November 9, 2009 • 30 mins
In response to a listener's e-mail, Jonathan and Chris define and discuss hackintoshes, PCs that have been modified to run the Macintosh operating system.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technologies with
tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. You've heard
the rumors before, perhaps and whispers written between the lines
of the textbooks. Conspiracies, paranormal events, all those things that
(00:24):
disappear from the official explanations. Tune in and learn more
of the stuff they don't want you to know in
this video podcast from how stuff works dot com. Hello there, everybody,
and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Palette,
(00:45):
and I'm the tech editor here at how stuff works
dot com. And apparently I speak halting Lee sitting across
from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey,
they're all you hepcats a sight. Yeah yeah, I'm not
sure where they came from. We had a big philosophical
discussion just a minute ago. Of course, this episode may
(01:08):
publish before that one, so we won't go into any detail. Um,
Before we get started, I wanted to remind you remember
we were talking earlier about pumpkin destruction. Oh yes, yes, right,
the Science Channels showing the road to Punkin, Chunkin and
Punkin chunkin on Thanksgiving night. Yeah, that's a November twenty
six here in the United States on Science Channel. Yeah,
starts at eight. Uh. Then there's another one at nine,
(01:30):
So those are the two shows. Um, you get to
see these guys who build these amazing machines designed to
shoot pumpkins a very far away before they explode. Yes, yes,
it's it's lovely. I've actually watched shows like this in
the past, and it's it's a lot of fun to
watch those those guys shoot a uh an object that
probably shouldn't be fired from a cannon and watch it
(01:50):
burst on the ground. It's it's what you might call gorgeous.
So what are we gonna talk about today? While it
all boils down to a message I received in listen
or mail. Now, this listener mail came from Mark from Phoenix, Arizona,
and Mark wrote an incredibly long and wonderful listener listener
(02:12):
mail to us. But it's so long and it covers
so much ground that I tried to cut it back
a little bit because it's just it's too unwieldy to
start off an episode. So here's here's what's left. Greetings,
Chris and Jonathan, I want to tell you how much
I enjoy listening to your podcast, as well as comment
on several specific items. Excerpt your episode on Apple clones
(02:35):
lacked a description of resources on the web, both for
sale and open source, that are available to convert a
PC into a hack intosh. Never tried this myself yet,
but I also have read several articles claiming success using
OS ten as a virtual machine when parallels Desktop and
V and fusion wear. But your mileage is sure to vary.
As with any type of non authorized, undefined use of
(02:57):
any hardware, software, or firmware. You put them in all caps.
I thin make it special. Another definition of firmware you
can consider is any code that begins execution on the
system prior to the main operating system becoming active. Take
it or leave it, but don't deny it. Also sounds
pretty good. Once again, I love your podcasts and feel
at times that you two have produced some of them
(03:17):
just for me. To me, that's a sign of true
technology evangelists. Please don't stop doing what you do until
you at least talk about jail breaking and why that
could drive you crazy or worse. Sincerely, Mark from Phoenix, Arizona.
So this isn't the jail breaking episode. This is a
long distance dedication. Yes, this one goes out to Mark
(03:38):
Mark wherever you are, probably Phoenix, Arizona. This one specifically
for you. Um so we wanted to talk about Hackintosh
is now like Mark said ages back back in April,
in fact, I think, um, we had an episode called
Apple Clones. We're kind of talking about these computers that
were being made by a company called sy Star. Still
(04:00):
are actually and still buy them. Um and the company
what size Star was doing that was so unique was
it was selling uh hardware, PC hardware that was running
the Mac os ten operating system. Now, this is unusual
because Apple likes their Mac os ten operating system to
run on Apple computers and only Apple computers. That's right.
(04:23):
Anything otherwise is a violation of the end user license
agreement or yeah, now you lash. Laws by the way,
are not law yet, so um so, yeah, you you
are violating a license agreement if you try to install
an operating system or really when whenever you're doing anything
(04:45):
that violates a license agreement, you are not technically breaking
the law in the United States. Um, yet we have
to say yet change, Yes, there have been so now
in this case, the whole reason behind it is that
Apple they like to build a product from the ground
up and control every aspect of that product possible, right,
(05:09):
I mean everything. Yeah, So they're very, very concerned about
the whole user experience. And of course they don't build
every piece of it, but they choose what processor goes
in there, and they choose what video card goes the exactly. Yeah.
So when you're talking about that, then you you realize
PCs are totally different PCs. Two PCs that are essentially
(05:32):
the same amount of like they have the same specs
in general, could have completely different parts to them, completely
different components from different manufacturers, and they could look totally different.
You know, one PC may look and completely different from
another PC that has essentially the same specs. Apple, They're
going to be uniform. They're beautiful, they're efficient machines. Um,
(05:56):
they do what what they were designed to do very well.
Uh But again there unless if you don't like that style,
you're out of luck, because that's all there is. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
and and I would like to get into a little
bit of the definition on hacking because uh, you know,
the word hacker sort of carries with it a negative connotation.
(06:18):
I mean, people think of hackers as people who break
into mainframe computers and steal social security numbers or yeah, yeah,
global thermonuclear war, that kind of thing. Shall we play
a game? But you know, there are other people who
see hacking as something different. I mean, the basically the
whole uh O'Reilly community would see it as people who
(06:41):
like to take things apart and mess with it and
you can do things for Yeah, I see how it works,
Maybe improve upon it, uh you know, maybe share that
information with other people and and and try something new.
You know, yeah, you might. You might think, hey, I've
got this device that does this one thing really well.
I wish it could also do this other thing. And
(07:02):
then you think, hey, wait, if I take it apart
and look and see how it works, I might be
able to make it do this other thing. And then
you build it back and you you you add in
new functionality that is hacking. It can be. It doesn't
have to be a computer, doesn't have to be a program,
doesn't have to be software. It can be anything really
and um, a lot of the early hackers, that's what
they were doing. They were taking software and saying, you know,
(07:24):
the software is great, but I could really use a
little more functionality. I need a couple of features that
aren't found in this I'll just build in some lines
of code added into this, uh, this program, and it
will suddenly do the things I needed to do. May
not look pretty, it may not be uh, it may
not be elegant. So you might be a code monkey
(07:45):
and uh your code is not functional or elegant. Um. Yeah,
I love Jonathan Colton. Um if you're listening to Jonathan Yeah,
big fans, Um, I'll be seeing you in Atlanta in January.
So anyway, the the whole, the whole idea here is that, Yeah,
these guys are not They're not they don't have any
(08:07):
like ulterior motives. They're not trying to um bring down
the system or anything like that. They're curious to know
how something works. They may want to improve upon it,
and they may want to use it in a way
that the person who created it had not either thought
of or intended. Yeah, and a lot of people in
the hacker community who take uh shall we say, umbrage
(08:27):
at the use of the word hacker to describe you know,
these uh folks who are up to know God like
prefer that we use the word cracker for those who
are trying to break in, uh to you know, the
entire country of Moldova and trash their water system or whatever.
We have some bad news for you guys, though. The
(08:47):
AP style book says no way, everybody's a hacker. Yeah,
so sorry, we have to follow a P style book rules.
That's that's our style kinds. So so for us now
from now on, a hacker as a hacker as a hacker.
But that's the thing is there there everybody who's a
hacker is hacking, whether they're using it for good or
for evil. Oh you know, it's just like Wizard of Oz,
(09:09):
Are you a good witch? Are you a bad witch? Sandwich?
So let's go on to talking specifically about the Hackintosh,
now that we've talked all around the hacker thing. Yeah, well,
I just wanted to clarify that because, uh, you know,
you might associate this with doing something illegal and it's not.
It's sort of depends on how you go about it.
And there's different shades of gray from the light grade
to the very very very dark. It's on the fringe, definitely, definitely.
(09:32):
Now let me ask you this question, why would someone
want to build a hackintosh. You know, I can give
you a specific example of why someone would want to
build a hackintosh. Hit me baby one more time. Um,
Steve Jobs does not believe the Apple can affordably produce
(09:52):
a netbook. Oh so it might, it might behoo have
someone to prove Steve Jobs wrong by taking a net
stripping it of its operating system and installing OS ten
and then you would have a very small, very portable,
very affordable machine running the Mac operating system. Yes, and
that's and that's more often than not in the past
(10:14):
probably year. That's the way I've seen Macintosh is come
about is because somebody wants a very affordable netbook that
runs ostend and uh Apple. For the record, I still
have a twelve inch power book, which is an older
power pc uh Macintosh, and I still get comments like wow,
that's a really small mac and like, yeah it is. Well,
(10:34):
they don't make it anymore. They don't make it twelve inch, right, Um,
so that's another closest you can get. And it was
actually never really affordable. It depends on how you define.
All right, well, let me let me also go ahead
and get this out of the way, because I don't
want tons of people writing me. Um. When we talk
about price points, and people often will say that the
Mac computers are more expensive than PC computers. Okay, well
(10:57):
in general, yeah, that's true. You look at the Mac
computers have a specific range and it's essentially if take
the Mac Mini out of the equation, right, so you're
just looking at the laptops to desktops. You're looking at
a thousand to around two thousand dollars or your for
most of your base computers. Right, So that's you know,
that's fairly expensive. You don't find anything below a thousand
(11:17):
dollars besides the Mac Mini, which is just the really
just the basic basic part of a computer, and you
have to buy everything else around it anyway. Um, Whereas
with a PC you can look at PCs and like, hey,
look this store is running a thing where I can
get this PC for four dred bucks. What's the difference?
The differences in performance? MAX? The reason why MAX are
so expensive. There are a couple of different reasons. One is, yes,
(11:40):
you are paying the Apple tax. Yes, that Apple computers
are more expensive than a PC that runs the same
kind of like the same powerful, same amount of power.
I guess you could say, and it's hard to say,
Like the processor is is similar, the amount of storage
space is similar, the amount of RAM is similar. If
(12:00):
you if you if you look at the guts of
the machine, the stuff that's not you take everything outside
the case, and you get a similar processor and a
similar hard drive, and a similar graphics processor and sound card.
You're you're going i mean, the components themselves, the stuff
that's inside the box will be It'll be a little cheaper,
but not not as much as what a lot of
(12:20):
people think. Really, I mean, if you get the quality
of of um components that Apple uses in their their
their machines, it's really you're not really going to save
a ton of money by building the equivalent PC version.
You will save some, but not not as much as
what a lot of I think a lot of people
just imationed, like, oh, there's like a five mark up
(12:41):
immediately on Apple products. That's just simply not true. No,
not not not that way. But there is Apple can
demand a you know, a little bit more cashe and
they can they can charge a little bit more for
their products, but it's not you know, completely unwarranted. They
generally do get a little bit better components. But let
(13:02):
the you know, the Dells and the hps of the
world that use those same components are cheaper, but not
as cheap as a an E machine you know what
you might get at four at at you know, your local,
but it's also running a less powerful process that doesn't
have as much memory, doesn't have as much hard drive space,
which is the thing about netbooks in general. They are
(13:22):
you know, they use less powerful processors. And so really
a Hacintosh is going to be attractive to someone who
wants a computer running the Macintosh operating system. They do
not need it to be as powerful as Apple has
made their computers, not in general. So well, let's well,
let's just say like I want to Let's say I
want to run stuff on the mac os, but I
(13:44):
don't really have it in my budget to buy the
cheapest of the the imax. Let's say, okay, I want
a desktop computer, and you don't want a Mac minie.
I don't want a macmni. Okay, let's say that I
don't want to Mac Mini, which is around what six
seven hulls. I think, so honestly, haven't I will look
to look while I talk, So, uh, I don't I
(14:05):
can't afford the lowest level iMac. Let's say, and I want, um,
I want a desktop computer. It does not have to
be as powerful as the iMac, but I want it
running the operating system. I don't have any options besides
the Mac Mini, which is there you go, That's what
I thought it was. But um, I wasn't. It wasn't
entirely so uh but keeping that in mind, then I
(14:29):
would you know, I'm going out and buying like a
cheaper desktop, I'm putting the mac Os on it. What
do I need to do in order to do that? Okay,
here's the thing. The Mac Os is built for a
very specific hardware and bios configuration. Yes, I mean if
you if you are in control of the entire you know,
(14:50):
theoretically in the entire line of computers, you know specifically
what processors you have used in the past and what
it should run on. Like Microsoft really has a much
more difficult job because they have to build an operating
system that can work on a huge variety of hardware.
We're talking about different kinds of processors, motherboards, ram hard
(15:11):
drive space, I mean, video cards. It has to be
able to support all this different stuff. Now, Apple, the
OS only has to support a a limited number of
components because that's all Apple will use. Now, even within
a line of IMAX, depending on when you get one,
the components may not be exactly the same because Apple,
(15:34):
like other companies, is going to purchase their equipment in
places where it makes the most sense. So if if
one person, if one company, creates a motherboard that is
that the OS um supports, and that's the cheapest one
in the market, that's where they're gonna go. But if
another company starts to undercut the first one and the
OS also supports that motherboard configuration, you can bet that
(15:56):
Apple is gonna switch. So there are still a range
of of pieces of equipment that you can find in
the Macintosh line, but it's a much much more narrow range, right,
So if you want to build a PC that runs
mac OS reliably, that means that you have to make
sure that the components you pick are among those that
(16:17):
the OS supports, Otherwise you will have problems getting your
hardware to interact with your operating system. And that's gonna
be tricky, especially with UH stuff like the netbooks, because
the netbooks use and often use processors that were not
part of the the Apple line. Yeah, it's actually a
lot easier to build a desktop than it would be
to buy a netbook or laptop and strip it of
(16:40):
its operating system and put in a new one. Um,
what you can do if you want to buy or
if you want to build your own computer, you would
buy the the components individually, including the case. So you're
talking about everything from the power source to the fan,
to the motherboard, to RAM, to hard drive, two disk drives.
All of that stuff needs to be purchased, and you
(17:01):
need to to look and see what the mac os supports.
I will tell you right now. The source that I
found that I think gives the most um thorough walk
through of building a hackintosh is life Hacker. Life Hacker
gives a great rundown from beginning to end on how
to build a hackintosh. Uh they even link out to other,
(17:22):
um other really really in depth articles about building your
own computer. So if you've never built a computer before,
and the language in that article is a little difficult
for you to understand because you're just not familiar with
the terminology, you can actually go to their earlier articles
and see, you know, you can build from the ground up. Okay,
so it's nice because it doesn't it's it's accessible. All right. Well,
(17:46):
let's talk about what you would actually need to do
if you were going to do I mean, you know
in a nutshell that if you're gonna do it at
that level, you're really gonna go forward with it. I
wouldn't follow the instructions were going to lay out. I
think we're just gonna talk about the high end. Yeah,
we're gonna about in general generalities. So, so you have
a you have a PC, maybe you built it, maybe
it's a netbook that you want to run ten on.
(18:09):
How are you going to convince it that it's a Macintosh.
The first thing you're gonna have to do is probably well,
as far as I'm concerned, is tweak your bios. Now,
the bios is this layer of programming that interacts between
your operating system and your computer's hardware. The bios has
to be able to operate in such a way that
(18:29):
it can convince the operating system that the underlying hardware
is in fact a Macintosh. So, um, you need to
find a set of directions, and there are many out
there on the web that tell you how to tweak
your BIOS in such a way so that it is
compatible with the mac Os because just plugging the mac
OS DVD into your PC and then trying to install
(18:51):
the operating system, that's not gonna work. And I just
do a clean install like that, right right. And I
can tell you from personal experience that this right, this
right here is going to keep a lot of people
from doing from trying this because UM, I installed a
copy of a Buntu Johnny jack Lope on an old
PC that I had, and uh, this is this is
(19:15):
a version of Linux for those of you who aren't
in the know. UM. Now, the Linux community is much
different because in this case, UM, I have had difficulty
finding a driver for the monitor that I have, so
I can't I'm having trouble changing the resolution of the
monitor and making the most of the size that I
have hooked up to the PC. The thing the difference
(19:35):
here is eventually the Linux community, somebody might write a
driver for that, because it's an open source operating system
and there are thousands and thousands of people messing with
it and tinkering with it and hacking it every day. Now,
in Apple's case, if I'm trying to do this with
a hack in tash and I can't get a particular
piece of hardware to work, then nobody's going to be
(19:57):
writing a driver for it because Apple is not supporting it.
And the only luck and I can tell you from
you know, the amount of frustration of how with just
that one little thing where actually somebody might take a
look at it for real. You know, if I were
going to try to do this and it didn't work
right off the bat, I would probably go, well, the
chance to coming around this obstacle are pretty, you know,
(20:18):
pretty low. That's why I would go with building a
computer versus buying one and hoping that everything is going
to work out, because at least when you buy all
the components, especially if someone's already done this before, then
at least you have the you know, yeah, you have
something to fall back on saying, well, it worked in
this case, so it should work when I do it,
as long as I do everything correctly. When you're using
(20:39):
a different set of hardware, there's no way to predict that.
So um and and the only other thing you can
hope is that the next generation of Apple products actually
uses whatever hardware you is no longer is isn't recognized
by your operating system and that they patch it, which
is the chances are minuscule, but it's easy if you're
(21:00):
It would be far easier to build a hack intosh,
if you were going to take the components themselves off
the store shelf and go, I know they used this,
I know they used that. I'm pretty sure they have
one of those in an iMac. You can put it
together and probably get it to work without too awfully
much difficulty. I would imagine, yeah, you'd have to it
would know what those things were. Usually you're gonna have
to rip the operating system software onto another desk. The
(21:24):
Lifehickers suggests that you buy your copy of the operating system,
so you're not just stealing it. Well, that's that's uh,
that's how side star is making its case because they're
buying legitimate copies of the operating system. It's just that
Apple says that it's a violation of the end user
license agreement to use it on a machine that is
not technically am academ Right. So side Star what they
(21:45):
are doing is they're doing exactly what I'm describing, except
they're doing it on a wider scale. They're doing it
in a mass production kind of way. I guess not
really mass production because I doubt that they're making that
many of them right now. Well, I mean it's more
than just one or two. Yeah, yeah, but it's it's
a company that's that's taking this process and as you know,
kind of putting a a streamlined effect into into place.
(22:05):
And so what they're doing is they're installing this upbring
system on a set of PC hardware that is as
close to what the Mac hardware does as possible. UM.
And there are three different tiers that you can buy,
UH for the the Size Star models and UM Size
Star also offers they just started offering at a trial
(22:27):
version anyway, a set of software called Rebel. Yes that
that would be Rebel e f I, and the e
f I is actually short for UM. Oh, I had
it down here? Where is it? I honestly don't know
the answer to this because I didn't have it. Where
is it? Anyway? It's a UM. The e f I
is basically a piece of code that defines the basically
(22:51):
the different communication between an operating system and the platform firmware.
And so they're trying they're basically fooling the computer into
two are actually fooling the operating system into believing that
it's running on a Macintosh. So in other words, you
could run this software to install mac os on any computer. So,
like you know, Chris was talking about the netbooks, this
would be one way to get the mac OS onto
(23:13):
a netbook, assuming the netbook was capable of running the
operating system, if it was powerful enough. Um. But as
a side star points out, there's no guarantee that all
of your hardware, all of your drivers are going to
be compatible with the mac os. It is supposed to
try and fool the OS as much as possible into
thinking it's on an Apple machine, but that does not
mean that everything's gonna work, Like you might suddenly realize
(23:35):
that your touch pad doesn't work. Um. And a lot
of people who have netbooks, netbook hacintoshes have had trouble
with stuff just cutting out on them and crashing. It's
been unreliable. Yeah, so I mean buy or beware, not
not completely, but you know it, it happens from time.
It's not necessarily going to be as reliable as again,
building your own machine. But of course building building a
(23:57):
netbook is pretty much I mean, I guess could take
that on but it would probably be more expensive than
just going out and buying one. Yeah. Yeah, I mean
it's the kind of thing that I would imagine the
the support costs, even if you're the ones supporting it,
it would be kind of irritating. It would be you'd
be better off getting, you know, a machine that worked
for you, with some operating system that you were comfortable with. Right.
(24:18):
So the trial version of Rebel, just so you guys know,
it is very limited. It has a two hour run
time and after that it deactivates. And they also very
they make it very clear that they do not uh,
they are not to be held responsible for any data
lost during the process. Yeah, and that that goes back
to our always back up your hard drive. Yes. By
(24:39):
the way, ef I is short for Extensible Firmware Interface,
the interface between the firmware and the hardware. That makes sense.
That makes sense, all right, So we've defined Hackintosh. We
kind of gave people, you know, say, go to life
hacker if you really want to take this on. It's
an interesting project. I don't know that I would necessarily
take it on. I've already got a Mac and I'm
happy with it, and you know, I was. It comes
(25:02):
down to if you're willing to put in the work. Um,
and the money really is a big deal. The life
Hacker machine that is described as eight hundred dollars. The
little fudging there, it was eight hundred after some rebates
total it was I think, so that's still cheaper than
any iMac you're gonna find. It's not as it's more
(25:23):
expensive than the Mac many. But then again with the
Mac Mini you've kind of buy other stuff too. So
if you already have monitors or whatever that are going
to work with this, uh, then you'll save money that way. Yeah,
and then there's the the joy of hacking, which a
lot of people, you know, if you you're interested in
having it as a project, I mean, that's sort of
a different animal. But for me, I'm I'm not at
(25:44):
that level. I'm more of an enthusiast for technology. So
I would prefer that if I were using a Macintosh
or Windows or Linux machine that in general it would
run pretty well. Yeah. I kind of like stuff, but
I would prefer it to work more than it doesn't. Yeah,
I'm right there with you then, And I you know,
the the gray area. It just kind of makes me nervous. Well,
(26:04):
whenever I think about building on taking on a project
like this, Like I thought about a few different projects
like this, and I really think, like, oh, that might
be really neat to tackle. What if I really, you know,
tried this out. Um, I look back to the things
I built in wood shop class back when I was
in high school and how they are completely unidentifiable from
(26:24):
what they are supposed to be, and I think this
might not be for me. Yeah, yeah, um yeah, it's
it's funny because I just don't I don't know. It
seems like it would be an awful lot of trouble
unless you were specifically, you know, doing it just to
see what breaks and what doesn't. Um, And I think
we should mention to the dark gray part of the
(26:46):
gray area, which is the cracked version. There is another
way to do this, which is within actual cracked version
of the operating system. And in this case, you're violating
more than the end usual action because you're essentially stealing
in a copy of the operation that is not you
should make copy. I guess you could argue, hey, what
if I went out and bought a copy of the
operating system and never used it and then just downloaded it?
(27:07):
But even so, you're still stealing a copy. Yeah, and
then you're gonna have to prove that we're talking about
It seems like the realm of bit torrent here is
what we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, and that's that's definitely
farther than I'm personally willing to go on that. Probably.
I should also point out that I misspocused. How can
ago before everyone writes in and tells me that the
f I is not the interface between the hardware and
(27:28):
the firmware. It is, in fact the interface between the
software in the firmware. I was wondering because I was
thinking that between heart software, between firmware and hardware. I
was like, wow, that's a that's a new level that
I'm not even familiar with. That would be a wrong level. Yeah,
I was completely wrong. It is between the software and
the firmware. So I hope you didn't pause the podcast
(27:49):
and then tell somebody somebody will have done. We'll see it,
and and don't think you're funny if you listen to
the whole thing and then you pretended like you paused
it and then you wrote in we can tell because
we're that darn good. Um, I am uh, I'm worn out.
With Hackintosh's yeah, it's it's it's interesting. Is it seems
like it would be a kind of an interesting project,
(28:11):
but uh, it's some it applies to a niche audience.
But you might hear people talking about it, and maybe
it'll inspire Apple to come up with a small, uh
something relatively an expensive portable device like a tablet. I
didn't say tablet. We're fueling the rumors once again. I
think really what it comes down to is, uh, if
you want the mac os that badly, then go ahead
(28:35):
and put some money into investing into an Apple computer. Um,
and if you want to do things that are useful
like play games or productivity software, just stick with the
Windows machine. Seriously that I don't have an anti Mac bias, honestly.
All right, I'm done? Are you done? I am? I'm
(28:55):
so done. Let us move on to our second round
of listener mail. This comes from David in London, the
United Kingdom, and I'm too tired to do a fake accent,
so here we go. Hey guys, great show. As ever,
something pretty important you didn't mention is where the Zoom
is sold e g. Only in the United States. Why,
(29:17):
surely a big partner to uptake with when Apple sells
their kid globally barrier barrier to uptake. That's why I
get up a game. I'm trying to read through the
mic screen. Crazy. Keep up the great work, David and London. Um. Yeah,
so the zoom it is available in a very limited
geographic range. It that is definitely another another barrier to
(29:40):
Microsoft success. UM can't really answer why because I don't
know the reason. It may have something to do with licensing.
I have no idea actually that that makes a lot
of sense. So maybe we'll look into that. That might
actually be another good podcast is talking about why certain
things are available in some countries and not in others,
besides the content stuff like Hulu or BBC, where it's
(30:02):
clearly a licensing issue as far as content goes. Yeah,
that might be a fun one to do, so we'll
look into that. Okay, So thanks a lot, David. If
any of you have any questions or comments or suggestions,
you can write us. Our email address is tech Stuff
at how stuff works dot com. Remember we do have
our live show every Tuesday one pm Eastern. You can
check that out at our blogs. Just go to how
(30:23):
stuff works dot com. Look on the right hand side.
You will see links to the blogs there. Chris and
I will talk to you again really soon for moralness
and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
dot com and be sure to check out the new
tech stuff blog now on the House stuff Works homepage,
(30:45):
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technologies with
tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. You've heard
the rumors before, perhaps and whispers written between the lines
of the textbooks. Conspiracies, paranormal events, all those things that
(00:24):
disappear from the official explanations. Tune in and learn more
of the stuff they don't want you to know in
this video podcast from how stuff works dot com. Hello there, everybody,
and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Palette,
(00:45):
and I'm the tech editor here at how stuff works
dot com. And apparently I speak halting Lee sitting across
from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey,
they're all you hepcats a sight. Yeah yeah, I'm not
sure where they came from. We had a big philosophical
discussion just a minute ago. Of course, this episode may
(01:08):
publish before that one, so we won't go into any detail. Um,
Before we get started, I wanted to remind you remember
we were talking earlier about pumpkin destruction. Oh yes, yes, right,
the Science Channels showing the road to Punkin, Chunkin and
Punkin chunkin on Thanksgiving night. Yeah, that's a November twenty
six here in the United States on Science Channel. Yeah,
starts at eight. Uh. Then there's another one at nine,
(01:30):
So those are the two shows. Um, you get to
see these guys who build these amazing machines designed to
shoot pumpkins a very far away before they explode. Yes, yes,
it's it's lovely. I've actually watched shows like this in
the past, and it's it's a lot of fun to
watch those those guys shoot a uh an object that
probably shouldn't be fired from a cannon and watch it
(01:50):
burst on the ground. It's it's what you might call gorgeous.
So what are we gonna talk about today? While it
all boils down to a message I received in listen
or mail. Now, this listener mail came from Mark from Phoenix, Arizona,
and Mark wrote an incredibly long and wonderful listener listener
(02:12):
mail to us. But it's so long and it covers
so much ground that I tried to cut it back
a little bit because it's just it's too unwieldy to
start off an episode. So here's here's what's left. Greetings,
Chris and Jonathan, I want to tell you how much
I enjoy listening to your podcast, as well as comment
on several specific items. Excerpt your episode on Apple clones
(02:35):
lacked a description of resources on the web, both for
sale and open source, that are available to convert a
PC into a hack intosh. Never tried this myself yet,
but I also have read several articles claiming success using
OS ten as a virtual machine when parallels Desktop and
V and fusion wear. But your mileage is sure to vary.
As with any type of non authorized, undefined use of
(02:57):
any hardware, software, or firmware. You put them in all caps.
I thin make it special. Another definition of firmware you
can consider is any code that begins execution on the
system prior to the main operating system becoming active. Take
it or leave it, but don't deny it. Also sounds
pretty good. Once again, I love your podcasts and feel
at times that you two have produced some of them
(03:17):
just for me. To me, that's a sign of true
technology evangelists. Please don't stop doing what you do until
you at least talk about jail breaking and why that
could drive you crazy or worse. Sincerely, Mark from Phoenix, Arizona.
So this isn't the jail breaking episode. This is a
long distance dedication. Yes, this one goes out to Mark
(03:38):
Mark wherever you are, probably Phoenix, Arizona. This one specifically
for you. Um so we wanted to talk about Hackintosh
is now like Mark said ages back back in April,
in fact, I think, um, we had an episode called
Apple Clones. We're kind of talking about these computers that
were being made by a company called sy Star. Still
(04:00):
are actually and still buy them. Um and the company
what size Star was doing that was so unique was
it was selling uh hardware, PC hardware that was running
the Mac os ten operating system. Now, this is unusual
because Apple likes their Mac os ten operating system to
run on Apple computers and only Apple computers. That's right.
(04:23):
Anything otherwise is a violation of the end user license
agreement or yeah, now you lash. Laws by the way,
are not law yet, so um so, yeah, you you
are violating a license agreement if you try to install
an operating system or really when whenever you're doing anything
(04:45):
that violates a license agreement, you are not technically breaking
the law in the United States. Um, yet we have
to say yet change, Yes, there have been so now
in this case, the whole reason behind it is that
Apple they like to build a product from the ground
up and control every aspect of that product possible, right,
(05:09):
I mean everything. Yeah, So they're very, very concerned about
the whole user experience. And of course they don't build
every piece of it, but they choose what processor goes
in there, and they choose what video card goes the exactly. Yeah.
So when you're talking about that, then you you realize
PCs are totally different PCs. Two PCs that are essentially
(05:32):
the same amount of like they have the same specs
in general, could have completely different parts to them, completely
different components from different manufacturers, and they could look totally different.
You know, one PC may look and completely different from
another PC that has essentially the same specs. Apple, They're
going to be uniform. They're beautiful, they're efficient machines. Um,
(05:56):
they do what what they were designed to do very well.
Uh But again there unless if you don't like that style,
you're out of luck, because that's all there is. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
and and I would like to get into a little
bit of the definition on hacking because uh, you know,
the word hacker sort of carries with it a negative connotation.
(06:18):
I mean, people think of hackers as people who break
into mainframe computers and steal social security numbers or yeah, yeah,
global thermonuclear war, that kind of thing. Shall we play
a game? But you know, there are other people who
see hacking as something different. I mean, the basically the
whole uh O'Reilly community would see it as people who
(06:41):
like to take things apart and mess with it and
you can do things for Yeah, I see how it works,
Maybe improve upon it, uh you know, maybe share that
information with other people and and and try something new.
You know, yeah, you might. You might think, hey, I've
got this device that does this one thing really well.
I wish it could also do this other thing. And
(07:02):
then you think, hey, wait, if I take it apart
and look and see how it works, I might be
able to make it do this other thing. And then
you build it back and you you you add in
new functionality that is hacking. It can be. It doesn't
have to be a computer, doesn't have to be a program,
doesn't have to be software. It can be anything really
and um, a lot of the early hackers, that's what
they were doing. They were taking software and saying, you know,
(07:24):
the software is great, but I could really use a
little more functionality. I need a couple of features that
aren't found in this I'll just build in some lines
of code added into this, uh, this program, and it
will suddenly do the things I needed to do. May
not look pretty, it may not be uh, it may
not be elegant. So you might be a code monkey
(07:45):
and uh your code is not functional or elegant. Um. Yeah,
I love Jonathan Colton. Um if you're listening to Jonathan Yeah,
big fans, Um, I'll be seeing you in Atlanta in January.
So anyway, the the whole, the whole idea here is that, Yeah,
these guys are not They're not they don't have any
(08:07):
like ulterior motives. They're not trying to um bring down
the system or anything like that. They're curious to know
how something works. They may want to improve upon it,
and they may want to use it in a way
that the person who created it had not either thought
of or intended. Yeah, and a lot of people in
the hacker community who take uh shall we say, umbrage
(08:27):
at the use of the word hacker to describe you know,
these uh folks who are up to know God like
prefer that we use the word cracker for those who
are trying to break in, uh to you know, the
entire country of Moldova and trash their water system or whatever.
We have some bad news for you guys, though. The
(08:47):
AP style book says no way, everybody's a hacker. Yeah,
so sorry, we have to follow a P style book rules.
That's that's our style kinds. So so for us now
from now on, a hacker as a hacker as a hacker.
But that's the thing is there there everybody who's a
hacker is hacking, whether they're using it for good or
for evil. Oh you know, it's just like Wizard of Oz,
(09:09):
Are you a good witch? Are you a bad witch? Sandwich?
So let's go on to talking specifically about the Hackintosh,
now that we've talked all around the hacker thing. Yeah, well,
I just wanted to clarify that because, uh, you know,
you might associate this with doing something illegal and it's not.
It's sort of depends on how you go about it.
And there's different shades of gray from the light grade
to the very very very dark. It's on the fringe, definitely, definitely.
(09:32):
Now let me ask you this question, why would someone
want to build a hackintosh. You know, I can give
you a specific example of why someone would want to
build a hackintosh. Hit me baby one more time. Um,
Steve Jobs does not believe the Apple can affordably produce
(09:52):
a netbook. Oh so it might, it might behoo have
someone to prove Steve Jobs wrong by taking a net
stripping it of its operating system and installing OS ten
and then you would have a very small, very portable,
very affordable machine running the Mac operating system. Yes, and
that's and that's more often than not in the past
(10:14):
probably year. That's the way I've seen Macintosh is come
about is because somebody wants a very affordable netbook that
runs ostend and uh Apple. For the record, I still
have a twelve inch power book, which is an older
power pc uh Macintosh, and I still get comments like wow,
that's a really small mac and like, yeah it is. Well,
(10:34):
they don't make it anymore. They don't make it twelve inch, right, Um,
so that's another closest you can get. And it was
actually never really affordable. It depends on how you define.
All right, well, let me let me also go ahead
and get this out of the way, because I don't
want tons of people writing me. Um. When we talk
about price points, and people often will say that the
Mac computers are more expensive than PC computers. Okay, well
(10:57):
in general, yeah, that's true. You look at the Mac
computers have a specific range and it's essentially if take
the Mac Mini out of the equation, right, so you're
just looking at the laptops to desktops. You're looking at
a thousand to around two thousand dollars or your for
most of your base computers. Right, So that's you know,
that's fairly expensive. You don't find anything below a thousand
(11:17):
dollars besides the Mac Mini, which is just the really
just the basic basic part of a computer, and you
have to buy everything else around it anyway. Um, Whereas
with a PC you can look at PCs and like, hey,
look this store is running a thing where I can
get this PC for four dred bucks. What's the difference?
The differences in performance? MAX? The reason why MAX are
so expensive. There are a couple of different reasons. One is, yes,
(11:40):
you are paying the Apple tax. Yes, that Apple computers
are more expensive than a PC that runs the same
kind of like the same powerful, same amount of power.
I guess you could say, and it's hard to say,
Like the processor is is similar, the amount of storage
space is similar, the amount of RAM is similar. If
(12:00):
you if you if you look at the guts of
the machine, the stuff that's not you take everything outside
the case, and you get a similar processor and a
similar hard drive, and a similar graphics processor and sound card.
You're you're going i mean, the components themselves, the stuff
that's inside the box will be It'll be a little cheaper,
but not not as much as what a lot of
(12:20):
people think. Really, I mean, if you get the quality
of of um components that Apple uses in their their
their machines, it's really you're not really going to save
a ton of money by building the equivalent PC version.
You will save some, but not not as much as
what a lot of I think a lot of people
just imationed, like, oh, there's like a five mark up
(12:41):
immediately on Apple products. That's just simply not true. No,
not not not that way. But there is Apple can
demand a you know, a little bit more cashe and
they can they can charge a little bit more for
their products, but it's not you know, completely unwarranted. They
generally do get a little bit better components. But let
(13:02):
the you know, the Dells and the hps of the
world that use those same components are cheaper, but not
as cheap as a an E machine you know what
you might get at four at at you know, your local,
but it's also running a less powerful process that doesn't
have as much memory, doesn't have as much hard drive space,
which is the thing about netbooks in general. They are
(13:22):
you know, they use less powerful processors. And so really
a Hacintosh is going to be attractive to someone who
wants a computer running the Macintosh operating system. They do
not need it to be as powerful as Apple has
made their computers, not in general. So well, let's well,
let's just say like I want to Let's say I
want to run stuff on the mac os, but I
(13:44):
don't really have it in my budget to buy the
cheapest of the the imax. Let's say, okay, I want
a desktop computer, and you don't want a Mac minie.
I don't want a macmni. Okay, let's say that I
don't want to Mac Mini, which is around what six
seven hulls. I think, so honestly, haven't I will look
to look while I talk, So, uh, I don't I
(14:05):
can't afford the lowest level iMac. Let's say, and I want, um,
I want a desktop computer. It does not have to
be as powerful as the iMac, but I want it
running the operating system. I don't have any options besides
the Mac Mini, which is there you go, That's what
I thought it was. But um, I wasn't. It wasn't
entirely so uh but keeping that in mind, then I
(14:29):
would you know, I'm going out and buying like a
cheaper desktop, I'm putting the mac Os on it. What
do I need to do in order to do that? Okay,
here's the thing. The Mac Os is built for a
very specific hardware and bios configuration. Yes, I mean if
you if you are in control of the entire you know,
(14:50):
theoretically in the entire line of computers, you know specifically
what processors you have used in the past and what
it should run on. Like Microsoft really has a much
more difficult job because they have to build an operating
system that can work on a huge variety of hardware.
We're talking about different kinds of processors, motherboards, ram hard
(15:11):
drive space, I mean, video cards. It has to be
able to support all this different stuff. Now, Apple, the
OS only has to support a a limited number of
components because that's all Apple will use. Now, even within
a line of IMAX, depending on when you get one,
the components may not be exactly the same because Apple,
(15:34):
like other companies, is going to purchase their equipment in
places where it makes the most sense. So if if
one person, if one company, creates a motherboard that is
that the OS um supports, and that's the cheapest one
in the market, that's where they're gonna go. But if
another company starts to undercut the first one and the
OS also supports that motherboard configuration, you can bet that
(15:56):
Apple is gonna switch. So there are still a range
of of pieces of equipment that you can find in
the Macintosh line, but it's a much much more narrow range, right,
So if you want to build a PC that runs
mac OS reliably, that means that you have to make
sure that the components you pick are among those that
(16:17):
the OS supports, Otherwise you will have problems getting your
hardware to interact with your operating system. And that's gonna
be tricky, especially with UH stuff like the netbooks, because
the netbooks use and often use processors that were not
part of the the Apple line. Yeah, it's actually a
lot easier to build a desktop than it would be
to buy a netbook or laptop and strip it of
(16:40):
its operating system and put in a new one. Um,
what you can do if you want to buy or
if you want to build your own computer, you would
buy the the components individually, including the case. So you're
talking about everything from the power source to the fan,
to the motherboard, to RAM, to hard drive, two disk drives.
All of that stuff needs to be purchased, and you
(17:01):
need to to look and see what the mac os supports.
I will tell you right now. The source that I
found that I think gives the most um thorough walk
through of building a hackintosh is life Hacker. Life Hacker
gives a great rundown from beginning to end on how
to build a hackintosh. Uh they even link out to other,
(17:22):
um other really really in depth articles about building your
own computer. So if you've never built a computer before,
and the language in that article is a little difficult
for you to understand because you're just not familiar with
the terminology, you can actually go to their earlier articles
and see, you know, you can build from the ground up. Okay,
so it's nice because it doesn't it's it's accessible. All right. Well,
(17:46):
let's talk about what you would actually need to do
if you were going to do I mean, you know
in a nutshell that if you're gonna do it at
that level, you're really gonna go forward with it. I
wouldn't follow the instructions were going to lay out. I
think we're just gonna talk about the high end. Yeah,
we're gonna about in general generalities. So, so you have
a you have a PC, maybe you built it, maybe
it's a netbook that you want to run ten on.
(18:09):
How are you going to convince it that it's a Macintosh.
The first thing you're gonna have to do is probably well,
as far as I'm concerned, is tweak your bios. Now,
the bios is this layer of programming that interacts between
your operating system and your computer's hardware. The bios has
to be able to operate in such a way that
(18:29):
it can convince the operating system that the underlying hardware
is in fact a Macintosh. So, um, you need to
find a set of directions, and there are many out
there on the web that tell you how to tweak
your BIOS in such a way so that it is
compatible with the mac Os because just plugging the mac
OS DVD into your PC and then trying to install
(18:51):
the operating system, that's not gonna work. And I just
do a clean install like that, right right. And I
can tell you from personal experience that this right, this
right here is going to keep a lot of people
from doing from trying this because UM, I installed a
copy of a Buntu Johnny jack Lope on an old
PC that I had, and uh, this is this is
(19:15):
a version of Linux for those of you who aren't
in the know. UM. Now, the Linux community is much
different because in this case, UM, I have had difficulty
finding a driver for the monitor that I have, so
I can't I'm having trouble changing the resolution of the
monitor and making the most of the size that I
have hooked up to the PC. The thing the difference
(19:35):
here is eventually the Linux community, somebody might write a
driver for that, because it's an open source operating system
and there are thousands and thousands of people messing with
it and tinkering with it and hacking it every day. Now,
in Apple's case, if I'm trying to do this with
a hack in tash and I can't get a particular
piece of hardware to work, then nobody's going to be
(19:57):
writing a driver for it because Apple is not supporting it.
And the only luck and I can tell you from
you know, the amount of frustration of how with just
that one little thing where actually somebody might take a
look at it for real. You know, if I were
going to try to do this and it didn't work
right off the bat, I would probably go, well, the
chance to coming around this obstacle are pretty, you know,
(20:18):
pretty low. That's why I would go with building a
computer versus buying one and hoping that everything is going
to work out, because at least when you buy all
the components, especially if someone's already done this before, then
at least you have the you know, yeah, you have
something to fall back on saying, well, it worked in
this case, so it should work when I do it,
as long as I do everything correctly. When you're using
(20:39):
a different set of hardware, there's no way to predict that.
So um and and the only other thing you can
hope is that the next generation of Apple products actually
uses whatever hardware you is no longer is isn't recognized
by your operating system and that they patch it, which
is the chances are minuscule, but it's easy if you're
(21:00):
It would be far easier to build a hack intosh,
if you were going to take the components themselves off
the store shelf and go, I know they used this,
I know they used that. I'm pretty sure they have
one of those in an iMac. You can put it
together and probably get it to work without too awfully
much difficulty. I would imagine, yeah, you'd have to it
would know what those things were. Usually you're gonna have
to rip the operating system software onto another desk. The
(21:24):
Lifehickers suggests that you buy your copy of the operating system,
so you're not just stealing it. Well, that's that's uh,
that's how side star is making its case because they're
buying legitimate copies of the operating system. It's just that
Apple says that it's a violation of the end user
license agreement to use it on a machine that is
not technically am academ Right. So side Star what they
(21:45):
are doing is they're doing exactly what I'm describing, except
they're doing it on a wider scale. They're doing it
in a mass production kind of way. I guess not
really mass production because I doubt that they're making that
many of them right now. Well, I mean it's more
than just one or two. Yeah, yeah, but it's it's
a company that's that's taking this process and as you know,
kind of putting a a streamlined effect into into place.
(22:05):
And so what they're doing is they're installing this upbring
system on a set of PC hardware that is as
close to what the Mac hardware does as possible. UM.
And there are three different tiers that you can buy,
UH for the the Size Star models and UM Size
Star also offers they just started offering at a trial
(22:27):
version anyway, a set of software called Rebel. Yes that
that would be Rebel e f I, and the e
f I is actually short for UM. Oh, I had
it down here? Where is it? I honestly don't know
the answer to this because I didn't have it. Where
is it? Anyway? It's a UM. The e f I
is basically a piece of code that defines the basically
(22:51):
the different communication between an operating system and the platform firmware.
And so they're trying they're basically fooling the computer into
two are actually fooling the operating system into believing that
it's running on a Macintosh. So in other words, you
could run this software to install mac os on any computer. So,
like you know, Chris was talking about the netbooks, this
would be one way to get the mac OS onto
(23:13):
a netbook, assuming the netbook was capable of running the
operating system, if it was powerful enough. Um. But as
a side star points out, there's no guarantee that all
of your hardware, all of your drivers are going to
be compatible with the mac os. It is supposed to
try and fool the OS as much as possible into
thinking it's on an Apple machine, but that does not
mean that everything's gonna work, Like you might suddenly realize
(23:35):
that your touch pad doesn't work. Um. And a lot
of people who have netbooks, netbook hacintoshes have had trouble
with stuff just cutting out on them and crashing. It's
been unreliable. Yeah, so I mean buy or beware, not
not completely, but you know it, it happens from time.
It's not necessarily going to be as reliable as again,
building your own machine. But of course building building a
(23:57):
netbook is pretty much I mean, I guess could take
that on but it would probably be more expensive than
just going out and buying one. Yeah. Yeah, I mean
it's the kind of thing that I would imagine the
the support costs, even if you're the ones supporting it,
it would be kind of irritating. It would be you'd
be better off getting, you know, a machine that worked
for you, with some operating system that you were comfortable with. Right.
(24:18):
So the trial version of Rebel, just so you guys know,
it is very limited. It has a two hour run
time and after that it deactivates. And they also very
they make it very clear that they do not uh,
they are not to be held responsible for any data
lost during the process. Yeah, and that that goes back
to our always back up your hard drive. Yes. By
(24:39):
the way, ef I is short for Extensible Firmware Interface,
the interface between the firmware and the hardware. That makes sense.
That makes sense, all right, So we've defined Hackintosh. We
kind of gave people, you know, say, go to life
hacker if you really want to take this on. It's
an interesting project. I don't know that I would necessarily
take it on. I've already got a Mac and I'm
happy with it, and you know, I was. It comes
(25:02):
down to if you're willing to put in the work. Um,
and the money really is a big deal. The life
Hacker machine that is described as eight hundred dollars. The
little fudging there, it was eight hundred after some rebates
total it was I think, so that's still cheaper than
any iMac you're gonna find. It's not as it's more
(25:23):
expensive than the Mac many. But then again with the
Mac Mini you've kind of buy other stuff too. So
if you already have monitors or whatever that are going
to work with this, uh, then you'll save money that way. Yeah,
and then there's the the joy of hacking, which a
lot of people, you know, if you you're interested in
having it as a project, I mean, that's sort of
a different animal. But for me, I'm I'm not at
(25:44):
that level. I'm more of an enthusiast for technology. So
I would prefer that if I were using a Macintosh
or Windows or Linux machine that in general it would
run pretty well. Yeah. I kind of like stuff, but
I would prefer it to work more than it doesn't. Yeah,
I'm right there with you then, And I you know,
the the gray area. It just kind of makes me nervous. Well,
(26:04):
whenever I think about building on taking on a project
like this, Like I thought about a few different projects
like this, and I really think, like, oh, that might
be really neat to tackle. What if I really, you know,
tried this out. Um, I look back to the things
I built in wood shop class back when I was
in high school and how they are completely unidentifiable from
(26:24):
what they are supposed to be, and I think this
might not be for me. Yeah, yeah, um yeah, it's
it's funny because I just don't I don't know. It
seems like it would be an awful lot of trouble
unless you were specifically, you know, doing it just to
see what breaks and what doesn't. Um, And I think
we should mention to the dark gray part of the
(26:46):
gray area, which is the cracked version. There is another
way to do this, which is within actual cracked version
of the operating system. And in this case, you're violating
more than the end usual action because you're essentially stealing
in a copy of the operation that is not you
should make copy. I guess you could argue, hey, what
if I went out and bought a copy of the
operating system and never used it and then just downloaded it?
(27:07):
But even so, you're still stealing a copy. Yeah, and
then you're gonna have to prove that we're talking about
It seems like the realm of bit torrent here is
what we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, and that's that's definitely
farther than I'm personally willing to go on that. Probably.
I should also point out that I misspocused. How can
ago before everyone writes in and tells me that the
f I is not the interface between the hardware and
(27:28):
the firmware. It is, in fact the interface between the
software in the firmware. I was wondering because I was
thinking that between heart software, between firmware and hardware. I
was like, wow, that's a that's a new level that
I'm not even familiar with. That would be a wrong level. Yeah,
I was completely wrong. It is between the software and
the firmware. So I hope you didn't pause the podcast
(27:49):
and then tell somebody somebody will have done. We'll see it,
and and don't think you're funny if you listen to
the whole thing and then you pretended like you paused
it and then you wrote in we can tell because
we're that darn good. Um, I am uh, I'm worn out.
With Hackintosh's yeah, it's it's it's interesting. Is it seems
like it would be a kind of an interesting project,
(28:11):
but uh, it's some it applies to a niche audience.
But you might hear people talking about it, and maybe
it'll inspire Apple to come up with a small, uh
something relatively an expensive portable device like a tablet. I
didn't say tablet. We're fueling the rumors once again. I
think really what it comes down to is, uh, if
you want the mac os that badly, then go ahead
(28:35):
and put some money into investing into an Apple computer. Um,
and if you want to do things that are useful
like play games or productivity software, just stick with the
Windows machine. Seriously that I don't have an anti Mac bias, honestly.
All right, I'm done? Are you done? I am? I'm
(28:55):
so done. Let us move on to our second round
of listener mail. This comes from David in London, the
United Kingdom, and I'm too tired to do a fake accent,
so here we go. Hey guys, great show. As ever,
something pretty important you didn't mention is where the Zoom
is sold e g. Only in the United States. Why,
(29:17):
surely a big partner to uptake with when Apple sells
their kid globally barrier barrier to uptake. That's why I
get up a game. I'm trying to read through the
mic screen. Crazy. Keep up the great work, David and London. Um. Yeah,
so the zoom it is available in a very limited
geographic range. It that is definitely another another barrier to
(29:40):
Microsoft success. UM can't really answer why because I don't
know the reason. It may have something to do with licensing.
I have no idea actually that that makes a lot
of sense. So maybe we'll look into that. That might
actually be another good podcast is talking about why certain
things are available in some countries and not in others,
besides the content stuff like Hulu or BBC, where it's
(30:02):
clearly a licensing issue as far as content goes. Yeah,
that might be a fun one to do, so we'll
look into that. Okay, So thanks a lot, David. If
any of you have any questions or comments or suggestions,
you can write us. Our email address is tech Stuff
at how stuff works dot com. Remember we do have
our live show every Tuesday one pm Eastern. You can
check that out at our blogs. Just go to how
(30:23):
stuff works dot com. Look on the right hand side.
You will see links to the blogs there. Chris and
I will talk to you again really soon for moralness
and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
dot com and be sure to check out the new
tech stuff blog now on the House stuff Works homepage,
(30:45):
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