Hackintosh

A Hackintosh (/ˈhækɪntɒʃ/, a portmanteau of "Hack" and "Macintosh") is a computer that runs Apple's operating system macOS on computer hardware that is not authorized for the purpose by Apple.^[1] This is due to the software license for macOS only permitting its use on in-house hardware built by Apple itself, in this case the Mac line.

Although the practice of "Hackintoshing" has existed since the 1980s,^[2] a new wave of "Hackintoshing" began as a result of Apple's 2005 transition to Intel processors, away from PowerPC. From that transition to the early 2020s transition to Apple silicon, Mac computers used the same x86 computer architecture as many other desktop PCs, laptops, and servers, meaning that in principle, the code making up macOS systems and software can be run on alternative platforms with minimal compatibility issues.^[3]

Commercial circumvention of the methods Apple uses to prevent macOS from being installed on non-Apple hardware is restricted in the United States under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),^[4] but specific changes to the law regarding the concept of jailbreaking^[5] have placed circumvention methods like these into a legal grey area.