Pystar Success Hinges on Community

I was thinking about the new Pystar Apple clone computer. I guess the only advantage I can think of for buying this machine is price. Nothing is offered that you couldn’t get from Apple for a few more bucks. And the price is only marginally better. I think the low-end machine is about $400, but this doesn’t include leopard which will add another $130. And it also doesn’t include iLife which will add another $80. Then the box is about the same price as a Mac mini, though it still has a better video card.
But then there is the issue of support. Just the other day I was working on an iMac G5 trying to make a DVD. I was using iDVD and I kept getting an error message. I figured a way around the issue, but if this had not been an Apple Computer but a Pystar computer than I would never have known if the issue was due to the software or the fact that I was using a non-Apple Computer.
I imagine a lot of things like this will happen to people with clones. An external drive won’t work, or some software won’t launch, or the system will crash, and they won’t know whether this is a problem that can be solved by Apple, Pystar, or neither. It will be frustrating.
I imagine Windows users go through this all the time. When something doesn’t work they don’t know whether it is Microsoft’s fault, the PC manufacturer’s fault, or maybe the company that built that particular piece of software.
Actually, I’ve run across this before with PC games. The computer, the operating system, the game, the video drivers, and perhaps other drivers as well, were all made by different companies. So what do you do when the game suddenly crashes? All you can do is hope that somebody else has had the same problem, has figured it out, and has posted a fix.
I’d imagine the success of the Pystar computer will hinge on good support forums. If Pystar users stick together and help each other, they can make the experience tolerable enough to be worthwhile. That is, of course, if Apple doesn’t step in and stop Pystar before it’s too far off the ground. Either way, I’ll stick with my Apple made Mac.