Apple Settles with Rogue Retailer

Settlement may leave door open for clone-it-yourself Macs

Wan't an Apple Macintosh computer but don't want to pay the sticker price at the Apple store? You're not alone.

However, when Miami-based Psystar started installing the Macintosh operating system no generic personal computers and selling them online in April of 2008, techies figured it was only a matter of time until Apple sued them into oblivion.

But in a partial settlement announced yesterday, there may be hope yet for customers looking to install Mac OS on a computer running any old Intel processor.

While the exact terms of the settlement haven't been fully disclosed, a district court judge has imposed an injunction on Psystar selling machines with Apple's operating system already installed, along with monetary damages.

Psystar did ask for its Rebel EFI software, which it sells for $50 and allows a computer user to install and operate a copy of Mac OS X 10.6 on their own machine, be excluded from the injunction.

In the end, it'll still take some doing if you want a "hackintosh." But Psystar might just be around to help.

Jackson West remembers the days when Apple licensed clones, and they worked just fine.

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