Appletell

With so much mayhem surrounding Psystar, the company that announced last week the availability of what are essentially Mac clones, I thought it a good idea to give an easy-reader breakdown of all the fuss.

It all started April 14th, when Psystar came out of nowhere claiming to be selling OpenMac computers, essentially really cheap Macs. The internet erupted with questions over the legality of it all. Someone named Robert then came forward and said that Psystar would challenge Apple’s license agreement in court. Then an official spokesperson from Psystar denied that Robert spoke for the company. The company’s website went down due to heavy traffic, adding to the pandemonium. Many assumed Psystar was a hoax or scam and had been taken down.

However, it was not so. Psystar’s website came back online, though with trouble: the online store went down after a short while due to their credit card / payment processor closing their account. After a while, the store cam back online using PayPal. The more disconcerting was the fact that the website saw no less than four address changes in a very small time period. A day or so later, the company apologized, explaining that the first was correct, but they moved to accommodate more business, posted the wrong address in error, than fixed it. The explanation still doesn’t really explain anything, though.

Just as it was about to be dismissed at a complete hoax, Gizmodo readers got some shots of what appears to actually be a retail or at least business presence. Just a day after, Psystar released a video showing three “Open Computers:” one running Windows XP, one running Ubuntu, and one running Leopard. Though it looks promising, it still really proves nothing, as no great detail was shown of the Leopard computer. As a side note, the black Windows box looked far sexier than either the Mac or Ubuntu box.

So here’s where it all stands: Psystar looks pretty legitimate. They don’t seem very professional, though. There have been orders placed, and credit cards have been billed. No one has yet come forward saying they have received a tracking number. It is probably best to wait for a few documented arrivals of the product before getting one yourself. This is a story that is continuing to play out and gets more and more interesting by the minute.

Have you bought an Open Computer? Have you received any word on it? Sound off below.

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