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Apple Not Disabling OS X Atom Support After All
bonch writes "Contrary to previous reports, Atom chip support is working fine in the latest 10C535 build of OS X 10.6.2. Apple's EULA still states that OS X is licensed to run only on Apple hardware, but it looks like OSX86 hackers can breathe easy ... for now."
Actually, this was some blog poster that screwed up his Hackintosh and blamed it on Apple.
There are two likely explanations:
I don't know about you but as a developer I only test the most likely scenarios before I pass it on to QA. I don't test every scenario real or imagined. In this case, Atom isn't officially supported by Apple and so the Apple developers probably didn't bother to ensure it would on Atom. When they heard that it didn't work, they went back and discovered why. Most likely the bug would cause other issues. So they fixed it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
One specific development build of OSX didn't work properly on a completely unsupported platform, affecting perhaps tens of people nationwide. Subsequent builds did not exhibit this problem. News at 11.
Of course some people are going to flip out and claim Apple is doing something evil. When it gets fixed in a later build, someone is probably going to claim that Apple backed down due to the outrage of Hackintosh owners. In reality, it's entirely possible that they had a bug in a development build that unintentionally broke Atom support, and then fixed the bug and unintentionally restored Atom support.
Look, Apple doesn't use the Atom in any products. Ergo, there's no guarantee that a shipping version of Mac OS X will support it. Since Atom is basically just a stripped-down x86, it probably will continue to run but no promises.
Just to remind everyone, Apple builds Macs. Macs are not available in every possible x86/chipset combo. Just a handful. That's one of the reasons why Macs are typically pretty reliable, but also why the average frankencomputer can't run OS X reliably.
Yes, Mac OS X is licensed in such a way that you don't have the legal right to run it on anything but an Apple-made Mac. Yes, they won't come after you with lawyers if you make a hackintosh. Yes, they will come after you if you then try to sell them (like Psystar). And yes, licenses like Apple's are restrictive.
But no, they aren't under any obligation at all to provide support for any computer other than what they expressly state on the box to be compatible and licensed. Which, in the case of Snow Leopard, is:
- Mac computer with an Intel processor
- 1GB of memory
- 5GB of available disk space
- DVD drive for installation
And all the other specs are on:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
If your computer doesn't fit that description, you're SOL. Period. If Snow Leopard runs now on your Atom-based netbook and 10.6.2 winds up killing it, suck it up or stick to 10.6.1. So it goes.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Never put down to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Or a bug in the code either works for me.
Why bother
I just wished 'anti-trust' hammers to fall upon their heads.
I just wish people would educate themselves on what constitutes a "trust" worthy of having anti-trust applied to it.
Why bother
Apple has no products that use the Atom, correct? So, there was never a bug or a feature
So, what makes everyone think that Apple is even concerned about anything to do with the Atom? They're developing their software for their products. If it just so happens to work on some other hardware, it's an accident. If a build doesn't work on other hardware, it's an accident. If it works again on a subsequent build, it's an accident.
God, you people are turning a non-issue into one.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.