There's no Apple hardware, if we're talking about computers. There's Intel CPU, Intel Chipset, Toshiba SSD, Kingston RAM, etc. The fact, that Apple puts their logo on top, doesn't make it somewhat special. And the fact, that Apple doesn't enforce its OS usage tells, that they are OK with that. They could easily make hackintosher's lives a nightmare: checking hardware IDs, etc.
Saying that it's okay because Apple doesn't stop it does not hold water to me. They shouldn't be required to stop it if it's already against the EULA. There wouldnt be much point in disallowing it if they had already made it impossible.
Anyways, there is Apple hardware. Apple hardware is hardware that is sold by Apple. I understand that they dont manufacture it.
The real issue here is that when Apple sells you a Mac, they include a copy of MacOS and say you can use it on that hardware. People with hacintoshes are saying "no, we can use it on whatever hardware we want". My question is, who's right?
Some people are also saying "I don't have a Mac and therefore Apple has never given me a copy of MacOS, but I pirated it anyways". I think that those people are fairly obviously in the wrong because of the piracy involved.
The OS does do that --- search the Internet for "SMCDeviceKey" to learn more. I think Apple deliberately makes the check trivial and, since Hackintoshing is a tiny minority (potentially of users who might eventually buy hardware from them), doesn't push too hard on it lest it backfire --- the SMCDeviceKey protection is quite similar to this:
