# Commercial Hackintosh



## goalie composer (Jun 14, 2020)

For public knowledge:









'OpenCore Computer' Launches Commercial Hackintosh in Violation of Apple's macOS Licensing Agreement [Updated]


Update: The developers of the OpenCore Bootloader have released a statement regarding the unauthorized use of the OpenCore name. We at Acidanthera...




www.macrumors.com





GC


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## dzilizzi (Jun 14, 2020)

I saw this. The article thinks there will be problems. I'm guessing because you can't actually buy the Apple OS. I'm wondering if they sell it without the OS, but with all the drivers and directions? Maybe Apple can't sue without the OS?


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## goalie composer (Jun 14, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> I saw this. The article thinks there will be problems. I'm guessing because you can't actually buy the Apple OS. I'm wondering if they sell it without the OS, but with all the drivers and directions? Maybe Apple can't sue without the OS?


Good questions.


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## jcrosby (Jun 14, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> I saw this. The article thinks there will be problems. I'm guessing because you can't actually buy the Apple OS. I'm wondering if they sell it without the OS, but with all the drivers and directions? Maybe Apple can't sue without the OS?


As someone who has a hackintosh that would just be throwing money down a hole. Build guides are completely free, and all over the web. The guides range from specialized hackintosh websites to a massive subreddit dedicated solely to hackintoshing... You'd basically be paying money for something you can already do for no extra cost than the pc parts.

The other concern would be people buying them with no understanding of how the hackintosh process works. The problem with this is it opens up the opportunity to deliberately put in vulnerabilities. The reason the hackintosh scene doesn't take flack for being at risk to security flaws is that all of the 'official' tools are on github, publicly visible, and open to scrutiny...









Acidanthera


Acidanthera has 50 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.




github.com





I rarely make statements this obnoxious but... Anyone who paid for that would kind of deserve getting taken for a ride since the whole point of the hackintosh scene is that it's open open source. Not to mention they'd have no idea how to troubleshoot their EFI if they ran into issues during an update...

(Ironically I see where the appeal is.. The first time you build a hackintosh spend waaaay too much time overthinking it. Worrying if it'll work, wondering what happens if it stops booting one day, etc. Of course I initially frantically searched the web for something just like this!  After reading a couple posts however it was obvious I'd never fix it if something went wrong I realized you have to roll up your sleeves if you want to rely on it...)


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## dzilizzi (Jun 14, 2020)

jcrosby said:


> As someone who has a hackintosh that would just be throwing money down a hole. Build guides are completely free, and all over the web. The guides range from specialized hackintosh websites to a massive subreddit dedicated solely to hackintoshes... You'd basically be paying money for something you can already do for no extra cost than the pc parts.
> 
> I rarely make statements this obnoxious but... Anyone who paid for that would kind of deserve getting taken for a ride since the whole point of the hackintosh scene is that its completely open source.
> 
> The other concern would be people buying them with no understanding of how the hackintosh process works. The problem with this is it immediately opens up all kinds of opportunities for deliberately putting in severe vulnerabilities.


This is true. But if you buy this, it should be guaranteed to work. Whereas a lot of builds can go wrong fairly easily because you can't get the exact same parts. 

But I get what you're saying about buying something without understanding what you are getting into. It's been a long time since I did a dual boot machine and they were both Windows OS, just different versions. But I'm guessing you can download something on one OS that may be a virus to the other? And I seem remember it was easy to mess up the dual boot system if you weren't careful.


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## jcrosby (Jun 14, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> This is true. But if you buy this, it should be guaranteed to work. Whereas a lot of builds can go wrong fairly easily because you can't get the exact same parts.
> 
> But I get what you're saying about buying something without understanding what you are getting into. It's been a long time since I did a dual boot machine and they were both Windows OS, just different versions. But I'm guessing you can download something on one OS that may be a virus to the other? And I seem remember it was easy to mess up the dual boot system if you weren't careful.


The way to dual boot without issues is to have Windows on a completely separate disk. The bootloaders fight one another and (apparently) Windows' bootloader typically wins the fight. (I've never done a Windows dual boot, but looked into it initially... Over and over this was the common wisdom.) This also ensures that if you had malware on one OS it'd have no way of contaminating the other..


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## dzilizzi (Jun 14, 2020)

jcrosby said:


> The way to dual boot without issues is to have Windows on a completely separate disk. The bootloaders fight one another and (apparently) Windows' bootloader typically wins the fight. (I've never done a Windows dual boot, but looked into it initially... Over and over this was the common wisdom.) This also ensures that if you had malware on one OS it'd have no way of contaminating the other..


I did a dual boot with XP and Vista because half my programs wouldn't run properly on Vista. I think I ended up just getting the computer to run on XP. It was a new computer and Vista had just come out. It was very unstable at first. I think I also tried a Windows 7/8 dual boot, but it wasn't really good. So I just made it Windows 7.


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## José Herring (Jun 14, 2020)

Get a real mac. The days of saving money by building a PC and slapping MacOS on it are over.


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## dzilizzi (Jun 14, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Get a real mac. The days of saving money by building a PC and slapping MacOS on it are over.


But where's the fun in that?


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## jcrosby (Jun 14, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Get a real mac. The days of saving money by building a PC and slapping MacOS on it are over.


Saving money had nothing to do with it in my case.

Apple didn't offer a Mac Pro at the time any faster than my 12 core cheesgrater. And the amount of audio specific macos bugs I've experienced in the past couple years, (one bug that blew out the speakers on my MacBook); the choice to build a hackintosh was solely based on building a machine that performed at the level I needed, was a machine could fully fix myself, and didn't require a T2 chip.

Every single showstopping macos audio bug since 2016/2017 can be tied directly to T1 and T2 chip/bridgeos issues, and have shown up in one form or another in every T2 mac model.

I'm also not a fan of Apple keeping me on a leash by forcing my data to be tied to a chip that makes your macos volume completely unrecoverable if the chip or drive fails. And let's be real, the only reason these chips exist are to lock the consumer directly to Apple as the sole source of service. Can't really say I'm interested in opening my wallet for Apple as long as they continue down this path...


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## José Herring (Jun 14, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> But where's the fun in that?


There's an answer I respect. 

@jcrosby You say you don't want Apple to keep you on a leash but yet you're willing to steel the leash and use it to your own advantage. And, that's why I see a problem. It's like you're going to "show them" by stealing from "them". Alright if you're going to do that. Even have fun with it. But, don't justify with flimsy excuses. You hacked Mac OS not because it made any real sense to do so, but because ya' could!


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## jcrosby (Jun 14, 2020)

josejherring said:


> There's an answer I respect.
> 
> @jcrosby You say you don't want Apple to keep you on a leash but yet you're willing to steel the leash and use it to your own advantage. And, that's why I see a problem. It's like you're going to "show them" by stealing from "them". Alright if you're going to do that. Even have fun with it. But, don't justify with flimsy excuses. You hacked Mac OS not because it made any real sense to do so, but because ya' could!



*Applying that same logic:*


Anyone running a version macos on a machine no longer "officially" supported by Apple to run that OS is stealing macos as well.
This also means that anyone who modified a 2009 4,1 Mac Pro cheesegrater to run a CPUs never offered on that model, (or bought one used), is running a hackintosh.
The act of flashing the firmware on a Mac Pro 4,1 with 5,1 firmware is more or less the same act of modifying an EFI folder to recognize a hardware profile that otherwise would not allow macos to install.
This also means that anyone who ran an OS later than 10.11 on their 4,1 Mac Pro was running an unsupported OS, as the officially supported OS for the 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 is *10.11.x*
Downloading a later, unsupported version of macos for use on that machine is _stealing_ macos by your definition; as the definition of stealing macos is based strictly on Apple's terms and conditions.
Anyone who extended the compatibility of their 2009 4,1 cheesegrater, (or any other mac) by running a version of macos Apple does not acknowledge is "showing" Apple. And pretend they aren't by justifying it with "flimsy excuses" like "It's a mac!" Meanwhile any lawyer could poke the same holes in their argument for exactly the same reasons.
Anyone who's ever used Dosdude1's Patcher Tool to install a version of macos not supported on their machine have stolen macos.
VI-Control has a lot of MacOS theifs.





__





Mac Pro "Quad Core" 2.66 (2009/Nehalem) Specs (Early 2009, MB871LL/A, MacPro4,1, A1289, 2314): EveryMac.com


Technical specifications for the Mac Pro "Quad Core" 2.66 (2009/Nehalem). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.




everymac.com




(See: *Maximum MacOs*)

If the installer was downloaded on an actual mac, from my Apple account that I've had with Apple for 14 years, and that OS was installed on unsupported hardware it is the same act by all ethical, (if not literal) standards.


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## José Herring (Jun 14, 2020)

I understand your view point. To be clear I'm not taking the moral high ground. Could care or less. But.....

It does specifically state in the Eula that the MacOS can only be run on an official Mac computer. I don't know how old you are but in the times when Apple was about to go under one of their biggest mistakes was licensing out their OS to run on any computer. People ditched mac in droves. This was before the gadgets. They realized then of course that the selling point wasn't the damn machine but the OS. They've been trying to kill the Mac Clone market ever since. They've successfully done that and now you Mac Cloners are a hackers collective.

So if somebody runs apple OS on any apple machine whether they hacked it or not, it's legal. If you slap that on your own build, it's not legal. 

So, don't lie to yourself. Own it. Say it with me, "you're a underground hacker and you're proud!".

I'm in a weird mood today so forgive me, but part of me is dying for you to admit that you hacked it not for any other reason than YOU COULD!!!! ---Stick it to those greedy proprietary hording corporations. Apple is no longer some struggling upstart company with a bright idea. They became the machine they raged against in the early days. Now they are just a greedy bullying organization and the hackintosh is just one small way of sticking it to them.


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## jcrosby (Jun 14, 2020)

josejherring said:


> I understand your view point. To be clear I'm not taking the moral high ground. Could care or less. But.....



But you are taking the moral high ground. Your reply is a list of reasons why anyone who's done this on their mac are somehow different, even though the same terms of service apply to them.
My age? How old do you think I am? (Despite it being completely irrelevant.)



josejherring said:


> I'm in a weird mood today so forgive me, but part of me is dying for you to admit that you hacked it not for any other reason than YOU COULD!!!! ---Stick it to those greedy proprietary hording corporations.



Get over yourself man. You want to see why I built one? Here you go.






THAT'S MY MACBOOK. THAT'S ME SPEAKING.

Security Update 2018-002 broke core audio. The machine worked flawlessly its 1st 3 months, immediately after installing that security update audio began stuttering. Eventually it blew out the macbook's speakers. That machine cost me $6500. What did Apple do to make it right? Absolutely nothing. 

Anyone who incurs damage to 6.5k machine, then runs back to that same manufacturer and buys something that locks them to a leash to allow them to do it all over again probably didn't learn anything in what should have been a very expensive lesson.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me... It's as simple as that. And low and behold I haven't had a single solitary issue to complain about with it.


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## José Herring (Jun 14, 2020)

jcrosby said:


> But you are takin the moral high ground. You can tell yourself your not.....



*you're


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## José Herring (Jun 14, 2020)

jcrosby said:


> But you are takin the moral high ground. You can tell yourself your not, when in fact your post is a list of reasons why anyone who's done this on their mac are somehow different.
> My age? How old do you think I am? (Despite it being completely irrelevant. Ever so curious what kind of confirmation bias this reveals however.)


like I said. I'm in a mood tonight. Take that into account. 

I don't know how old you are. But, those who have the time to Hackintosh are usually pretty young in my experience.


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## José Herring (Jun 14, 2020)

Also, I'm guilty. When it first became possible to hackintosh I'll admit, I downloaded the DMG and hackintoshed my old machine dual boot. Why did I do it, not to use it as the machine was already old, I did it just to see the little apple come up on my PC reminding me when I use to love my mac.


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## jcrosby (Jun 14, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Also, I'm guilty. When it first became possible to hackintosh I'll admit, I downloaded the DMG and hackintoshed my old machine dual boot. Why did I do it, not to use it as the machine was already old, I did it just to see the little apple come up on my PC reminding me when I use to love my mac.


See videos above.


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## dzilizzi (Jun 14, 2020)

josejherring said:


> like I said. I'm in a mood tonight. Take that into account.
> 
> I don't know how old you are. But, those who have the time to Hackintosh are usually pretty young in my experience.


I have to laugh at that. I've been thinking of building one and I might be in my 20's in my head. Okay, maybe 30's. And some days my body feels like I'm in my 70's. But I built my first computer in the 80's. 

And, for me it may partially be because I can. But mostly because Logic doesn't run on Windows and I would really like to try it without spending $2500 for a dongle that will probably not handle a partial template. But I'm also cheap.


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## jcrosby (Jun 14, 2020)

josejherring said:


> I don't know how old you are. But, those who have the time to Hackintosh are usually pretty young in my experience.



Are you serious man?? I'm almost 50. I also compose full time with music all over TV. Given the deadlines I work under switching platforms and learning a new DAW from the ground up is a luxury I can't easily afford. I'm not wiling to put my career on the line over Apple's TOS.

Here's my cognitive bias: People who complain about "kids", with their "get off my lawn!" mentality are usually in their 70s or 80s, are incredibly politically conservative, and rarely think of anyone else but themselves. How wrong am I?


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## José Herring (Jun 14, 2020)

jcrosby said:


> But you are taking the moral high ground. Your reply is a list of reasons why anyone who's done this on their mac are somehow different, even though the same terms of service apply to them.
> My age? How old do you think I am? (Despite it being completely irrelevant.)
> 
> 
> ...



Sounds awful. Never heard anything like that. Can't turn off background processes?


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## jcrosby (Jun 14, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Sounds awful. Never heard anything like that. Can't turn off background processes?


Background processes have nothing to do with it. This is widely documented. So much so that Apple latched the issue in August and I didn't buy mine until seeing they issued a fix. 3 months later they broke it all over again with security update 2018-002. Immediately after the security update finished installing the machine restarted and started crackling. To underscore that this is Apple's fault see the article below where Apple acknowledge the "popping" sound some 16 inch macbook owners experienced is 'software related'.

Note the date of this article. I refrained from buying in July do to the same issue. I bought my machine beginning of September after various articles confirmed the same issues were patched. It worked perfectly fine for 3 straight months until I installed that security update. Miraculously others start widely reporting the return of the issue at the same time. Unlike the 1st time Apple failed to even acknowledge the issue was back.








Apple confirms why it released the latest macOS High Sierra update


Apple has now confirmed that the most recent macOS High Sierra update addresses several issues with the 2018 MacBook Pro, which launched in July.




www.idownloadblog.com





2018/2018 15 inch:








2018 MacBook Pro Owners Experiencing Crackling Audio


It seems Apple shipped the latest refresh of the MacBook Pro with a few gremlins left to work out. Last month it was the Core i9 throttling performance, now some owners are experiencing crackling audio through the built-in speakers.




www.pcmag.com













Some 2018 MacBook Pro Owners Experiencing Crackling Speakers


Following the release of 2018 MacBook Pro models last month, some customers have turned to the MacRumors Forums, Apple Support Communities, Reddit,...




www.macrumors.com













MacBook Pro 2018 - Speakers Crackling


My 2016 MacBook Pro started getting this as well, come on guys lets start a cluss action lawsuit for free repairs 1579808144 Mine only crackles upon waking the Mac, and does so for quite awhile, I noticed that applying pressure on the right speaker where its crackling intensifies the noise...




forums.macrumors.com





2019/2020 16 inch:








Apple confirms 16-inch MacBook Pro 'popping' sound is software issue | AppleInsider


Apple in a document sent to service providers this week confirmed recent reports of "popping" or "clicking" noises emanating from new 16-inch MacBook Pro models, saying the issue stems from a software bug that will be patched in a future macOS update.




appleinsider.com













Any one notices the cracking/popping sound of new 16 inch MBP?


Update 12/10/2019 It seems that Catalina 10.15.2 has fixed all the popping sound issues for me, including Youtube playing using Safari/Chrome, video playing using iina/mpv, although others have reported conflicting results on this. Given that the wide spreading issue with 10.15.1, it might be...




forums.macrumors.com


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## José Herring (Jun 15, 2020)

That is utterly terrible. The whole purpose of tying the OS to the hardware is that they would work flawlessly together. 

That Apple's QC would let this slide is horrible. The company has lost its way.


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## jcrosby (Jun 15, 2020)

josejherring said:


> That is utterly terrible. The whole purpose of tying the OS to the hardware is that they would work flawlessly together.
> 
> That Apple's QC would let this slide is horrible. The company has lost its way.


Yeah. Honestly it was a hearbreaker. I hadn't experienced anything like this in the previous 12 years on mac. I had 4 previous macbooks, a 2012 mini server, a 2009 Mac Pro, and at one point I bought a 2nd Mac Pro for VEP but it was overkill....

The kicker is at the time apple care for this machine was $379. So I shelled out essentially $400 on top of an already insanely expensive laptop that Apple wasn't even equipped to support.

I had the issue forwarded to Apple's software engineers twice, both times 'engineering' blew the issue off saying an update to mojave "fixed" the issue. Meanwhile people in the Mac Rumors thread (linked above) were reporting the issue hadn't gone away in Mojave.

Ultimately I wound up having to wipe the mac hd volume and clone back my backup I made before the security update, (when it was working in the its 1st 3 months). You'll never guess what happened --- The issue disappeared completely. Even though it was already obvious the security update was the problem, this confirmed it.

The final kicker was me waiting 2 security updates/6 months to install another update I figured had to have patched it. (Based on Apple patching it within a month August '18). The issue came right back, and culminated in a burst of noise the blew both speakers.

Something really fucked up has been going on at Apple in the past few years however. Every machine they've released with the T2 chip had audio issues at one point or another. The macbooks have been the worst by far, but every model with one of these co-processors, (right down to the 2016 [T1 chip]) has had serious audio problems somewhere along the way.

The short version is I'd never entertained the idea of a hackintosh before this machine. Ironically the hackintosh hasn't given me a single issue, and has been as stable as my old cheesegrater.

Anyway, I really didn't want to hijack the thread. And I'm not looking for pity. But I will stick up for anyone who wound up building one because they found themselves in a similar position...


For a realistic perspective of *who* the average hackintosher actually is see Peter Paul Chato's video below*:*


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## jcrosby (Jun 15, 2020)

On a more relevant note as far as this thread goes....


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## mscp (Mar 25, 2021)

José Herring said:


> That is utterly terrible. The whole purpose of tying the OS to the hardware is that they would work flawlessly together.


I know this is an old thread. I don't have a Hackintosh, but here's my 2 cents.

The purpose is heartwarming, however, neither Apple nor PCs works flawlessly. I own both. Both have issues from time to time. I'm honestly weirded out by the fact my PC is doing a better job than my Mac. Not sure why though since rumour has it - PC sucks.


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## el-bo (Mar 25, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> Peter Paul Chato's


PPC


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## Saxer (Mar 25, 2021)

I have a Hacky made by a commercial Hack Builder in Austria. I didn't want to buy a 10000$ machine just for the time until everyone supports M-chips only. And I didn't want to go deep into PC building without any warranty. Saved me about 8000$ compared to a MacPro. When software transitions to Apple chips of all needed developers are done and there are payable machines available I'll buy original Macs again.


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## José Herring (Mar 25, 2021)

Phil81 said:


> I know this is an old thread. I don't have a Hackintosh, but here's my 2 cents.
> 
> The purpose is heartwarming, however, neither Apple nor PCs works flawlessly. I own both. Both have issues from time to time. I'm honestly weirded out by the fact my PC is doing a better job than my Mac. Not sure why though since rumour has it - PC sucks.


When I first started out I bought a used Mac. Then later I bought another used Mac. Then later somebody gave me their used Mac. I dreamed of the day when I would be successful enough to buy a brand new Mac. Shortly after getting my 3rd used Mac I started using PC as a slave computers. It took some doing but I was able to get my PC's way more stable then any Mac I owned. Upon that realization, I switched to PC for everything. 

That being said though. I kept my first Mac forever. When I finally decided to junk it, I booted it up one last time. In spite of being nearly 25 years old at that time, it still booted flawlessly. I can't say the same for my much younger first PC. It died after about 5 years beyond being worth fixing it for one last time. 

I've since gotten better at building PC's and they last now for about 12 years. PC's may work well but imo there's no beating Mac Hardware compatibility or design. 

But, I'm on PC' now full time and don't intend on going back to Mac unless I have to. I could burn through 5 PC's before I was able to pay for one Mac fully loaded. Shame really because my heart has always been with Mac.

I do toy with the idea of getting a Mac Mini just for personal use, but again, I could build 2 way better spec PC's for the cost of one Mac Mini. I'm hoping M1 changes that. I've got my eyes open on that.


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## mscp (Mar 25, 2021)

José Herring said:


> When I first started out I bought a used Mac. Then later I bought another used Mac. Then later somebody gave me their used Mac. I dreamed of the day when I would be successful enough to buy a brand new Mac. Shortly after getting my 3rd used Mac I started using PC as a slave computers. It took some doing but I was able to get my PC's way more stable then any Mac I owned. Upon that realization, I switched to PC for everything.
> 
> That being said though. I kept my first Mac forever. When I finally decided to junk it, I booted it up one last time. In spite of being nearly 25 years old at that time, it still booted flawlessly. I can't say the same for my much younger first PC. It died after about 5 years beyond being worth fixing it for one last time.
> 
> ...


I had been a Mac person until 2015 when I said: "enough". They managed to frustrate me to levels where I thought: "I'll just learn Windows and see if they can give me more peace". They actually did. I have less issues with my PC than I do with my Macs, even though I was persuaded to avoid the switch. 

I have both, but I only use my Mac for daily tasks - not music.

I do prefer MacOS's UI over Windows' though. It's the only thing I believe still relevant to me. I've promised myself to switch back to Macs once their chips become the next best thing in computing though. Until then, Intel/PC it is.


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