Macintosh clone

By the time 68060 processors were available, PowerPC Macs became so powerful that they ran 68000 applications faster than any 68000-based computer, including any Amiga, Atari ST or Sharp X68000.

This means even a 68060-upgraded Atari ST clone or Amiga, which avoid CPU emulation, were always slower, on top of causing some programs not to work thanks to imperfect virtualization of the Mac system and remaining machine components.

[5] Connectix also released another 68k emulator for Macs, replacing the original, called Speed Doubler, supposedly reported to be even faster than Apple's.

Therefore, any competitor attempting to create a Macintosh clone without infringing copyright would have to reverse-engineer the ROMs, which would have been an enormous and costly process without certainty of success.

[6] This strategy, making the development of competitive Mac clones prohibitively expensive, successfully shut out manufacturers looking to create computers that would directly compete with Apple's product lines.

[10] Ultimately, under pressure from the US government and local manufacturers of PC clones the Brazilian Computer and Automation Council did not allow production to proceed.

In April 2008, Psystar Corporation based in Miami, Florida, announced the first commercially available OSx86, a Wintel/PC computer with Mac OS X Leopard pre-installed[12] partially with software from the OSx86 community project.

[13] Apple immediately sued in July 2008[14] and a protracted legal battle followed, ending in November 2009 with a summary judgement against Psystar.

[17] In 1992, Macworld published an editorial stating that Apple clones were coming, and that the company should license its technology to others so it would benefit as the overall Macintosh market grew.

Apple executives decided to launch an official clone program in order to expand Macintosh market penetration.

[21] This response caused him to halt negotiations of upcoming licensing deals with OS licensees that Apple executives complained were still financially unfavorable.

[25] In 1999, Jobs had discussions with Ben Rosen, chairman and interim CEO of Compaq at the time, for the world's then-largest Wintel PC manufacturer to license Mac OS, which would have been a coup for Apple.

However no agreement was reached, as Apple had second thoughts about licensing its "crown jewel", while Compaq did not want to offend Microsoft, which it had partnered with since its founding in 1982.

[27] Since Apple transitioned the Macintosh to an Intel platform in 2006, and subsequent to a major increase in visibility and a gain in computer market share for Apple with the success of the iPod, large computer system manufacturers such as Dell have expressed renewed interest in creating Macintosh clones.