them.

 

[therealniloc]

I think the hacking community will always be on step ahead of Apple when it comes to stealing/copying their OS. There is always a way to get a copy of their OS if it's public.

 

[ModBot]

I think the hacking community will always be on step ahead of Apple when it comes to stealing/copying their OS. There is always a way to get a copy of their OS if it's public.

tonymacx86 does NOT condone stealing the OS, from the forum rules:

• This site does not condone piracy or the use of illegally acquired software. Any use, discussion, links to or mentions of a pre-built VM, t*****t, distribution, downloaded, copied, cloned, hacked or modified installer of the operating system will result in an instant ban and account deletion. Piracy is ILLEGAL and NOT TOLERATED.

 

[therealniloc]

Sorry. What I should've said was modify Apples OS.

 

[Max91]

Sorry. What I should've said was modify Apples OS.

I wouldn't even call it that. I've been doing this since 2011 and not yet had to modify the OS. All I did was let the OS understand what hardware I had. And yes I paid for my original OS's and even got a "Welcome to the Apple Family" email.

In fact I don't even call it a "Hackintosh", Its my computer using OSX. If somebody wants to hack and steal, go Windows, log onto your favorite t*****t site, hack and steal all the BS you want, then see how long your system will hold up....good luck.

BTW. I'd like to thank the Tonymac crew and the community for all they do. I recently upgraded all my hardware on two machines. The process was completely painless and all functions work perfectly. (w/o modifying anything)

Rest assure when I win the lottery, you guys (Tonymacx86) will be in the top ten on my list!

Thanx Again!