EFiX: OSx86 gone commercial?

It's the law of diminishing returns, though. Once you have bought the needed hardware, once you have bought the monitor, keyboard and mouse, once you have bought the software, once you have added on the price of this thing... at the very least you could get a used iMac. And if time is money, and it so is and then some, save yourself a packet and stretch to a Mac. For those with the hardware but who are strapped, buy the software to hold faith with the good folks at Apple, until you can buy the real thing. Gorgeous beasts that they are.

 

The thing about that however is that some of us need expandable computers and an iMac just doesn't cut it. Me for example... I have a 20 inch monitor, id like a 24 inch so spending money on the low-end iMac would be a waist. A quad-core processor into a hackintosh would cost less then the iMac. Expandability also.... realistically I need a Mac Pro, but a hackintosh is closer to that then an iMac.

 

Apple really does need a $1,500-$1,750 tower with a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad chip, sans the monitor. THAT or lower the price of the single processor quad Mac Pro from $2,200 to $1,800. It just seems excessive where it is right now.

What's up with all the haters in this thread?

 

This is an interesting hack. Let's try to figure out how it works rather than whine about it.

What's up with all the haters in this thread?

 

This is an interesting hack. Let's try to figure out how it works rather than whine about it.

Haven't seen many haters, unless being frustrated at being kept in the dark past an advertised date constitutes hate? In which case, fair enough, I'm for sharing a glass of whine with Joe Public. Tickets for the Titanic. Way to create a trusting consumer base.

 

It would take someone from the company five minutes to bring people up to date and, much more to the point, very little time to get samples out and preliminary reviews in.

Haven't seen many haters, unless being frustrated at being kept in the dark past an advertised date constitutes hate? In which case, fair enough, I'm for sharing a glass of whine with Joe Public. Tickets for the Titanic. Way to create a trusting consumer base.

 

It would take someone from the company five minutes to bring people up to date and, much more to the point, very little time to get samples out and preliminary reviews in.

 

Exactly. The problem is that while the idea is interesting, the whole deal looks like a trainwreck waiting to happen. When I referred to these guys getting a reality check, I was implying the idea that one thing is having a working prototype, and another is having an actual shipping mass produced product. Everything so far, from the vanity homepage of the 'CEO', to new phantom variants of the product popping up from time to time, doesn't inspire any confidence at all. Hater, no, skeptic, definitely. And I want one (for a reasonable price, not 80 bloody euros), so paradoxically I hope I'll be proven dead wrong. They could have released it as a downloadable package for USB sticks with a Paypal donation link, but chose the thorny road instead. As I said, we'll see.

Does anyone speak taiwan here? It seems like they have a dealer in Taiwan... google it in taiwan google... maybe there is a leak about the price somewhere... i dont speak taiwan but i do some europien langs but there is nothing yet there. So ye, someone check it out

I happen to live in Taiwan. On Friday I filled out their web form and asked where to buy it here. They replied on Saturday with a local phone number. I spoke briefly this morning with their local contact. They will call me back in a couple hours. If you have any specific questions you want me to ask let me know. I have a pretty good idea from the above thread. Probably the most important thing is that they make their decisions and keep updating their website.

 

PS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Taiwan

I happen to live in Taiwan. On Friday I filled out their web form and asked where to buy it here. They replied on Saturday with a local phone number. I spoke briefly this morning with their local contact. They will call me back in a couple hours. If you have any specific questions you want me to ask let me know. I have a pretty good idea from the above thread. Probably the most important thing is that they make their decisions and keep updating their website.

 

PS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Taiwan

 

Well, first question is how much? Second to give some links for us, so we can buy. Thats pretty much everything we need to know. Everything else is on their website. Thanks for the reply!

Seems hazardous to get in the middle of all the excitement and frustration about this product. Anyway this is what I found out. They will try to sell me the "Desktop V2" version of the dongle for about 80 Euros about next week. The woman I talked to and the guy who replied to my email seem like reasonable people. She said they've been getting rather a lot of emails. They do have the tiger by the tail here. InsanelyMac community has been very helpful to me over the years. We all have working hackintoshes probably already. Therefore I think we are in a position to be a little patient. I will do what I can to find out more and post it as soon as I do. I don't have one in my hand like netkas did, but ATM I think I can add my voice to laying to rest some of the wilder conspiracy theories above.

Does anyone recall all the pessimism, negativity, even outright labeling of Psystar as a scam???

 

All this stuff makes me think about one question that I learned from a wise person.

 

Is a glass of water at 50% capacity half empty or half full? The pessimist vs the optimist

Exactly. The problem is that while the idea is interesting, the whole deal looks like a trainwreck waiting to happen. When I referred to these guys getting a reality check, I was implying the idea that one thing is having a working prototype, and another is having an actual shipping mass produced product. Everything so far, from the vanity homepage of the 'CEO', to new phantom variants of the product popping up from time to time, doesn't inspire any confidence at all. Hater, no, skeptic, definitely. And I want one (for a reasonable price, not 80 bloody euros), so paradoxically I hope I'll be proven dead wrong. They could have released it as a downloadable package for USB sticks with a Paypal donation link, but chose the thorny road instead. As I said, we'll see.

Yep, interesting idea, that one. Wonder if Netkas would consider doing something like that. I suppose the worry would be someone puts it on a torrent site... but if the price was low, I think it would be a success. Most of the hackintosh owners I have met have bought Leopard and iLife on ebay or online. Can't install the former, but... Not sure about the legal implications, though?

 

Glass half empty, glass half full. Website half empty, website half... empty. Is a half empty website with no product available, glass half full? That said, it is a good deal better than it was and I am patient enough to pop back, now and then.

 

I am not knocking the concept, the product or the inventors behind it; I'm standing up for the consumers most basic of rights as consumers to be informed against false information; if you put out any kind of date and can't stick to it, as a simple courtesy you need someone within the company to take five minutes of their time to inform people, potential consumers, what's going on. Those five minutes spent, would mean hours less of the phone call/email overload mentioned. That alone doesn't add up, does it, unless they are having to be cautious for legal reasons, which would make some kind of sense.

 

Come on, guys, I know you're reading this thread with its 411 posts. If nothing else, could you inform folks that review copies have been sent out and reviews will be posted, shortly?

Yep, interesting idea, that one. Wonder if Netkas would consider doing something like that. I suppose the worry would be someone put it on a torrent site but if the price was low, I think it would be a success. Most of the hackintosh owners I have met have bought Leopard and iLife on ebay or online. Can't install the former, but... Not sure about the legal implications, though?

 

Considering what the device is doing, legality has been thrown out of the window anyway. I presume this is why it is also only sold in Taiwan.

 

Whether its possible to turn a USB stick into one of these devices using nothing but software, I do not know. I guess only the makers do (for now at least!), but it seems to me they are out to make money off the back of Apples IP. Its such a cut-throat way to make money that even if it was possible to do via a download, they aren't likely to release it themselves.

Seems hazardous to get in the middle of all the excitement and frustration about this product. Anyway this is what I found out. They will try to sell me the "Desktop V2" version of the dongle for about 80 Euros about next week. The woman I talked to and the guy who replied to my email seem like reasonable people. She said they've been getting rather a lot of emails. They do have the tiger by the tail here. InsanelyMac community has been very helpful to me over the years. We all have working hackintoshes probably already. Therefore I think we are in a position to be a little patient. I will do what I can to find out more and post it as soon as I do. I don't have one in my hand like netkas did, but ATM I think I can add my voice to laying to rest some of the wilder conspiracy theories above.

 

80 Euros is pretty high price i would think. Its $120 for the device... I am not sure about you guys here, but i dont think its resanable to pay that much money especially when you have no idea how its going to work... Plus most of us here already have leo installed and can manage ourselves to install updates with a little help of course from people like netkas... I personally would not buy it for a while.

Haters/ lovers We will just have to wait on the field tests.

 

Is 80 euro's a high Price? What does a real mac cost and what does your spare time cost?

Well I have a real mac and there great Everything just works. Like is should.

And then there is my hackintosh. Asus P5WDH Q6600 with a Ati 1900xtx 512MB piece of {censored} video card i nead to get working properly after every update.

 

We all have come a long way. But lets face it for many of us a hack does not give you the feel of a real mac.

ITS LIKE WINDOWS :S praying at every update hooping to getting your hardware working again after the updates.

 

Yes effi does a lot and Yes the os works great at first glance but then , a program does not lance or hardware does not really work 100%

I'm always having video trouble in leo or some stuff does not work then there is a new update and before you know is your constantly tweaking updating reading de forums (yes its fun here but i rather spend my time on some other illegal downloading activities) then reading up on what up date's to take witch not to take, what kext file to mod. or trying to get my Ati 1900xtx 512MB piece of {censored} video card working properly .

Leo installing was a disaster for me till v3 came along. Point is loads of my spare time gets sucked up in keeping the hack working

 

If this device can transform my hack to a almost mac 99.99% sound video sleep mode all working no more hassles on updating I'll gladly pay

Considering what the device is doing, legality has been thrown out of the window anyway.

Why? Or how do you know?

 

You don't know how this device works and/or was developed in detail, do you?

Emulating some piece of hardware isn't illegal per se.

At least not where I live (Central Europe).

 

Now we all know, there might have been some illegality involved in developing this thing (again... I'm not insinuating or accusing anybody her).

But not necessarily so.

Haters/ lovers We will just have to wait on the field tests.

 

Is 80 euro's a high Price? What does a real mac cost and what does your spare time cost?

Well I have a real mac and there great Everything just works. Like is should.

And then there is my hackintosh. Asus P5WDH Q6600 with a Ati 1900xtx 512MB piece of {censored} video card i nead to get working properly after every update.

 

I dont have a problem with using my spare time making my hackintosh work by LEARNING how its done, i have two of those, pc (see sig) and a laptop i do have a problem with efi-x right now because a) even if you buy their product you are still dependant on their updates, you simply screwed if they all of a sadden disapear not just because of legal issues but because they will make enough money to live in hawai, you know the rest of the story... $120 is not all, its the base price... If you aought to buy a real mac lets say $999 dollar imac (white) it has pretty decent specs i think for a laptop so even if you buy a regular laptop, download pirated OS, insert efix usb all the time, fix your sound, video (i see you work on that), wifi etc it all adds up... Its going to cost you 1k... now think about the piece of mind you have with real mac.... So, yes, i prefer real mac and that what i am going to get eventially...

 

Its not going to make your system just work... you will have to tune it up

 

$120 is to much no matter what people say...

The thing about that however is that some of us need expandable computers and an iMac just doesn't cut it. Me for example... I have a 20 inch monitor, id like a 24 inch so spending money on the low-end iMac would be a waist. A quad-core processor into a hackintosh would cost less then the iMac. Expandability also.... realistically I need a Mac Pro, but a hackintosh is closer to that then an iMac. Apple really does need a $1,500-$1,750 tower with a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad chip, sans the monitor. THAT or lower the price of the single processor quad Mac Pro from $2,200 to $1,800. It just seems excessive where it is right now.

I don't think Apple is aiming at the mid-range tower customer and I really doubt we will ever again see one from them. The trend is towards smaller, cooler, fewer wires, etc... The tower is kept for audio/video professionals. Anyway, we all know the arguments. Even the PC world is moving away from tower systems (though not completely as there is also a gaming community to consider there - the Mac is not really that type of gaming system). In a sense Apple has a mid-range tower and many here are using it :)lstep

Haters/ lovers We will just have to wait on the field tests.Is 80 euro's a high Price? What does a real mac cost and what does your spare time cost?[ ]If this device can transform my hack to a almost mac 99.99% sound video sleep mode all working no more hassles on updating I'll gladly pay

Perhaps the reason why people cringe at the 80 euro's price is that many here are hobbyists and wouldn't really go for the device anyway. Also, don't forget that people in the US are used to paying less for computers than people in France, England, etc... So after converting the 80 to $'s they end up with a bit of a shock. Perhaps more things will be priced in Euro's and Americans will get used to converting the other way. $130 or whatever just seems much more than $80. I understand your sentiments regarding the hassles, but for me at least that is much of the fun of it all My real Mac's work just fine after upgrading though they are slower than my hobby Mac. In any case, it's pretty easy at this point to get a system working almost perfectly with off the shelf parts. I'm not quite sure what the point of the dongle is. If it doesn't bother Apple and do in the hobbyist group then great. I guess only time will tell...lstep

I Asked them several question over the past weeks and finally got the responses here they are

 

Will the Intel motherboards like the D975XBX2 be supported?

Possibly, but we didn't test those till now.

 

When will there be a demo of this from you guys and how much will this cost? Thank You.

 

Hi, No demos, only real production, sorry. V1 or V2 cost about 80 euro

 

Hi, How are you I can't find a dealer for USA and I was really forward to getting one. So if you can help me and a lot of other people out that would be great.

 

Hi , here some info for you: Shipping: UPS Express, EMS Express, DHL Express. Cost: 80 Euro for EFiX V1 or V2 (Sending cost not included) Please pay attention that the price can variate with time. Payment: Western Union Availibility: EFiX V1 Standard Version - 3-4 weeks later EFiX V2 Exclusive Limited Edition - this or next week. Best Regards

 

Wilhelm von Vnukov

CEO & leading engineer

EFiX R&D Team

www.efi-x.com

 

Art studios entertainment media

www.art-studios.net

 

So I Guess you Should be able to get in US soon.

Fortunately it seems that something better (cuz it's free) is already out there:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...113288&st=0

"Dear customers, now swap ur dvd...."

 

rofl

Well... I prefer the swap than a fantastic product that nobody know when will be sold...

 

Moreover user tomnic reported that once it's installed it's possible to boot without the cd.>

 

netkas, maybe you prefer efi-x cuz you got one, you have knowledge to make another one if you want to, and moreover you probably know the potential of efi-x. But we don't know too much about efi-x except the price... so at the moment I prefer to make 2 or 3 tricks for the installation and then I'll be having the same benefits than using efi-x but for free.

 

I don't want to start a discussion between which project is better, but the FACT is that efi-x is something that almost nobody knows and give us some features that we can get for free right now thanks to the David Elliot's project

i have to agree with titoo. why paying for something you get free?

the same was true back in the days with the first xbox (modchip vs softmod).

well totally bs.

 

I just don't like people talking about how superduper they are being able to get their OS X work with just few steps and they don't need such hardware.

 

But nobody mentions all the noobs that are flooding the chats , forums etc. and ask for help because their OS X was screwed after an update.

 

people just talk easily since they don't consider the whole community helping all the noobs with their issues. They are doing the hard work!!

 

EFiX will sure relieve the whole osx86 community from a burden.

 

And to the difference between Psystar or whatever the company is called.

 

EFiX was made from scratch. Psystar did nothing, they just abuse the effort of single osx86 programmers ( dotn wanna say hackers)

people just talk easily since they don't consider the whole community helping all the noobs with their issues.

 

yes, there will always be people smarter than others. was this forum built to promote discussion and problem solving? or to discuss the reproduction of insects in the amazonian rain forest?

there will always be newbies but this isn't the point. the point is, as titoo mentions above, if you do your homework you can get what efix does for free...

Fortunately it seems that something better (cuz it's free) is already out there:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...113288&st=0

 

So, now you mix this bootloader + kexts on usb flash and you got efix

Idea anyway was flying in the air for months, since the moment when netkas did PC-EFI.

I believe that boot from usb-flash (efix in fact is the same) - is a way for OSX86.

if you do your homework you can get what efix does for free...

 

go tell that to someone on moofspeak who asks for help. he won't do and you can't expect everyone to be/become a computer geek.

 

It is super cool if someone is skilled and can proudly say "I don't need any help. It's ok for me , for isntance to correct my system after an update. It may take little time since I'm so skilled"

 

but you cant expect those words from everyone. So if you are one of those skilled guys , you can speak for yourself , but not for others.

 

and I can say "more EFiX users = less headache"

 

and if you still don't like it, don't buy it ... just don't throw the "homework-sentence" in the middle of the room and let the supporters do their job whereas you just leave after you said your sentence.

 

the supporting community needs to be respected and of course there will be still support there, since everybody won't /is forced to buy an EFiX dongle

 

This hardware just works like a charm, actually its creepy ...experiencing a hackintosh with absolutely no trouble (you dont need to patch/do ANYTHING)

This must be what a Mac must fell like