Why Mac clones defeat the whole point of a Mac

8. I don't think the writer is arguing about the undesirability of choice in a general sense.

Interestingly, the time the Mac was most rubbish, just prior to the Second Coming of Jobs, was the time when it was most widely cloned.

7. Apple fanboy,trying to convince himself he has'nt wasted his money on that shiny looking Mac.

6. At first hand the intentions of the article were "good" but then completely missed the point.

quote: "And that's why I've never really liked choice."

And what's your definition of choice? I think the corporative-marketing stuff have worked its way on you, doing what they want: to make you a slave of one single product even if it's ****, overrated, etc. Monopoly is in some forms illegal but monopolizing minds isn't.

quote: "I'd much rather be forced to use one good thing than be allowed to choose between a hundred things, all of which are rubbish. Or even one good thing and one bad one."

One good thing about our "democracies" is to have the freedom to choose, even if the choices are not excellent. I'd rather say that it would be good to be forced to use one good thing if it's the best and if there are no other good choices. Clearly you are implying macs are the best, but who says that?

Maybe you should move to some totalitarian regimen country so you only have "one choice" for everything.

quote: "It's an irrelevant freedom, because who will choose the bad thing?"

If the only OS that exist would be linux and os x I would be very pleased that the "standard" could be linux and the second choice osx. Then you know who will choose the bad thing...

quote: "These things aren't nearly as subjective as people like to claim."

Yes, they are.

quote: "Opening up the Mac platform so that it has all the choice and incompatibility issues of a PC makes no sense at all."

False. Opening the mac platform is just making yourself free to use your computer for whatever you like even if it has "issues" as you mention. Even with all the nice things about macs, including their robust system, for me they are clearly overrated and have created a big crowd of blind fanatics.

It's good to see some others here share some thoughts.

5. Who gave this guy a column? I thought this was an Onion article until I looked at the address bar. Really? You hate options that bad?

"And that's why I've never really liked choice."???

Ever thought of moving to China?

4. From the article: "And that's why I've never really liked choice."

This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard anybody say! Do you wear black turtlenecks everyday so you don't have to choose what to wear?

3. "It would be like hacking your PS3 so that it can use XBox 360 controllers."

I like the 360 controller more then the Dualshock, but I like playstation games more.

I like the open-ness of a PC , but the feel of OSX.

catch my drift? It's all about personal taste, and a lot of people don't prefer to pay apples premium, but like OSX a lot, so this is an easy alternative without dealing with the hassle of installing osx86

2. Well, I have the real thing and have a clone. I prefer to be able to tweak my machines, which apple keeps locked down. My latest two Mac's however, are Hackintosh computers. I have an MSI Wind, running leopard with an apple n airport card in it, which runs great and was purchased because of Apple's lack of a sub portable computer. My second is a quad core which was purchased for overclocking purposes. A comparable apple computer to this one would run around 4000 and I paid 800. I can see how companies like psystar make this whole thing look bad by overcharging customers, though that is not normally the case. Anyone who wants to could build one. There is a company out there efi-x, that makes a usb key that allows for efi boot support on bios based computers and also lists compatible motherboards etc. Some motherboard manufacturers are even shipping their boards now with osx drivers. Apple has not locked the computers down like psystar is claiming in their lawsuits either. As long as you have a computer that supports efi booting, you can boot a Leopard Retail disk. It's just a matter of time before motherboard manufacturers are going to start making boards with efi instead of bios. BTW - Windows 7 is suppose to support efi, so I think it's happening now.

1. This seems to be a somewhat poorly thought out article. The choice between operating systems and platforms clearly comes down to more than just freedom vs. reliability - there's appearance and function too for a start. Also subjectivity in what is good and bad is far more important than you give credit for, otherwise there wouldn't be a hundred other alternatives to begin with. These things only appear because people are unhappy with what's available to them. You also seem to imply that anything not created by the manufacturer is automatically worse, for which there are thousands of freeware programs which prove this isn't the case. I'd much rather have the choice of a hundred programs and be able to choose for myself which are "good" and "bad" (and this is itself an oversimplification, things can have both good points and bad points) rather than be forced to use one system which I may or may not like but couldn't do anything about.