The TCO & Hazards of an Hackintosh

I just finished dealing with a thread somewhere else, where the dialog went something like this:

Q> Why isn’t this driver for this device working on Snow Leopard?

A> It’s working for us, what type of Macintosh is it?

Q> It’s not a Macintosh, it’s a PC

A> A PC?  You mean it’s not an Apple system?

Q> Yes, but everything else works fine, it worked fine for me under Leopard, I’ve run Mac OS since 10.0.0…  I have a Mac Pro, iMac, Powerbook, and a Macbook.  So it can’t be a mistake on my part.

A> …..

If you want to run a “Hackintosh”….  A non-Apple system, that you have modified to be able to run an Macintosh OS, that’s perfectly reasonable.  I know I have considered it myself…  But you have to acknowledge the risks, and acknowledge that you are making yourself unsupportable by must software vendors.

Why aren’t you supported by the software vendors?  Because the developer won’t be supported by Apple in regards to a Hackintosh… If the software vendors finds an OS bug that was discovered on a Hackintosh, the software vendor will have to try to reproduce it reliably on a non-hackintosh, and report that to Apple.  Apple will ignore any hackintosh related reports since it’s hardware they do not support.

Also, when you are using an Hackintosh, it is unsupported… Why?

  • Drivers may not work correctly
  • Software Applications may or may not work correctly… (Every thing I have read about Hackintosh indicates that there is a significant period of tweaking, trying to get most applications to run correctly.)
  • For an Hackintosh to work, you are patching the EFI loader used by the OS to start. That’s going to leave a mark.
  • Most developers don’t have Hackintoshes to test with. They do have Macintosh’s, so how can they support your configuration? Are they now suppose to purchase every Nvidia card, and test against those?  Or your Soundblaster Extreme from 5 years ago?
  • It’s illegal. “You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so.” Effectively, it says that if you are running OS X on anything other than Apple hardware, you are in violation of the EULA. Apple Won’t support you, and any bugs OS or driver issues you find, can’t be reported to Apple.
  • Will the next Service pack be available for your Hackintosh?  What will you have to fix after applying it?  Will you even be able to boot afterwards?  These are problems that have occured with the Hackintosh platforms in the past….

Asking your software vendors to support the Hackintosh environment is asking them to spend time, energy, and money supporting an hardware platform that is a kludge at best, and certainly not supported by ANY company…  Even some companies that are advertising complete bundles…

Let’s be reasonable, feel free to play with an hackintosh, but don’t expect any serious support from your software vendors.  It’s only common sense.