OS X Update Officially Kills Intel Atom Support

bonch writes "After apparently disabling and then re-enabling support for the Atom chipset in test builds of their 10.6.2 update, Apple has officially disabled support for the chipset in the final update. This makes it impossible for OSX86 users to run 10.6.2 on their Atom-based netbooks until a modified kernel shows up."

Comments

No biggie

[Puchku]

Since they don't sell any computers with Atom.. I don't think that you can blame them for dropping support. Tightens the code and all that.

Re:No biggie

[nomadic]

I don't think that you can blame them for dropping support.

Any other company and yes, they would be blamed.

Re:No biggie

[Pieroxy]

It's more about "user experience" than anything else. They don't want to allow OSX to run on anything other than their hardware, because some cheap chipset might make the whole thing malfunction and users would be fast to blame apple for a bad product... Even though it would be the user at fault for not respecting the hardware specifications...

That's a policy that have been enforcing for a long time now.

Re:No biggie

[eldavojohn]

Tightens the code and all that.

I must be unfamiliar with the x86 architecture. Can you explain to me how blacklisting x86 devices as opposed to other x86 devices "tightens the code and all that"?

Maybe they should just build a white list that checks the firmware of the motherboard to make sure that the device is an approved "user experience" device before booting? I mean, they're suing Psystar when they could just let the problem take care of itself, right?

In my opinion what Apple is doing is bad for the market and bad for end consumers who want choices. They should explicitly state their product's system requirements and let the consumer decide (like everyone else). Sure, they think they're protecting us from bad situations but where will that mothering stop and at what cost?

Re:No biggie

[wjsteele]

Actually, they would have had to add more code to disable the specific processor in question.

You see, the Atom is an X86 (or, on some, X86-64) based processor, so they didn't have to change their code at all for it to work on it in the first place. Now, they must look at the Processor ID and specifically disable support.

Bill

Re:No biggie

[Adrian Lopez]

Tightens the code and all that.

How exactly does adding instructions to special-case-disable the OS when it's running under particular hardware tighten the code?

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Well thats a load of crock, now isnt it?

Apple makes money on Hardware and software as a bundle.

Hackintoshes threaten this money making opportunity.

I'm not concerned with it, because I don't plan on running OS X on anything other than an expensive computer sold by apple. And since I have no desire to spend on such a frivolous thing, the plans happily sort themselves out.

The user experience Apple truly cares about is the one where the user pays apple a large sum of money. Everything else merely facilitates this.

Re:No biggie

[jimicus]

Any other company and yes, they would be blamed.

Maybe if "any other company" had sold the product explicitly with Atom support and then reneged on that promise.

AFAICT the argument from the whiners is "Even though OS X is explicitly sold with strings attached which make it hard for me to legally build a hackintosh, it shouldn't be because I don't like it and any attempt to enforce such strings, no matter how feeble such an attempt may be, is nasty!"

Re:No biggie

[PCWizardsinc]

Hardly, anyone that has built a hackintosh, or for that matter, modded a netbook to run OSX, would never blame Apple for it not working... the whole point is just to see if you can do it, ...

Re:No biggie

[nomadic]

I'm not judging the legitimacy or morality of their actions; I just know slashdot, and if any other company had done something like this they'd be excoriated here.

Re:No biggie

[dunkelfalke]

Well, in this exact case they make the software malfunction on a certain chipset and the only one to blame is Apple.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, they DO explicitly state their product's system requirements - one of the machines they sell, none of which contains an Atom.

"Sure, they think they're protecting us from bad situations but where will that mothering stop and at what cost?"

Pure idiocy. They think they're making money.

Re:No biggie

[bhtooefr]

They're already doing that... Problem is, there are EFI simulators out there that simulate the correct firmware.

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

The problem is the Atom supports a similar instruction set to the standard processors.

Dropping support in this case means they are adding explicit code designed solely to prevent use on a processor the OS would otherwise work with.

If Microsoft modified Windows 7 64-bit edition to BAN support for AMD 64-bit processors, and therefore encourage users to utilize only Microsoft Approved or Microsoft Manufactured hardware that utilizes Intel microprocessors.

Microsoft would be in court, at the wrong side of a lawsuit, pretty fast...

Again: it's not about hardware vendors not supporting a chip.

It's about hardware vendors adding code specifically designed to prevent use of a chip that otherwise works just fine.

Re:No biggie

[Huge_UID]

Mod parent up.

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

What, the same style of user experience policy that makes all iPhone apps require Apple approval, and gets AMIGA emulators banned, because hobbyists might be able to access a BASIC interpreter and have too much fun?

Re:No biggie

[Smurf]

They should explicitly state their product's system requirements and let the consumer decide (like everyone else).

From the Snow Leopard Tech Specs:

General requirements
Mac computer with an Intel processor

Only Apple makes Macs and Apple does not make any product with the Atom processor. Therefore, no computer with the Atom is supported. Neither is any computer with an AMD procesor. Or any computer not made by Apple, since all Mac clones are over ten years old and used PowerPCs.

None of those computers are supported. The fact that it works on some of them is a happy coincidence. There it is, written clearly in the very first requirement.

Re:No biggie

[Chaos Incarnate]

Unless it's based on the presence of some other capabilities like SSE4.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Again: it's not about software vendors not supporting a chip.

It's about software vendors adding code specifically designed to prevent use of a chip that otherwise works just fine.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Well thats a load of crock, now isnt it?
It is not a load of 'crock'.

Apple makes money on Hardware and software as a bundle.
Apple unbundled before. It nearly destroyed them financially. The mac market is relatively small. The computers the competitors were making were *WAY* better than what Apple sold and at about half the cost. Steve jobs decided he didnt want a percentage of a percentage of the computer market...

Apple long ago stopped being about selling good hardware. And more about selling 'cool'. Their cases mean more to people than what the computer does. That their hardware is sometimes decent is secondary to what they sell. They sell an experience.

Re:No biggie

[realityimpaired]

You seem to be operating under the premise that Apple is a Software company like Microsoft. They're not. They're a hardware company like HP or Dell. That the operating system they provide with their hardware is their own creation is irrelevant, and they're under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to provide support for any platform that they didn't sell.

That they're disabling support for the Atom platform is irrelevant. They're disabling support for a platform that they don't sell. The EULA that comes with their software specifically prohibits your using that platform in the first place, so if you were using their software legitimately, it shouldn't affect you. If it does affect you, too bad.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

...unjustly.

OS X is only licensed to run on Apple-branded hardware, in an even more direct way than Dell-distributed Windows installation discs are licensed (by both Dell and Microsoft) to be installed on Dell-branded PCs. You can't even pretend that Dell and Microsoft don't try to introduce technical "obstacles" to prevent non-supported use of those OEM discs, since they do at some level.

Without delving into the licensing specifics of the above examples, there is seemingly NO requirement for either Apple or Dell/Microsoft to provide support for any non-supported hardware/software combination. Apple is merely in the unique position of being the primary provider of both their own OS and their own computer hardware, therefore trivially enabling them to employ this more finely-directed method of preventing such a scenario.

Re:No biggie

[tak amalak]

And you know all this how? Yeah, I thought so.

You have no idea how booting off an Atom machine was broken.

Re:No biggie

[gad_zuki!]

>hey don't want to allow OSX to run on anything other than their hardware,

They dont. They sue people who sell OSX based machines. This update targets hobbyists and techies who know what they are doing and who dont need Apple's hand holding for "user experience" as you put it. Open your eyes already. Its embarrassing to see a place like slashdot that supposedly is all about the DIY ethic defending bullshit actions by one of technology's most controlling and DRM friendly companies.

Re:No biggie

[winthrop]

I think the complaint is that the requirement for a Mac computer is a business requirement for Apple to make money, not a technical requirement in order to run the software, except in so much as Apple cripples their software (from the end-user's perspective) in order to achieve their business goals.

Re:No biggie

[drinkypoo]

Unless it's based on the presence of some other capabilities like SSE4.

This is a stupid argument and you are a stupid person for making it because OSX is supported on computers without SSE4.

Re:No biggie

[purpledinoz]

Although I understand that argument, I really believe that this type of behaviour is holding back Apple. I think that OSX CAN be a huge threat to Windows, if they allowed it to be installed on any PC. I would imagine that many people would LOVE to ditch Windows and install OSX on their Dell laptops. The MacBooks are too expensive compared with other laptops, which is why a lot of people just suck it up and buy a Dell with Windows.

Re:No biggie

[psergiu]

OMG - Porsche changed the gearing of their new Engines and i can no longer install stolen Porsche engines on cheap Tata Nano car bodies.

Porsche should be in court, at the wrong side of a lawsuit !

Again: it's not about car vendor not supporting a certain type of gear sizes.

It's about car vendors specifically using non-standard sizes to prevent the installation in a 3rd party car body that otherwise works just fine.

Re:No biggie

[DJRumpy]

You think that Apple is excluded from that? It's a large company, just like MS, Sun, Google. It has major brand recognition. There will always be haters for all of these companies.

No one with that sort of brand recognition is exempt.

As to the whole Atom bit, Apple doesn't sell any products that use it, and I would guess that most of the hackintosh community downloads OS X from a Torrent. You can't expect a free ride for ever. For those that actually went out and purchased it for a netbook, you got what you paid for. A piece of software with no valid hardware to run it on.

Re:No biggie

[Duradin]

And then OSX behaves just as badly as Windows since it is now in the same driver hell as MS.

If you're going to have a crappy experience either way, why not stick with the one that everyone else is suffering through?

Re:No biggie

[sgbett]

The problem is the Atom supports a similar instruction set to the standard processors.

emphasis mine.

If its 'similar' and not 'the same', (I don't know, I am taking your word for it) then it would need to be tested separately.

None of your products use it, so you aren't going to waste money testing it. If it hasn't been tested then their is a chance it might not work as designed.

I think as an apple exec you would then have the following decision to make:

1. Release untested code that works on Atom.
2. Release tested code that is disabled on Atom.

In scenario 1 you please a niche (likely non-profitable) group. Possible headline in the press is 'Mac OS X is buggy' - which is understood by all - with the caveat 'on non apple hardware' - which is understood by few. This is bad PR, that is widespread and (mis)understood by many.

In scenario 2 you piss of your niche (likely non-profitable) group. There is no mainstream-newsworthy story, at least not one which everyone understands, or even cares about. A few people on tech sites debate the ins and outs.

As a shareholder, you choose option 2 every time. You don't get a market cap of $185bn without maybe upsetting a few people along the way, for sure you make sure you don't upset large groups of potential customers though.

If one is so desperate to run Mac OS X then one should probably just buy a Mac. Yeah it sucks that they are expensive. Valuable things often are.

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

There's a big difference between making the gearing of the engine a different size, and adding a detector to the car body, programmed to lock up if it detects installation into a certain type of engine.

using a non-standard size doesn't discriminate against other engine manufacturers.

Re:No biggie

[DJRumpy]

An excellent point. My Sony Vaio image disks won't install on anything but the machine they shipped with. There was no mass outcry when this happened. It's being done today by most manufacturer's.

Re:No biggie

[poetmatt]

well, you can either blame a: the users who made the decision to support/purchase/use OSX, or b: blame apple who locks down the OS more than a videogame console.

Hmm, well, most of the time people don't like to acknowledge their own mistakes so I'd suspect they go with B more times than not.

Re:No biggie

[Z34107]

I'm pulling this out of my nether regions, but the last slashdot article implied that they didn't "disable" Atom processors, per se. They turned on compiler optimizations that generate instructions that the Atom doesn't support.

If that's the case, it "tightens the code" because the new instructions run faster on the Intel processors Apple actually uses. However, Atom no longer works because the cheaper processors don't support those instructions.

Re:No biggie

[Vectronic]

They sell an experience.

They sell placation of the buyers ego.

Re:No biggie

[ThrowAwaySociety]

The problem is the Atom supports a similar instruction set to the standard processors.

Dropping support in this case means they are adding explicit code designed solely to prevent use on a processor the OS would otherwise work with.

And you know this how? There is zero evidence to support this. The much more likely scenario is that something simply broke compatibility with the Atom chipset, and Apple never bothered to test it and doesn't care that it's broken.

Re:No biggie

[TJamieson]

Dropping support in this case means they are adding explicit code designed solely to prevent use on a processor the OS would otherwise work with.

 
Yeah, no kidding...
Signed, AMD

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

So Apple should be applauded for making the game harder.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, your "refutation" is a stupid argument and you are a stupid person for making it, because the failure could be due to *presumption* of existence of SSE4 (or some other capability) *absent* some other identifier. The gaping whole in your "logic" is that you think they are/should be coding in a generic way rather than specifically for their hardware. Guess what? Apple codes specifically for their hardware. If it happens to work on something else, well, then it happens to work. If it happens to break Apple is *not* going to fix it -- they don't support it!

Apparently this is something very difficult for those with weak minds to comprehend. Really weak, because it is very simple. And the solution is obvious: if you don't like what Apple is selling (OS X for use on Apple branded hardware) then don't buy it.

Re:No biggie

[rinoid]

That's a straw man argument ... It doesn't matter what the users decided to do. If I buy a Porsche and want to drive it off road and break the thing that doesn't mean Porsche covers my lack of foresight with their bumper to bumper warranty. And FWIW, claiming the OS is way more locked down than a video game console doesn't make sense to me. One is an operating system, based on a lot of open source, sold as a proprietary unit to be installed on proprietary hardware on which you may install other operating systems. That you can take this operating system and run it on other like hardware is not insignificant. A video game console is just a piece of hardware. I don't know of any efforts to get the XBox OS running on a MacBook Pro and call it a video game console.

Re:No biggie

[masmullin]

WTF do you mean Stolen? I _bought_ my porsche engine. They sell the engine separately and w/o any attachment to a car. They do not label the engine as "replacement."

Porsche has no business telling me that I cant install the engine in whatever car I want to. They don't have to help me do it, but they cant stop me from building my own car around the porsche engine which I used my hard earned money to buy.

If they specifically cripple the engine so that it doesn't work unless its attached to a porsche branded car then thats sueworthy... especially if they somehow change the engine AFTER purchase!

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Every company that releases a demo "cripples" their product in order to achieve a business goal.

Every company that has tiers of products (like /. with its premium no-ads version and its free ads supported version) "cripples" their product in order to achieve a business goal.

Apple wants to make money. People buying a $99 DVD (in the best case) and not a $599 Mac Mini means they are not making $500.

Re:No biggie

[masmullin]

This shouldn't be modded funny, it should be modded insightful.

Re:No biggie

[howlingmadhowie]

and although i repeat what hundreds have said before me, you are creating a strawman. nobody wants apple to support intel atom processors and there is no way their eula can tell me what to do with an osx cd in my own home. people who buy an osx cd and install the software on their own netbooks have done nothing morally wrong.

they are perfectly allowed to disable support for whatever they want to. i'm not saying (and i don't think anybody is saying) that apple doesn't have the right to do that. what others are saying is that it is morally questionable for apple to do so.

there is a reason why many here have mentioned intent. if apple has deliberately disabled os x from running on intel atom processors, then in the minds of most here we have a very different situation from the one if os x no longer ran on intel atom processors because of some technical reason.

in general we are arguing morals here, not law. legally i doubt that apple has done anything wrong. morally there is a very strong case to be made (which you have in no way countered) that apple has done something morally wrong.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

All you guys are idiots. Everyone has known the reason it breaks atom is because of its use of SSE4, which benefits legit mac owners. This has been known since weeks old beta seeds...

Re:No biggie

[NotBornYesterday]

Yeah, well when you're a monopoly, different rules apply. By doing this, Apple only affects a tiny percentage (hackintosh hackers) of a small segment of the market (intersection of OSX fans and netbook owners/buyers). If MS did what you say, they would affect a large percentage (AMD64 owners/buyers) of most of the market (Windows users/buyers). That, and the fact that MS is not a hardware player in that market, so it is to their benefit to run on anything and everything, rather than their own proprietary HW..

Now, for a more accurate comparison, take a look at the Xbox 360. MS is a competitor in the market rather than a monopolist dominating it, and the hardware and software are truly bundled. I haven't tried hacking it myself, but I'd be surprised if MS included any 3rd-party drivers or CPU support in the software on the Xbox. They don't intend for it to be decoupled, and they don't license the software that way. Where is the lawsuit over that?

Re:No biggie

[tignet]

If Microsoft modified Windows 7 64-bit edition to BAN support for AMD 64-bit processors, and therefore encourage users to utilize only Microsoft Approved or Microsoft Manufactured hardware that utilizes Intel microprocessors.

Microsoft would be in court, at the wrong side of a lawsuit, pretty fast...

Are you really implying that Microsoft, a confirmed monopoly, would get sued for... not expanding their monopoly as much as possible? I think that if Microsoft stopped supporting AMD 64-bit processors they might see less court time. As a matter of fact, if they stopped supporting Intel 64-bit processors too, you could say they don't have a monopoly at all! (for 64-bit platforms anyway)

When companies decide not to support something, it is a cost decision. In this case Apple has no economic reason to support hardware they don't produce. Maybe Apple intentionally broke support, maybe they simply introduced optimizations that work on their hardware but cause problems on other hardware. Maybe they don't test unsupported hardware to know there was a problem, and maybe they do know but simply don't care. However it worked it out, they have the right to support, or not support, whatever hardware they wish.

Likewise, if Microsoft decides to stop supporting certain hardware, that's fine too. Virtual PC stopped supporting Linux when Microsoft acquired it. All that did was help move people to VMWare and other products. If it's more economic for Apple to require people to move to Windows/Linux/whatever on non-Apple hardware rather than letting them using OS-X, well that sounds like fair game to me. You don't buy the OS-X software, you lease it. Use of the software is governed by the EULA. Those users had no right to use it anyway.

Apple is making a statement. Perhaps they are saying that the software cost, assuming those users actually buy OS-X, isn't significant. Maybe Apple loses money overall on the software and rely on hardware sales for profit? Perhaps Apple does make money from the software, but it doesn't cover the cost of maintaining unsupported configurations due to the additional development time? Perhaps none of the above is true, and they simply want to push their brand of "it just works," and to keep the brand value high -- which to them is worth more than allowing flaky computers out there giving their OS a bad name. Because, in the end, it doesn't matter if you think the other processors work "just fine" or not. And having Atom support removed, if it was in fact deliberately removed, may have little to do with whether the Atom processors work "just fine" or not.

Unless you're a share-holder, your opinion probably doesn't matter much. If you are a share-holder, realize that their decision was made with the intention of making you more money, not bringing world peace (or whatever other values you think they should make their decisions on).

Re:No biggie

[Gizzmonic]

Anddd....receiving the Slashie for "Worst Car Analogy of the Year, it's...psergui! with "OMG-Porsche changed the gearing of their engines!"

(wild applause)

psergiu: Thank you, thank you very much. As I stand up here and accept my award, I feel like a new windshield wiper on a 1993 Nissan Stanza, if the Stanza's owner had used a lot of Rain-X. What I'm trying to say is that-

Re:No biggie

[xouumalperxe]

So I take it you think 3-4 stories on the subject, with half the posts in each of them ranting about how this sucks isn't enough excoriation?

Re:No biggie

[makomk]

Except most of the actual Apple machines out there don't support SSE4 either. Atom supports the same instruction set and features as the early Intel Macs do - SSE, SSE2, and SSE3 but no 64-bit mode or hardware virtualisation. That's why Apple would have to go to a special effort to disable it. The only real difference between Atom and Intel's mainstream CPUs is performance.

Re:No biggie

[icebraining]

"If its 'similar' and not 'the same', (I don't know, I am taking your word for it) "

If that was the case, Microsoft would have to provide a special version of XP, Vista and 7 just for netbooks, which clearly they don't: you can install the common x86 or x64 version on any Atom cpu.

XP particularly was made before the Atoms appeared, so it would never work.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Its embarrassing to see a place like slashdot that supposedly is all about the DIY ethic defending bullshit actions by one of technology's most controlling and DRM friendly companies.

Yeah they're so DRM-friendly the CEO spoke publicly saying it was unworkable for music and pissed off important partners of Apple in so doing. Then, in an attempt to sell more iPods, pushed so hard for the removal of DRM from music they were selling, they almost single handedly killed it in the music download market in the US. Finally, Apple is so DRM-friendly they don't bother with serial number or online registration for their flagship OS so users can install it on pretty much any hardware or multiple machines if they feel like it, in violation of the license.

Your bias is what is embarrassing. Sure, if Apple did this intentionally to stop Atom based users, it was them locking down their OS a little bit, which for me serves to emphasize how unlike Windows OS X is not locked down at all now. Apple does use DRM in some markets, mostly where they have basically no choice, but they've been one of the strongest forces for the removal of DRM in recent history. I have no illusions that this was for anything but catering to their bottom line, but for you to assert exactly the opposite is absurd.

Re:No biggie

[Gizzmonic]

Although I understand that argument, I really believe that this type of behaviour is holding back Apple. I think that OSX CAN be a huge threat to Windows, if they allowed it to be installed on any PC.

"Yeah, we can compete directly with Microsoft in the OS market. That's a great idea for long-term profitability." - signed, OS/2, DR-DOS, BeOS, etc.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone will find the extra code and the early return that causes the created failure point. Since theoretically, new code was added and old code was not taken away, it should be in short order that someone mod's the kernel and the defiant ones can continue thumbing Apple. It makes me happy to see a revolution inside the Mao's camp.

Re:No biggie

[jo_ham]

They make a product that you are using. They are in no way morally obligated to provide it to you in a way *you* want.

There is no ethics issue with them explicitly disabling functionality in their product for something they do not sell just because you found out that you could get it to work with non-standard hardware.

If you buy a socket set and discover that while it's calibrated in metric and sold as a metric socket set to work with metric bolts, that it can still just about undo imperial bolts then great - you don't need a second imperial set. If you then find that the newer set from the same company has been updated so it still works to undo metric bolts (as it is sold) but no longer fits imperial bolts, is that company morally wrong?

Morals and ethics come into play when a company breaks good-faith promises or advertising/trade descriptions, or specifically does anti-competitive things by leveraging other monopoly positions. Since Apple has no monopoly in the OS or hardware field, and they didn't sell OS X with assurances that it would run on Atom CPUs, and in reality all they are doing is *reducing* their marketshare by disabling Atom CPUs there is no issue here.

Why exactly is is morally questionable for then to disable Atom CPUs? What promise did they break to you? How are they obligated to ensure that their product continues to work on a processor that they do not support? Why are they obligated to ensure the OS X hackintosh community can continue installing OS X on Atom-powrred netbooks?

If they don;t want you to use OS X on Atom powered Netbooks what are they "allowed to do" in your opinion that is not morally wrong? Are they allowed to try to stop you from using their (updated) product in a way they didn't intend?

I'm just curious. I don;t necessarily agree with Apple's decision here, but I don;t think they were morally wrong to make it.

Re:No biggie

[sgbett]

That's in interesting aside which apparently rebukes the GP's point. However your reasoning merely implies that XP et al run 'bug-free' on Atom.

I suspect that Microsoft - being a software company, that markets to the whole of the x86 space - probably have (or at least should have) tested on Atom.

I don't see how that helps Apple.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

...bad for end consumers who want choices.

Haha... if they wanted that, they wouldn't be buying Apple stuff :-)

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

None of this discriminates against anyone more than you'd expect of proprietary software... You can't buy OSX for installation on a normal computer, the license prohibits it, this is the idea of non-free software, why shouldn't the developers add arbitrary restrictions to stop it running on hardware that it was never explicitly designed to run on?

It's quite simple, If you want software without restrictions, use a Free and open source operating system, this takes marketshare away from the big 2 and they wont like that one bit, computer users are consumers, with rights, importantly the right to walk away and use a different product, if you don't like this idea, then learn to deal with the developers terms, ok?

Re:No biggie

[Pieroxy]

Who defended Apple exactly? I was just stating their position.

Not reading the story, it's OK. Not reading the summary, we're getting used to it. But the comment you reply to? Come on....

As you put it, it's embarrassing.

Re:No biggie

[gtall]

Yes, and see what happened when BE attempted this. M$ knifed them. Apple appears to be that stupid.

Re:No biggie

[jo_ham]

Not necessarily, although a combination of funny and insightful would probably be appropriate.

Not all people who buy Apple products are out to fluff their ego, just like not all people who buy Dells are too dumb to assemble their own from whitebox parts, or all people who run Linux are too cheap to spend money on an OS.

Huge generalisations really help no one. Regardless of your personal opinion on the "Apple experience", there really is something to it for some people - I personally love having a machine (white intel iMac) that I can carry in a box with a handle over to my friend's house for a quick game night, that runs OS X and XP, takes 5 minutes to pack and unpack, doesn't have to worry about antivirus and malware issues (but is still security conscious enough to understand that we're not and never likely to be 'immune' to security threats), and don;t consider myself better than anyone else because I use a Mac.

The computer I own ticks all the right boxes for what I want to use it for - it's a tool (albeit a very nice looking tool - also a consideration, but not the only one). I'm sure there are PCs out there that are all-in-one and come in a box that has a handle on it that make it easy to transport it like a suitcase, protected by the original packing it came in from the factory, but can that one run OS X out of the box with no need to modify it?

It's not like I went into the store and said "I want to buy a computer that shows how much better I am than everyone else" - I bought the one that fitted my needs best, and was prepared to pay the money for it. The cost of an all-in-one is more than worth it for the convenience of moving it, and the way it looks, and the fact I can run both OS X and XP as needed (calm down, I have Ubuntu on a Powerbook) really does make it an ideal single main machine.

Re:No biggie

[howlingmadhowie]

How are they obligated to ensure that their product continues to work on a processor that they do not support? Why are they obligated to ensure the OS X hackintosh community can continue installing OS X on Atom-powrred netbooks?

they aren't and they aren't. but that's not what this argument is about.

the problem is that it is a generally not nice thing to do. many people (i am not one of them, as i would not sully my hands with os x) have quite happily installed os x on intel atom powered products and (presumably) enjoyed using the hardware with this operating system. for apple to deliberately disable their systems from working is just not nice. what harm is it doing apple? why do they have to say to these (presumably hundreds if not thousands of people) "we don't like what you're doing so we're going to make sure you can't!"? it's just small-minded, egocentric behaviour which would get a reprimand if a child did it.

Re:No biggie

[gtall]

Where do you get the idea that simply because Apple pulls software out of their ass that you should be able to run it on anything. They produce, get this, systems....that would be hardware-software. They are not a software company. Don't like it, buy some Wintel crap and be happy.

Re:No biggie

[jo_ham]

What about blaming people who bought (or "obtained") OS X and ran it on a chipset that nowhere on earth has Apple ever said is supported?

When it stops working, perhaps they share perhaps a tiny bit of the blame...?

If you use a product in a way it was never designed for (successfully, legally, illegally, imaginatively, any-which-way-but-lose) and it later stops working (for any reason, expected or unexpected) then you are back to the situation you had when you started out: "This may work, but there are no guarantees, and it may not work in the future if things change".

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the kiddies who installed it for not reading the minimum system requirements on the box?

Hardware: Apple Computer - Intel processor

Come on, apple are one of the most restrictive and non consumer friendly companies out there, they attempt to enforce whatever monopolies they can at every turn(make ipods difficult to use without itunes, restrict access to itms without itunes, make itunes wipe ipods that don't belong to the computer they're plugged into, etc.), are you surprised by anything they do any more?

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, but it will lack a zealots army to defend it.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said they added instructions to special-case-disable anything?

*If* compiler optimizations made the code incompatible, how can anyone claim the change was malicious?

Re:No biggie

[jo_ham]

But for how long?

Perhaps they are going to phase out OS X support on non-SSE4 CPUs, which is not reasonable for them right now since they have near-current products in this category, but as in the case of PPC support being dropped, it may well happen.

Whether they start doing this now on per-processor basis and it affects Atom or do it later when they are ready to drop support for Core Solo (or whatever the last CPU they shipped with no SSE4) makes no difference to them because they never supported Atom in the first place and nipping the Atom issue in the bud now may just be extra gravy.

Please note that calling people stupid as the primary crux of your argument generally isn't helpful. Try to be civil.

Re:No biggie

[shentino]

Not supporting Atom is one thing.

Deliberately crashing them is another.

This is almost like the iphone brickage of a while ago.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs doesn't think this, apparently. But then, what does he know about running a computer company.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

"Frivolous" and "ego placation" for some == "approachable user experience" for others.

With the building as a given, what some see as a hardware premium is seen by others as a premium for a smooth UI experience.

Applying your own POV universally can lead to errors.

Re:No biggie

[stewbacca]

Apple makes money on Hardware and software as a bundle.

Hackintoshes threaten this money making opportunity.

If I've learned one thing in my years wasted here on slashdot, it's that people who hack things and grab stuff of torrents weren't going to buy the legitimate version in the first place, so there is no threat to the money making opportunity. If anything, a Hackintosh person might really learn to like OSX, then when they grow up and get big-boy jobs, they won't have a problem dropping $1200 on an Apple branded OSX computer.

Re:No biggie

[stewbacca]

They sell an experience.

They sell placation of the buyers ego.

They sell products so basement nerds can come on slashdot and project their own insecurities about what hardware other people like.

Re:No biggie

[Tetsujin]

Anddd....receiving the Slashie for "Worst Car Analogy of the Year"...

Q'est-ce que c'est... You did not like this car analogy? I thought it was magnifique. It speaks to the very heart of the matter, using an analogy of cars to present a compelling example of such complete distortion of the issues that one able to accept the completely bent version of the facts could not help but agree - though it is likely they would have in the first place...

Re:No biggie

[DdJ]

Huge generalisations really help no one.

Sorry, I just felt a deep, burning need to quote this sentence out of context.

That's all, I'm done. Everyone can move along now.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of curiosity, does anybody know what instruction could possibly be supported by the Core processor, but not the Atom?

Re:No biggie

[gyrogeerloose]

for apple to deliberately disable their systems from working is just not nice.

But they didn't disable anyone's systems from working, all they did was prevent them from updating to the next version of OS X. As long as the netbook Hackintoshers use their current version of OS X, their machines will continue to work. There's no legitimate reason--ethical, legal or otherwise--that Apple should be obligated to continue supporting a processor they don't use in any of their own products.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Snow Leopard Tech Specs:

General requirements
Mac computer with an Intel processor

But, the Atom IS an Intel Processor, just not one sold in a Mac n Cheese. If they lost ARM support, sure, cry... but this is a deliberate act to stop some of the processors from working because of Apple failing to produce a product to compete in that market. The quickest (and easiest) way to salve this wound is to release a product in that market to compete, and maybe there will be fewer people trying to make their own.

For example sake, would it be "ok" for them to disable support of Core 2 Quad if they only wanted to support Core 2 Duo? Given the similarities, it would require a specific check by the kernel to deny access to the sister processor. Thats what this is boiling down to. The active efforts to sabotage some of Intel's product line, rather than leaving it open as it has been. Unfortunately, this wont impact their sales much, but it is a loss of freedom. The "Man" has won this round.

Re:No biggie

[Tetsujin]

He's arguing that, because Microsoft code works on just about all 32-bit x86 processors, then the same must be true of Mac OS X. This is generally how people target their software: avoiding strict dependence on any processor features they can't rely on their customers' machines having. But it's not strictly true - the 32-bit instruction set goes back to the 80386 in 1985 - but every new generation of processors has added something - often including some new instructions.

Apple makes their OS for their hardware - if all their Intel processors supported SSE4 (Some of the older ones don't...) or 64-bit mode or some other extension the Atom (or rather, certain Atoms, like the N270 and N280 used in netbooks) didn't support, then it's possible some of their code would rely upon these features, too.

Honestly, I find it hard to care. I did the Mac thing and it was fun for a while, but I'm done with that now.

Re:No biggie

[Z34107]

Looking at Wikipedia, it looks like the Atom doesn't support SSE4.1. If you wanted to optimize your program for a Core 2 Duo, you'd turn on your SSE4.1 compiler flags. I'm sure there's a lot of other stuff, too - they took a lot of stuff out of the Atom to make it power efficient.

Re:No biggie

[howlingmadhowie]

There's no legitimate reason--ethical, legal or otherwise--that Apple should be obligated to continue supporting a processor they don't use in any of their own products.

And once again i must repeat myself. nobody is asking apple to do this. you are arguing a strawman here.

Re:No biggie

[UnknowingFool]

Well there is an underlying assumption that it was intentional. It may or may not have been. If they broke Atom support unintentionally, Apple support might just say "Well it's an unsupported platform. Sorry there's nothing we can do."

If it was intentional, I think hackintosh owners can probably thank Psystar for that. For years, Apple did nothing about hackintoshes as Apple probably didn't care. Psystar might have forced Apple into action. After all, legally if Apple does not enforce OS X exclusivity on their machines, then Psystar might argue "Well Apple lets these hobbyists run OS X on unsupported machines, why won't let us?" There are differences between what Psystar is doing and what hackintosh owners are doing but Apple may have been forced into a position that allows for no exceptions.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that's the case, since the OS runs perfectly well on all 1st-gen Intel Macs out there with older processors, like Macbooks with 32-bit Core Duos and even some Minis with Core Solos. AFAIK, Atoms have at least the same features, if not more, than these older siblings. This leads me to suspect that this crippling of the kernel was a deliberate action.

Re:No biggie

[gyrogeerloose]

anyone that has built a hackintosh, or for that matter, modded a netbook to run OSX, would never blame Apple for it not working... the whole point is just to see if you can do it

Bingo. That's why I did it. I have three Macs and own a little AAPL but I'm also a nerd so I put together a Hackintosh just for the hell of it, to see if I could. Besides, I bought a 5 license family pack version of OS X Leopard and had two unused licenses burning a hole in my pocket.

Re:No biggie

[jo_ham]

Feel free. I am no more the general Apple user than the guy who buys one because the colour matches his Porsche Cayenne.

My post was not a generalisation.

Re:No biggie

[jeremyp]

In my opinion what Apple is doing is bad for the market and bad for end consumers who want choices. They should explicitly state their product's system requirements and let the consumer decide (like everyone else). Sure, they think they're protecting us from bad situations but where will that mothering stop and at what cost?

The consumers who want choice have still got choice. They can buy an Apple computer, or a Dell, or an HP or whatever. They can buy a computer that runs OS X or one that runs Windows, or Linux no problem. They just have to pay a premium if they want an Apple.

Is anybody whining about Porsche limiting consumer choice just because their cars are quite expensive? No.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

There is more than one "atom chipset" out there. So if it doesn't work with all of them, given that the atom is a standard x86 processor just like a Core Duo or an AMD Athlon XP, it means that there is explicit code that break atom support.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact Microsoft wants their software usable on both AMD and Intel processors to maximize their sales. Apple controls both the code and hardware where Microsoft doesn't and they are acting to maximize their sales. What is the advantage to Apple of helping Hackers break their phone codes or get Apple software to run on hardware they don't build? Like all companies Apple is in the business of making money with their business model. If you don't like that business model you can always use Windows 7 on that cheap Atom processor netbook or computer.

Re:No biggie

[jimicus]

That you can take this operating system and run it on other like hardware is not insignificant.

Er.... yes it is.

There's no reason you couldn't have bought a different PPC-based system and tried to persuade it to run OS X back in the Mac-pre-Intel days. Or, going further back, hacked around with System (whatever) to run on an alternate 68000-based system. (Atari, anyone?).

The only real difference is it's a hell of a lot cheaper to do it today.

There are also examples of people taking firmware for one manufacturer's home router and running it on anothers. Not difficult, most of the hardware around seems to be based on one of only a handful of reference designs. But nobody goes complaining how much Linksys sucks because they can't get the latest Linksys firmware to run on their D-Link router.

Re:No biggie

[bonch]

The user experience Apple truly cares about is the one where the user pays apple a large sum of money. Everything else merely facilitates this.

In other words, they're a business trying to make money? Have any other shocking insights into the capitalist system you'd like to share with us?

Re:No biggie

[bonch]

Actually, they would have had to add more code to disable the specific processor in question.

Not at all. By all accounts, lack of Atom support is due to compiler optimizations that generate instructions the Atom doesn't support. It would make sense for Apple to do that since they don't use Atom chips in any of their products anyway.

Re:No biggie

[jythie]

Has this been confirmed?

Last I heard, it simply fails to finish booting, which speaks to some code path not functioning (such as a missing instruction or a minor difference that does not have an if statement on it) correctly and the process failing. This is different from an explicit check.

Unless the processor is identical in both instruction set and behavior, failing to explicitly support it will eventually result in failure. Any change to kernel code that is processor dependent can potentially break it unless they explicitly have unit tests as part of their development process to insure that compatibility is maintained.

In other words, it may not work 'just fine'. It just 'happened to work'.

Re:No biggie

[Angostura]

It's about hardware vendors adding code specifically designed to prevent use of a chip

Do you know this for a fact, or are you suggesting a likelihood?

Re:No biggie

[DdJ]

My post was not a generalisation.

The bit I quoted was! The statement "Huge generalisations really help no one." is in and of itself a perfect example of a generalization.

Re:No biggie

[mmeister]

You are under the false notion that Apple's $29 Snow Leopard upgrade is the same thing as buying a full retail copy of Windows (or any other full retail OS product) that runs on indiscriminate hardware. It is not and never has been. The box for Snow Leopard says that it requires a Macintosh (that's hardware.. or "the car" for your analogy). This has always been the case, even if you are unwilling to actually read the requirements and accept them.

Just because you can currently circumvent the requirement Apple has on its software does not put you on high-moral grounds, nor does it obligate Apple to support your actions in any form what so ever.

OS X 10.6.2 continues to run on every Macintosh that Apple said would run OS X 10.6. Just because you found a way to circumvent it does not obligate Apple to support your move in any way. Sue all you want, you will lose.

Sadly, you may ruin it for the rest of us as Apple may have to start taking Windows 7 like steps to guarantee people are running on legitimate hardware.

Re:No biggie

[shentino]

I'm curious if apple even has the legal right to restrict installation to apple hardware.

If it's presented after purchase, then you are not obliged to agree to it.

Yet if the store you're supposed to return it to says "all sales final" then wouldn't apple be on the hook for handling refunds of the "refused to consent to the EULA" variety?

Re:No biggie

[jythie]

XP has checks in it where it only uses instruction sets and capabilities if the processor has them. If the ability is not there it defaults back to a smaller common set. Same with Linux. Both are designed to fall back to whatever they can find.

OS probably does something similar, but the 'common set' is pulled from all processors they support rather then all possible x86 configurations. They control the hardware so they have no reason to invest in all this fallback code, the can optimize for what they know they can expect, which results in smaller, faster, more stable code.

Re:No biggie

[BSDimwit]

Yeah, Stolen. As soon as you try to install it on a non-mac machine, you have broken the license and that license then becomes null and void and you are now installing stolen software onto your Atom rig. BTW, they do label its requirements, right on the side of the box.

Requirements: Mac computer with an Intel processor - 1GB of RAM - DVD drive for installation - 5GB of available disk space....

Your Porche analogy doesn't hold water. Porche doesn't require that you agree to a license to purchase their engine, Apple does. If you do not abide by that license, Apple can and should take all steps to prevent you from using their software in a manner contrary to their license. You may not like the concept of licensing software, but that is the reality in todays intellectual property world. Also, Apple has done nothing the version of OS X currently installed on your Atom rig. Preventing you from upgrading to their next version is not the same thing as "somehow change the engine AFTER purchase." And keep in mind, you didn't purchase the software, you purchased a license for the use of their software.... and if you attempt to break the license, you use of that license is no longer valid.

Re:No biggie

[jythie]

Having worked for a hardware+software company that had problems with 3rd party hardware mods.... a thousand times this!

Every time a repair shop or middleman decided to replace parts that had been extensively tested for compatibility for whatever they could find for the cheapest at Best Buy, we ended up with PR problem. People saw our stuff running poorly and faulted us, even when the problem was, say, a hard drive with slightly wrong specs (or a stock firmware) or had differnt sleep characteristics.

We enedup locking down hardware not to keep prices up, but to stop the bad user experiences that would effect people's decisions to buy our products.

Re:No biggie

[ColdWetDog]

So I take it you think 3-4 stories on the subject, with half the posts in each of them ranting about how this sucks isn't enough excoriation?

No, that just takes care of the standard Slashdot dupes. Wait for another other half dozen, then we'll talk.

Re:No biggie

[MeatBag PussRocket]

Full disclosure: i'm a happy hackintosh user.

i think it was intentional and i'm totally OK with that. Apple is protecting their business model by excluding hardware they dont sell. their selling their pretty hardware made it possible for them to write their pretty software. i think you hit the nail on the head by blaming Psystar. Apple probably couldnt care less about the few of us that have modded our own netbooks to run OSX especially if we have a purchased copy of the OS. even those that torrented it probably dont reap much ire from apple. We're just dudes having fun with computers and making our own lives better without really damaging anything else in the big scheme of things. Psystar was running a business off of this, and was parasitic to apple. its well within their right and i dont view it as a move done in poor taste.

Re:No biggie

[jythie]

Sounds like the whole PC industry to me. Computer nerds in general seem very insecure about WHATEVER hardware they use and often seem to need to point out how horrible other choices are. Just look at the windows crowd. First thing to come up in any apple discussion is "I can get the same specs cheaper! you suck because my hardware is better for the same price!'

Re:No biggie

[karnowski]

General requirements
Mac computer with an Intel processor

hmmmm, if only we could figure out who makes the Atom ....

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

"Then people would blame Apple". Wow, the much overused non technical and unmeasurable "catch all" answer when a real technical reason can not be found.

Everyone claims that Apple is a company that makes what people want. I believe that but lets finish the sentence. Apple is a company that makes what people want and that they can profit heavily from. There is nothing wrong with making as much profit as you can but please, see it for what it is, a company making a profit, not a company that you are part of or that cares about you more than they care about a speck of dust. They are JUST LIKE every other company people and in it for the money, the being cool and acting as if you matter is part of the experience they created to make sales. Not because they do care.

The reason Apple is going out of their way to limit the OS from running on these is because they do not have a product in that price range and they can not make the Apple premium in that area. There are many players in that field and they are obviously making a profit so the sector is not a failure at all. Just not the levels that Apple wants. The people want an Apple and would buy one but Apple will not profit as much from it so so will not make it. Why won't they profit from it? Apples products are priced what the market will pay. That is currently slighly higher than the equivelent PC device [see note 1]. In the small netbook market where people need and expect less features is little room for that premium profit that Apple demands. If Apple added their premium, the price be oddly higher than other netbooks and would start to approach their existing laptops and possibly erode the perceived value of Apple as a whole.

Where does this lead? That Apple makes products that people want and work IF Apple can make a premium profit from it. If it was only making products that people wanted, they would be proud to serve the Atom market.

Note 1:
Please don't tell me they are the same price and don't go to the most expensive machine or the first one you find on Dell's home site and only use that to compare, there are other far cheaper solutions than the main page and the specifically placed SKU's displayed prominently on the front page. No one will have any trouble finding the same Dell or a very close equal much cheaper BB, Newegg, Fry's, Staples, WM, with a few mouse clicks and some basic bargin hunting skills no more technical than if you were asked to price compare peanut butter in your local supermarket. Come on people, you have been a consumer comparing and shopping around for things since you were a kid going to the corner store and buying a candy bar. The ONLY way you wouldn't find an equivalently capable PC at a lower price is because you did not want to find one and you are just gave a failed attempt to prove your point that they cost the same.

Re:No biggie

[Mage66]

There were several solutions to run System 6 & 7 on Atari's (Magic Sac and Spectre 128/GCR), and Shapeshifter that ran MacOS on Amiga Computers. They worked nice because the ST was faster and had a larger screen than the Mac, though Apple took steps to prevent folks from obtaining MacPlus ROMs (needed for the emulators) as service parts.

Re:No biggie

[Uberbah]

I'm not judging the legitimacy or morality of their actions; I just know slashdot, and if any other company had done something like this they'd be excoriated here.

Except every single time Apple does something remotely questionable or popular, there's half a dozen people on Slashdot saying "now if this were Microsoft, you'd all be up in arms", smug in their own cleverness and superiority.

When in fact the only reason this story is on here in the first place is because it's Apple. If it's not Apple, Microsoft or Sony, no one gives a shit. Two people scratch their new iPod screens and it's a story here, whereas it literally takes a Dell laptop battery exploding and starting on fire to even be mentioned.

Re:No biggie

[HeronBlademaster]

It is a generalization, but I think it's perhaps the most useful observation a person can make.

If the Slashdot crowd would remember it (and its corollary, "generalizations have exceptions"), there would be far fewer pointless arguments clogging the comments.

Re:No biggie

[s73v3r]

It was a Commodore 64 emulator, but that's beside the point. If you look at the terms of the App Store, they specifically say that you can't make an app that runs interpreted code at runtime; everything has to be compiled. This may suck, and if you don't agree with it, then don't develop for the platform.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are correct. Beyond your hypothesis, I predict Apple RESTORES Atom capability at some point in the future, when they decide to get into the netbook market. All it would take is a few bad earnings reports, and investors would be screaming. Next thing you know, Steve is introducing a cheapie OS X netbook -- invading the low end of the market. It's too soon to do it now; such a product would cannibalize sales of high-margin Macbooks. But the day will come soon enough when Apple has saturated its market niche and something will have to be done about it.

With Apple stock selling at a PE of 32+, rapid growth is mandatory. Steve can't leave this opportunity on the table forever.

Consider the history of DEC. They had the 64-bit Alpha processor and the VMS operating system back in the 1990's, and they could run the same executable on everything from a workstation to a mainframe. At that time, Intel had the 486 and MS had Windows 95. They were in a position to wipe Wintel off the map, if only they ramped up commodity desktop Alpha PCs. Or they could have ported VMS to x86. Unfortunately, they stayed focused on their high-margin hardware, fearing that cheap Alpha/VMS machines would kill their cash cow workstations and servers. Over the course of a few years, the "nowhere-near-as-nice-but-adequate-for-everyday-use" Windows/Intel boxes took over desktops. DEC suffered greatly and was absorbed by Compaq, resulting in so much debt that Compaq was then absorbed by HP. To this day, we all suffer because the best software was kept out of the low end of the market. Mediocre software won by default. Let's not make that mistake again.

Re:No biggie

[s73v3r]

And then their support costs triple, and their profit per unit falls. Whether after all that they still make more money overall is unknown, but they know they are making assloads of money doing what they're doing currently, so they don't see a reason to change.

Re:No biggie

[Smurf]

General requirements
Mac computer with an Intel processor

hmmmm, if only we could figure out who makes the Atom ....

hmmmm, if at least one of the computers that use Intel's Atom was a Mac ....

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

SSE4 isn't on processors that they do support. The simplest explanation is that they're using an instruction that the Atom doesn't have, but what would the Core (supported) have that the Atom (not supported) does not?

Re:No biggie

[s73v3r]

So you're complaining about them messing with the market, and then don't want to let them run their business and sell their products how they want?

Re:No biggie

[Smurf]

From the Snow Leopard Tech Specs:

General requirements
Mac computer with an Intel processor

But, the Atom IS an Intel Processor, just not one sold in a Mac n Cheese.

Which is the whole point of my post, which was a reply to eldavojohn, who felt that "They should explicitly state their product's system requirements and let the consumer decide (like everyone else)".

Re:No biggie

[s73v3r]

If software freedom is one of your main concerns, then you probably wouldn't be using OS X (or Windows) in the first place. If that's one of your chief concerns, then you should be using and promoting Open Source software, not bitching about what other, proprietary companies do with their product.

Re:No biggie

[John Whitley]

They sell placation of the buyers ego.

Counterpoint: They sell Unix-based systems with UI infrastructure and frameworks that kick the tar out of what's available on Windows or Linux, which have actual third-party support for a breadth of (gasp) commercial software, and which has a large, healthy native FOSS community. Oh, and which can run virtually all *nix-based FOSS software I've cared to look as well.

And just for a data point, look up the stats on a Dell Studio 13 compared to the current Macbook. They're nearly identical. Price, disk, RAM are all identical. The Macbook has a .13 GHz "edge" on its clock speed; yawn. So there's no "ego placation" going on by way of price status here.

Re:No biggie

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

The MacOSX EULA explicitly states that you can only use on Mac hardware. Microsoft has no such EULA. Microsoft has no PC hardware. Your comparison with Microsoft is a false argument. Microsoft probably would be in court, but that's irrelevant. They're in a different space than Apple, not only because of their hardware/software mix, but that they are a convicted monopolist, and get different scrutiny.

It's as if a company that has an integrated hardware and software combination which has rules stating that you can only install on their hardware decided to add code to explicitly disable doing things against the rules that you 'agreed' to.

EULAs suck, but they're just doing in software what the EULA is supposed to prevent you from doing anyway. Hate this? Contribute to the EFF. I'm not sure about the law and about tying (Ford can't force you to use only Ford parts and gas), maybe someone with a better understanding than me can contribute. But your argument is basically 'something Apple said I shouldn't do but was able to do before is now taken away and now I'm mad'.

Re:No biggie

[stewbacca]

I'm always amazed at how much breath is wasted in here about the supposed levels of smugness of random person at Starbucks using a MacBook. As if I care what you think about my MacBook?

I'm not at Starbucks to show off my MacBook to a bunch of other MacBook users...I'm there to get some (mostly overpriced) coffee and check my email on the way to work. Is this really that odd?

Re:No biggie

[jpmorgan]

Why? Psystar doesn't build machines with Atom processors. More likely this is to kill the netbook OS X market, so that that group of uses will be desperate for something in a similar form factor when Apple releases the iTablet.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

I must be unfamiliar with the x86 architecture. Can you explain to me how blacklisting x86 devices as opposed to other x86 devices "tightens the code and all that"?

We don't know they blacklisted it. They might have "don't cared" it. By not testing a situation that never comes up, you remove a test.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

If one is so desperate to run Mac OS X then one should probably just buy a Mac

If Apple made a single Mac model withL

• Smaller footprint than a huge MacBook
• Removable batteries
• Under $500

then you would have a good argument. As it stands, it's not just about cost. It's about Apple not making a single true ultraportable laptop, not making a single laptop that can take a second battery if the first one runs down, AND charging between 3 and 4 times as much for the "privilege" of having to own two of them just to get through a single day of work or travel without carrying a charger around with you.

Valuable things often are.

For a product to be valuable, it must meet your needs. Apple doesn't build any laptops that meet the needs of netbook owners.

For some reason, some people think some tablet that might someday surface will meet those needs. Those people are completely out to lunch. You can't carry a tablet around in your knapsack. You can't type rapidly on a tablet. And if it has a different processor and runs iPhone OS instead of Mac OS X as many have suggested, you also can't run any of the applications you need to run on it. In short, it's pretty much completely and totally fucking useless to the sorts of people who buy netbooks. It might occupy an interesting niche, but it will have precisely zero overlap with netbook owners.

Either way, all this means is that netbook owners should run 10.5, where they will continue to be able to get security updates.

Re:No biggie

[gnasher719]

I'm curious if apple even has the legal right to restrict installation to apple hardware.

If it's presented after purchase, then you are not obliged to agree to it.

Yet if the store you're supposed to return it to says "all sales final" then wouldn't apple be on the hook for handling refunds of the "refused to consent to the EULA" variety

The MacOS X retail package has a note "sale is subject to acceptance of the license". A sale only happens when both sides agree that it happens. And since Apple doesn't agree to the sales contract unless you accept the license, there is no sale up to that point. No sale, no license, no right to do anything.

And of course Apple is on the hook for refunds if you don't agree to the license. That is what Apple itself says; they say that they will refund your money, as long as either (1) you didn't break the seal on software that was accompanied by a printed license, or (2) the software was not sealed or not accompanied by a printed license, and it is not installed on your computer.

My copy of 10.6 was neither sealed nor accompanied by a printed license, so I would have fully expected to get my money back if I didn't accept the license. On the other hand, without accepting the license there is no purchase (until you accept the license, you just hold a box that belongs to Apple, and Apple holds some money that belongs to you).

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

The MacOSX EULA explicitly states that you can only use on Mac hardware.

The Sherman AntiTrust act and Section 3 of the Clayton act prohibit artificially tying two of your products together by contract if those types of products are normally available separately in an anti-competitive way: when you are a company that has the massive amount of economic power that Apple has.

Just ask Microsoft what the courts thought about them forcing Windows users to buy Internet Explorer with every purchase of Windows.

Re:No biggie

[gyrogeerloose]

But you did argue that "Apple deliberately disabled their systems from working" on Atom processors and that "is just not nice." Seems like pretty much the same thing to me.

Re:No biggie

[nomadic]

Except every single time Apple does something remotely questionable or popular, there's half a dozen people on Slashdot saying "now if this were Microsoft, you'd all be up in arms", smug in their own cleverness and superiority.

So you think Microsoft somehow released a firmware update to the Xbox that bricked them, there wouldn't be significantly more complaints there than at Apple here?

The reason we say these things is because Apple fans repeatedly and thoughtlessly defend Apple on EVERYTHING they do. If they had a bit of perspective we wouldn't have to chime in. I LIKE Apple's products, I've owned a couple of macs, I own an iphone, and I think OSX is probably the best modern day OS around. It's the utter devotion to the company that just annoys me.

Re:No biggie

[gnasher719]

The Sherman AntiTrust act and Section 3 of the Clayton act prohibit artificially tying two of your products together by contract if those types of products are normally available separately in an anti-competitive way: when you are a company that has the massive amount of economic power that Apple has.

What "massive economic power"? Is there any netbook that doesn't ship either with Windows or Linux?

Apple ships all Macs with MacOS X. That is tying. If Apple had a larger market share, like 30%, or 70% of all computers sold, then Microsoft could complain that this is anti-competitive against Microsoft, and at the very least Apple should give some refund to anyone removing MacOS X and installing Windows instead. Since Apple is nowhere near that kind of market share, the argument fails (and it would have been an argument about computer sales anyway).

The MacOS X upgrades that Apple is selling are not actually tied with anything. They have a product that due to its license is only useful to existing Macintosh owners. So how would someone selling netbooks be affected by that? What if Apple didn't sell MacOS X upgrades at all? How can Apple be anti-competitive in a market in which they don't even compete?

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious if apple even has the legal right to restrict installation to apple hardware.

You're looking at this backwards. It's not that they have a legal right to restrict installation to Apple hardware, but rather they do not have a requirement (legal or otherwise) to keep it working and able to be installed on non-Apple hardware.

If you go out and buy a 360 game, you expect it to only work on a 360. If someone were to somehow build their own 360, and a later update to the game makes it not work on that self-built 360, regardless of if Microsoft simply patched a hole which allowed the game to run on unofficial hardware or they specifically targeted self-built 360s, they were perfectly within their rights and there is zero recourse for you to force them to make it work again.

If it's presented after purchase, then you are not obliged to agree to it.

That makes about as much sense as saying that if you don't realize until after purchasing the 360 game that it may not run on your unofficial hardware, then you are not obliged to agree to it. You can disagree with the notion that it isn't working all you want, that won't make it magically work. :P

Yet if the store you're supposed to return it to says "all sales final" then wouldn't apple be on the hook for handling refunds of the "refused to consent to the EULA" variety?

For the purposes of this discussion, the EULA is irrelevant. It's only purpose is to tell people to not try and install on non-Apple hardware. Apple could trash the entire EULA, and they'd still be under no requirement to restore Atom support.

Re:No biggie

[Golddess]

Dammit... hate when "Post Anonymously" gets checked any I don't realize it.

I'm curious if apple even has the legal right to restrict installation to apple hardware.

You're looking at this backwards. It's not that they have a legal right to restrict installation to Apple hardware, but rather they do not have a requirement (legal or otherwise) to keep it working and able to be installed on non-Apple hardware. If you go out and buy a 360 game, you expect it to only work on a 360. If someone were to somehow build their own 360, and a later update to the game makes it not work on that self-built 360, regardless of if Microsoft simply patched a hole which allowed the game to run on unofficial hardware or they specifically targeted self-built 360s, they were perfectly within their rights and there is zero recourse for you to force them to make it work again.

If it's presented after purchase, then you are not obliged to agree to it.

That makes about as much sense as saying that if you don't realize until after purchasing the 360 game that it may not run on your unofficial hardware, then you are not obliged to agree to it. You can disagree with the notion that it isn't working all you want, that won't make it magically work. :P

Yet if the store you're supposed to return it to says "all sales final" then wouldn't apple be on the hook for handling refunds of the "refused to consent to the EULA" variety?

For the purposes of this discussion, the EULA is irrelevant. It's only purpose is to tell people to not try and install on non-Apple hardware. Apple could trash the entire EULA, and they'd still be under no requirement to restore Atom support.

Re:No biggie

[mjwx]

You seem to be operating under the premise that Apple is a Software company like Microsoft. They're not. They're a hardware company like HP or Dell.

You seem to be under the impression that Apple is a hardware company like HP or Dell, they're not. They are a marketing company like JCDeux except they only have one client, themselves.

Apple use off the shelf components, motherboards, DVD drives, Intel Processor, Nvidia GPU's, Seagate HDD's and all manufacturing is outsourced to China (most of it done by Foxconn). All Apple do is design the logo and advertising.

But then again, you are Realityimpaired.

Re:No biggie

[DdJ]

Oh yeah, I don't actually have a problem with the statement. I just find the inherent (and actually necessary) hypocrisy to be amusing, not some kind of flaw or counter-argument, that's all. Perhaps I'm just too easily amused.

Re:No biggie

[UnknowingFool]

While Atom processors for netbooks are in a completely different category of computers that Psystar makes, my point is that Apple may have been forced into a position that cannot allow any exceptions. Either they enforce their hardware exclusivity or they do not. That's basically true of most contracts. For example, the GPL. If Linus allowed Linksys to redistribute Linux code contrary to the GPL(like not publishing modifications), then MS could do the same. Granted they will be in different markets, but that exception allows MS an out. MS might eventually lose on finer points but it would take more time and expense to fight it out in court.

Re:No biggie

[dannys42]

There's no legitimate reason--ethical, legal or otherwise--that Apple should be obligated to continue supporting a processor they don't use in any of their own products.

Actually, as someone above pointed out, there is a reason: not ethical or legal, but logical. I agree they're in no obligation to support netbooks. But it is something that would help increase marketshare.

Maybe they like that position. They seem to like doing things (software-wise anyway) that decrease their marketshare.

Having said that, I'm not actually sure netbooks would help their cause so much. A lot of what Apple provides is not just "software" or "hardware" but a total user experience. That's an area that no other company really has a grasp on, probably specifically because you can't count it and put it in a "bottom line" until after the fact.

While the netbooks have a place, they are rather constrained to use. And without Apple's "total user experience" touch to it, it may actually be frustrating to use, which would devalue OSX (in terms of mindshare). Just think of how PDAs and phones were before the iPhone. Yes they had the functionality, and there's been numerous approaches to things to try to make one area or another better (hand writing recognition, background apps a la WinCE, or non-background state driven apps a la Palm, etc.). But really they were all just a bit clumsy to use and work with. The iPhone however, really revolutionized the user experience on a PDA.

However, stick the iPhone OS into an old Palm platform, and I imagine you'll have a pretty frustrating experience, even after you work around the multi-touch issues.

Re:No biggie

[Uberbah]

So you think Microsoft somehow released a firmware update to the Xbox that bricked them, there wouldn't be significantly more complaints there than at Apple here?

What I think is that you can't read:

If it's not Apple, Microsoft or Sony, no one gives a shit.

...or get the (obvious) point that comparing the actions of a monopoly to a non-monopoly is comparing Apples to oranges.

The reason you say things like is because there's a large group of haters that repeatedly and thoughtlessly attack Apple on EVERYTHING they do. Much like how there are FAR more kool aid drinking PETA haters than actual kool aid drinking members of PETA, you'll find FAR more anti-Apple zealots than actual Apple fanboys.

Case in point: name a single actual Apple fanboy here on Slashdot. Just one.

Re:No biggie

[nolife]

Wait, so your equipment as sold was breaking and people were buying questionable replacement parts from a third party and you are blaming the third party for your reputation? I'd think your reputation would take the biggest hit when it broke the first time.

Re:No biggie

[hmar]

I think that if Microsoft stopped supporting AMD 64-bit processors they might see less court time.

It would probably result in a joint suit naming both MS and Intel, as the only benefit to MS for this would be a truly shady deal with Intel. It is in Microsoft's best interest to support all possible hardware, Apple's profit margin is mostly in their hardware, so it is counterproductive to make life easier for users who want to use someone non-Apple hardware. People who have already put this on their netbooks can avoid the upgrade, so it doesn't have to break their systems.

Re:No biggie

[Jerry Smith]

I'm curious if apple even has the legal right to restrict installation to apple hardware.

If it's presented after purchase, then you are not obliged to agree to it.

Yet if the store you're supposed to return it to says "all sales final" then wouldn't apple be on the hook for handling refunds of the "refused to consent to the EULA" variety?

Well, http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/ serves as far as I can see most EULA's, so a bit presale-investigation solves the 'after purchase'-EULA-presentation-dilemma.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes because on Slashdot, Apple is always picked on and never defended. And everyone loves Microsoft and Dell here. Good god man, what color is the sky in YOUR world?

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

The same type of economic power other hardware makers such as Sun have. And they can't force you by contract to use only Sun hardware with SunOS, either, E.G. they can't bar you from designing or finding your own hardware to run their software on.

It's not advertised as an upgrade. The word upgrade isn't even used to describe it.

OSes are not normally associated with hardware, except on embedded devices. And those only run simple code burned into ROM chips, known as firmware.

Re:No biggie

[hmar]

What about blaming people who bought (or "obtained") OS X and ran it on a chipset that nowhere on earth has Apple ever said is supported?

When it stops working, perhaps they share perhaps a tiny bit of the blame...?

Slashdot is a US oriented site, and as such we expect you to understand that here in the US there is NO SUCH THING as personal responsibility. All things are the fault of some corporation, or the government disclaiimer: Born and raised in the US.

Re:No biggie

[nomadic]

Weirdly, slashdot decided to post an article about MS taking actions against modded Xboxes on the front page after I posted the GP. I see plenty of hate there.

Case in point: name a single actual Apple fanboy here on Slashdot. Just one.

I've been on slashdot for 10+ years, and I'm not sure I can name a single PERSON here. Who looks at screennames?

Re:No biggie

[jythie]

*shrug* parts wear out. Hard drives were the most common, but other bits like the screens too. Considering the systems would be out in the field for 5-10 years (or more), often without surge protection or clean shutdowns.... yeah, parts did break and had to be replaced. Even industrial grade components are not going to have a zero percent failure rate over 10 years of heavy use.

There were also companies that would 'clone' our systems with cheaper hardware and install our official software on them. From the outside they looked about the same, and ran the same software, but had parts in them that did not last very long.

And lastly, a common practice was to upgrade a single machine, swap the drive, upgrade that drive, swap, upgrade, repeat, then keep those drives in a stack for putting into machines that you did not feel like runing the upgrade process on. Kinda need lots of extra cheap drives for that.

Re:No biggie

[hmar]

If I recall correctly (I don't really care enough to look it up) wasn't there a problem when XP SP3 came out that it broke certain machines that were using an intel driver on an AMD chip? This would suggest that their are technical issues to supporting multiple x86 processors, and that all you people saying "Atom is x86 so its just like Inte" are makiing a rather large assumption? That, and they do "explicitly state their product's system requirements and let the consumer decide"

Re:No biggie

[Red Flayer]

Two people scratch their new iPod screens and it's a story here, whereas it literally takes a Dell laptop battery exploding and starting on fire to even be mentioned.

Holy shit, that was years ago. I remember those articles... Do you always hold grudges this long?

Note to self: don't piss off Uberbah. He'll hunt me down in a decade or two to exact revenge upon me.

Re:No biggie

[hmar]

I said this earlier, but this doesn't parse. Windows needs a different set of drivers to run AMD or Intel based prcessors, and those are also both x86.

Re:No biggie

[Uberbah]

Holy shit, that was years ago. I remember those articles... Do you always hold grudges this long?

WHOOOSH.

Re:No biggie

[Uberbah]

Weirdly, slashdot decided to post an article about MS taking actions against modded Xboxes on the front page after I posted the GP. I see plenty of hate there.

Still working on that reading comprehension, I see.

I've been on slashdot for 10+ years, and I'm not sure I can name a single PERSON here. Who looks at screennames?

A longwinded, rationalized way to say "no, I can't".

Re:No biggie

[masmullin]

you forget that there is a full "non-upgrade" version of snow leopard.

I am also not asking them to "support" my hardware, I am expecting that they do not purposefully break said system that already works.

whether I would win a court case or not, this is a dick move.

(please note: I am far to lazy to actually run a hackintosh)

Re:No biggie

[Just Some Guy]

Even though OS X is explicitly sold with strings attached which make it hard for me to legally build a hackintosh

Except that it isn't. No one made me sign a contract when I bought my copy of Leopard, any more than they tacked on after-sale terms when I bought a book and a cup of coffee afterward. Maybe you had to sign a lease agreement or similar, but I don't know of anyone else who did.

Re:No biggie

[poetmatt]

Your failure of reading comprehension shows that you don't understand. Gaming consoles are absolutely not hardware only. Do you think they just run magic all day, or magically run only the game that's included? Ever tried turning on a console without a game, dumbass? that thing it's running is known as an operating system. Consoles and apple are the only that link it to specific hardware. Even windows, for what it's worth, is made to support a wide variety of interfaces that don't matter if MS supports them or not.

Re:No biggie

[nomadic]

I think you're the one with reading comprehension problems.

Re:No biggie

[Uberbah]

If I ask you when the last time was that you beat your wife, and other's point out that that's an unfair question, does that make them AC fanboys?

Good god man, way to ignore the (obvious) point.

Re:No biggie

[poetmatt]

Your comment is part of the issue going through the case with psystar vs apple, although a bit more difficult to understand the case due to how it works. The end result is that if psystar wins and apple can't restrict installation, gPL will be actually be invalidated due to software copyright.

Re:No biggie

[rinoid]

Obvious mod due to disagreement and not content.

Re:No biggie

[jimicus]

Except that it isn't. No one made me sign a contract when I bought my copy of Leopard, any more than they tacked on after-sale terms when I bought a book and a cup of coffee afterward. Maybe you had to sign a lease agreement or similar, but I don't know of anyone else who did.

You don't need to sign something to enter into an agreement. This is one of the first things law students learn with the Carbolic Smoke Ball case.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are correct. Beyond your hypothesis, I predict Apple RESTORES Atom capability at some point in the future, when they decide to get into the netbook market.

This is possible, but I don't find it likely anytime soon.

All it would take is a few bad earnings reports, and investors would be screaming. Next thing you know, Steve is introducing a cheapie OS X netbook

When was the last time Apple had poor earnings reports? Any if they did, why owuld going into the low margin netbook market be a sensible way to make more?

But the day will come soon enough when Apple has saturated its market niche and something will have to be done about it... Steve can't leave this opportunity on the table forever.

This sounds like wishful thinking from someone who wants a cheap, low end Mac. Right now Apple is selling smartphones that cost about the same as a netbook and taking market share from a significant number of people who could otherwise use a netbook. At the same time they're slowly lowering the prices of their introductory MacBook and taking on the top end of that market. If Apple wants to target the middle of it, they could go for the people with little money to spend and try to have tiny margins, but more likely they'll target the portion that want an ultra portable and are willing to pay. They already have the Air for this, but they could introduce a tablet or a scaled up iPhone or something completely new. All seem like more likely options, given their business strategy, than a netbook.

Re:No biggie

[Golddess]

You're partly right.

If they specifically cripple the engine so that it doesn't work unless its attached to a porsche branded car then thats sueworthy

If what they sold you was a generic car engine, then you're right. But if what they sold you was a Porsche engine, specifically engineered to work in a Porsche chasis, then no, that's not sueworthy.

especially if they somehow change the engine AFTER purchase!

If they broke into your garage and installed the modification, yes. If they sent you a box with a letter that said "hey, we're issuing a recall on this engine part, here's the new part for you to install", and you went ahead and installed that new part without even checking if the engine would still function in your unsupported chasis, that's your own fault.

Re:No biggie

[Uberbah]

Then you would be wrong, obviously.

Re:No biggie

[Haxzaw]

One possible reason to ban Atom use is that Apple may finally have decided to enter the Netbook market. Killing the competition just prior to the launch of your own product makes sense. I imagine an Apple Netbook as a device with a 9 or 10 inch screen that operates like an iPod Touch. It might run OSX, or it might run iPod Touch OS. It could have a cover over the screen that folds/swings under the device while in use. A $500.00 price point would be about right for such a device, and it would probably sell like hotcakes. I'm sure I'd buy one.

Re:No biggie

[Just Some Guy]

Ah, the famous case where a company obligated itself to its customers. That's perhaps not the best precedent you could have cited to make your point.

Re:No biggie

[Red Flayer]

Wow, that's an awfully prickly bug you've got up your ass, how do you manage it?

I got your point. I felt it to be way off base.

But I DID find it amusing that you picked two examples from a few years ago. Sorry you lack the capacity to understand MY point.

Re:No biggie

[nolife]

I'm not questioning the fact that things wear out and break and the stuff was probably abused. The customer got frustrated the minute it broke, add to the fact that they can not fix it for themselves it can get more frustrating. Those things happen in both of your scenarios with and without locked down hardware and the frustration points to your hardware for breaking in the first place. The fact that they reached out to third parties is not relevant because the device was ALREADY BROKE and useless and the opinions were formed. Are you actually implying that they would not be frustrated and it is better PR if it broke and they HAD to call and pay you because it was locked down? Are those fair opinions to think the equipment should last 10 years in an uncooled copy room with dust and dumb users banging on the touch screen and knocking over the computer and tripping over the wires from time to time? Probably not but that opinion is no different with and without third party hardware.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Dropping support in this case means they are adding explicit code designed solely to prevent use on a processor the OS would otherwise work with.

That is bullshit. Some ways to 'break' support for Atom could be switching in compiler or even changing some compilation flags for some major OS component. For example, Apple could have been benchmarking and testing binaries built using gcc vs clang/LLVM on the hardware they do support for months, only now committing to clang because they find that version to be stable and faster.

Re:No biggie

[aftk2]

So, let me get this straight. Apple does at least as much industrial design to the computers that they sell, their "off-the-shelf" parts notwithstanding, as Dell and HP. (I would argue that they do much more, but I'll leave that be.) Additionally, Apple uses its own complete operating system, which guarantees that its computer experience is significantly different from Dell and HP. These computer makers just use Windows. And yet, somehow, Dell and HP and are each more of a computer company than Apple?!

I don't think the grandparent is the one who's impaired.

Re:No biggie

[mmeister]

the full "non-upgrade" version also *requires* a Macintosh. It is still an upgrade to the original OS that came with your Macintosh. It is much like when you buy a program a week before it is upgraded, often the company will give you the upgrade at a steep discount. That does not mean the other options are not upgrades, just that you got a special deal. Leopard folks got a special upgrade deal of $29. Non-leopard folks can upgrade for whatever that cost is. It is all still an upgrade.

Since they have never supported Atom processor officially as a Mac product, they have no obligation to let it run on that platform.

You call it a dick move, I call it a business decision. Perhaps they decided that too many folks were buying netbooks and inappropriately installing OS X on them. Since they are primarily a hardware company, they might be concerned that folks may actually think it is Apple's hardware and see the company in a bad light if any problems occur. Or they might be getting a lot of support calls from people that had a netbook setup for them with a hackintosh but then start having problems.

If they decided, for business or technically reasons, that it was a bad idea to support that processor, they can kill it. Whether it is protecting your imagine, or keeping support costs down (or both), there are lots of reasons why this is perfectly valid decision on their part.

Personally, I think it's a dick move to think you can install OS X on any machine when the company creating the OS specifically has stated that it is for their hardware. And just because it is possible, does not make it moral.

Re:No biggie

[Falconhell]

Not another fuckwad that cant find the shift key.

Bloody illiterates.

Re:No biggie

[rolfwind]

Until there is my signature on a contract, I consider the EULA bullshit. You could put a sticker on the box saying that buying it, the company owns my house and car now, doesn't make it true.

Re:No biggie

[masmullin]

Its a wonderful paradox

Re:No biggie

[shentino]

Actually, that would satisfy the shrinkwrap issue.

It would run afoul of unconscionability instead.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

The user instruction set of Atom is essentially identical to many other x86 chips.

The parts of the chip managed by the kernel are likely somewhat different.

Re:No biggie

[realityimpaired]

You say it's a strawman, and for some odd reason you get modded insightful for it. But please, humour me: how, exactly, is it a strawman to point out that Apple sells hardware, and is under no obligation to ensure that the software it creates specifically for that hardware works on 3rd party hardware?

I mean, I'm not telling lies. I'm not building up an image of what non-Apple is, and then attacking it. I'm not building up a false image of what Apple is so that I can attack that. I'm not actually attacking anything, really: I'm just pointing out that it's unrealistic to expect Apple to ensure that the software that they have created specifically to run on the hardware they sell will work on anything other than said hardware. And if you read this thread in its entirety, there actually are people who are grousing that they think it's anti-competitive for Apple to be making this move. If anything, pointing out that Apple has no obligation to those users is a statement of fact that those people need to have repeated... I mean, they may as well be arguing that it's anti-competitive for HP's drivers to not work on an IBM/Lexmark printer.

So I'm going to repeat myself, and I'm going to ask you to pick it apart on a point-by-point basis to tell me exactly how this is a strawman: Apple is under no obligation, legal, moral, or otherwise, to ensure that their software can run on hardware that they didn't sell.

Re:No biggie

[registrar]

Morals and ethics come into play when a company breaks good-faith promises or advertising/trade descriptions, or specifically does anti-competitive things by leveraging other monopoly positions.

Morals and ethics are a fair bit broader than that. One ethicist argued that it is a basic freedom to run computer programs as you wish. As a consequence, it would be unethical to place conditions on how people use your software, including making it inconvenient for them to run on competitor's hardware.

You may not agree with Stallman's ethics, but you have to acknowledge that he represents a legitimate and influential school of thought and that therefore, Apple's behaviour is ethically and morally questionable.

I argue: observe that nobody really cares to make the case that it is immoral or unethical for individuals to create hackintoshes despite the fact that not permitted under Apple's license.* This suggests that the community perceives that it is unreasonable for Apple to sell software under such a license. A deliberate, unreasonable, license is surely also immoral.

*Apple's lawyers and a few other vested interests might make the case... who cares... law should reflect morals and ethics, not the other way around.

Re:No biggie

[registrar]

The child would get a reprimand because it is unethical and immoral.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple, does this all the time.

The standard iPhoto application is uninstalled in the upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard. No warning: just gone.

Re:No biggie

[howlingmadhowie]

You say it's a strawman, and for some odd reason you get modded insightful for it. But please, humour me: how, exactly, is it a strawman to point out that Apple sells hardware, and is under no obligation to ensure that the software it creates specifically for that hardware works on 3rd party hardware?

because that's not what i'm complaining about, and i don't think anybody here is. it is a strawman to say that we are arguing that. we aren't. we are arguing that it is not nice of apple to intentionally modify their product so that it won't work on intel atom processors. we do not expect apple to ensure that their software works on intel atom processors, and i don't think anybody here as argued that, but i may be wrong.

of course, it is not clear that apple has deliberately changed osx binaries so they won't run on intel atom processors. they may just need some instructions which intel atom doesn't implement, in which case it would be quite nice for apple to say "btw, we changed our compiler to optimise for this and that, so intel atom no longer works." rather than leave others in the lurch. of course disassembling the update should soon reveal if this is true or not, or if apple has introduced some code to deliberately make sure os x doesn't run on intel atom processors.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

My Macbook Pro has a Core Duo CPU that does not support SSE4 but obviously Snow Leopard runs on it.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Another way of putting that argument is that a product is being sold which is deliberately defective. It would not cost any Apple any effort to allow people to build hackintoshes. In fact, it would save them effort, because they could stop working to make it more difficult. Instead, they deliberately work to prevent people from doing what they want to do with their purchases.

Re:No biggie

[felipecn]

Exactly.
In fact, Apple treat their users as small kids, telling what they should and what they shoudn't do. And they all like it.

[Me included, should confess]

Re:No biggie

[masmullin]

Personally, I think it's a dick move to think you can install OS X on any machine when the company creating the OS specifically has stated that it is for their hardware. And just because it is possible, does not make it moral.

Really? Thats weird! You actually think that using a product in an unexpected but non-harmful way is immoral?

I knew that people like you existed, but not here on the slashdot, where the explorers and hacker ethos is celebrated.

Re:No biggie

[mmeister]

Really? Thats weird! You actually think that using a product in an unexpected but non-harmful way is immoral?

I think that what you deem as non-harmful could push Apple to take more draconian steps to insure that only its machines are running OS X (as per the licensing). That means that installs will be a bigger pain in the ass, and we could end up with the dreaded "activation" ideas as a way for Apple to protect its bottom line.

It is not unlike some software that does not check the existing network to make sure that different licenses are used. Yes, you can re-install it on different machines and get away with it. That's great if you are a single user that has two machines. But then you give the disk away to another guy and he sets up a group of people on his network with the same license. Again, because it is possible. I guess you don't find that idea harmful either.

So yeah, your desire to use it in a "non-harmful way" could ultimately hurt the entire Mac community.

Worse though, you have the nerve to bitch about Apple locking out hardware support for something they never officially supported anyway.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is the Atom supports a similar instruction set to the standard processors.

Dropping support in this case means they are adding explicit code designed solely to prevent use on a processor the OS would otherwise work with.

If Microsoft modified Windows 7 64-bit edition to BAN support for AMD 64-bit processors,
and therefore encourage users to utilize only Microsoft Approved or Microsoft Manufactured hardware that utilizes Intel microprocessors.

Microsoft would be in court, at the wrong side of a lawsuit, pretty fast...

Again: it's not about hardware vendors not supporting a chip.

It's about hardware vendors adding code specifically designed to prevent use of a chip that otherwise works just fine.

Exactly right

Re:No biggie

[jo_ham]

Well, that is if you agree with Stallman, and what you're saying is that holding Apple to Stallman's ethics because it "represents a legitimate and influential school of thought" is equivalent to me being held to a Christian's ethics because they have decided that doing something with your body is "morally wrong" (wanking, sex before marriage, abortion) and they also "represent a legitimate and influential school of thought".

It's not quite so cut and dried I don't think.

Apple here haven't actually "officially" done anything (nor have they "dropped support" for anything since they didn't support it in the first place), and they are not going around forcing people with hackintoshes to nuke and pave their HD. It's just that the latest version of 10.6 doesn't boot on Atom CPUs, whether deliberately or just through coincidence - there were no guarantees that it would work either way.

In that you should be able to do anything you like with the things you have bought, software or otherwise, I agree (within the law of course - if you use your software to defraud a bank or something then no, but you see what I mean). If you have a retail copy of OS X you should be able to do what you like with it, but similarly, Apple is free to do whatever it likes with its own code, including putting in or taking out code that doesn't pertain to its own interests.

I'm not sure you can make the argument that Apple should be morally obliged to ensure that OS X continues to run on Atom CPUs just because it did before - if this was a genuine case of some code being changed that was necessary for something else and Atom support just happened to be a casualty (rather than explictly disabling Atom support - we don;t know either way) then are they obliged to explain what happened (to a product and customer base they do not support) or fix it so that it continues to work?

I'm not seeing anyone sued over hackintoshes, apart from Psystar who are attempting to sell them - the personal user who buys a copy of OS X and a netbook is not being chased down here, but nor does he have any guarantees that Apple won;t change something so it won't work any more if they update. 10.6.1 will continue to run for them.

Re:No biggie

[Draek]

There's no legitimate reason--ethical, legal or otherwise--that Apple should be obligated to continue supporting a processor they don't use in any of their own products.

Wrong, there is a perfectly legitimate ethical reason for it: the benefit of having OSX working on Atom computers is likely far bigger than the effort required on their part to fix whatever problem is causing this, given that they had a working build not too long ago and the number of complains raised about it. See also: Consequentialism as for why it is so. And if the breaking was intentional, both Virtue ethics and Deontology would also like to have a word with Apple.

So many people here at Slashdot like to throw the word "Ethics" around, when they don't even know what it means. Please don't be one of them.

Re:No biggie

[TheSkyIsPurple]

It's a good thing there no need to provide support for anything else on the motherboard. I know Microsoft is completely wasting screen real-estate with all the extra chipset drivers (PCI, bridge, northbridge, etc)

Your theory might otherwise have a hole in it.

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

That they're disabling support for the Atom platform is irrelevant. They're disabling support for a platform that they don't sell.

The trouble is they're not disbling support. Their software works with the Atom, because the Atom's API characteristics are no different than other 8086 microprocessors. There is no special support to disable.

Adding code to block something that otherwise works is not disabling support or removing support.

It's blacklisting.

The difference is that failing to support isn't actionable or anti-competitive: you can't expect your competitors to go out of their way to interoperate with you.

However if it does work, then blacklisting a chip based on hardware ID is not removing support, it's a direct action to attempt to kill a competitor.

It's like MS including code in Windows 3.1 to detect competing versions of DOS, and force a crash.

It'd be like Internet Explorer containing code to detect if it was connecting to a web server running Apache, and refuse to load the page, if Apache was detected.

It's not correct to say this act is disabling support for Apache, in fact, it's blacklisting something to make sure it doesn't work.

Oh yeah... and the word support is imprecise. It can refer to either 'A is compatible with B'.

And also: the vendor will provide support (as in you can call them), if you have difficulty making A work with B.

In many cases, two things will work together, even when they are not officially supported, they are compatible but you don't get support.

Of course... Apple can specify whatever terms they like for their support services. They don't even have to provide support at all, they can certainly choose not to provide assistance with their OS running on unapproved hardware.

However, as for compatibility. Intentionally breaking interoperability through blacklists may be actionable by the competition.

(Which are companies selling Netbooks, that, if not for the blacklist could be made to run OS X)

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

The box for Snow Leopard says that it requires a Macintosh (that's hardware.. or "the car" for your analogy)

Incorrect Macintosh!=car. In the car analogy Porsche=Macintosh, engine=OS, Car=computer. When you buy the engine from Porsche you need a car for it to run as intended. You may use it for other reasons, and you need not buy the car from Porsche. Now change the words and see if that works.

When you buy the OS from Macintosh you need a computer for it to run as intended. You may use it for other reasons, and you need not buy the computer from Macintosh. But as we all know, this isn't exactly the way it works...

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

There is an ethical reason. There's no technical basis for Apple to 'stop supporting' atoms.

Atoms are basically the same as other procs, so they just work... the only way Apple "disables" them is to blacklist hardware that otherwise works, by CPU ID.

This is not the same thing as removing or disabling support.

Anyways: the ethical consideration is this will discourage Atom users from applying security patches.

The result is bad hygene, and therefore, more worms and malware targetting the OS X platform, as there will now be a whole category of systems that cannot be patched, or cannot be patched beyond a certain version.

Re:No biggie

[GaryPatterson]

The components are mostly off-the-shelf, but you're under some strange impression that the motherboard is (it's clearly not, as any tear-apart of a Mac will show). Add in the batteries in their laptops and the industrial design (it's more than just throwing hardware bits into a box you know), and then add an entire OS, many other items of hardware (you may have heard of the iPod and iPhone) and you can quickly see that your opinion of Apple as a marketing company is deluded.

I suspect you're a rabid anti-Apple troll, as they're the only ones foolish enough to put the whole "marketing company" meme about.

But you can enlighten me if I'm wrong. Show me how Apple does less design than Dell or HP, how these other companies are more 'real' computer manufacturers.

Re:No biggie

[GaryPatterson]

Ah, but you're not using a Slashdot-approved tool to do it. That's the problem.

If you check email on the go using a MacBook, you're a poseur, a wanker and possibly gay. You're there to be seen, you're all style without substance, and that style is in question.

If you check email on the go with a netbook running Linux, you're a savvy user doing tasks smartly. You're in control, a keen thinker, a hacker in the old sense. You're one of the in-crowd, one of the power users.

The difference is tricky, because the tool approved by users around here changes. It was the MacBook a few years ago, but fashion changes pretty quickly on Slashdot, and while people here think they're somehow above fashion and marketing, we're really just as subject to it as anyone else on the planet.

Re:No biggie

[realityimpaired]

because that's not what i'm complaining about, and i don't think anybody here is. it is a strawman to say that we are arguing that. we aren't.

Hmm. I don't know who it was who said it, but I think in this comment, somebody felt the need to point out that they felt that "apple has done something morally wrong."

I'll reiterate my point again, and I'd like you to tell me how it's a strawman.

Apple is under no obligation, legal, moral, or otherwise, to ensure that their software can run on hardware that they didn't sell.

Somebody argued that it was morally wrong. I said that they had no moral obligation. How, exactly, is that a strawman?

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

I doubt it will be an issue for long

Given 10C540 is the final build that's not supposed to even boot on Atoms, due to CPU-related changes in the OS X boot code.

They also managed to break SleepEnable.kext so that non-Atom hackintosh users will probably get a kernel panic, until they do something about that.

But breaking a kernel extension is a lot less fishy than a CPU mysteriously being blocked in one build, unblocked in the next, then re-blocked in the final release..

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

Every Atom CPU supports the COMPLETE x86 instruction set.

The only point of contention comes with regards to x86-64 support. Intel commonly disables features in the microcode of certain models of its CPUs, in order to segment the market (models with more features turned on in the code are sold for a higher price, much like MS turns off features in Vista Home edition, for example).

In the NetBook processors (N and Z series), Intel has currently disabled/locked out the x86-64 instruction set.

So only the desktop Atom processors, Atom 230, Atom 330 have the x86-64 bit instruction set enabled.

The Atoms don't have all the addons/bells and whistles above and beyond x86 that some new higher end Intel processors such as Nehalem have, features, such as VT-d (Hardware Virtualization assist for I/O).

However, Atoms do support Intel features such as the NX (No-Execute) bit, and Intel VT.

The Atom is not a stripped down instruction set, it is basically identical to other x86 CPUs, in all the ways that matter.

Re:No biggie

[arminw]

...in general we are arguing morals here,....

It is neither immoral or illegal for Apple to decide that their OS X is tied to their hardware. They are under no moral or legal obligation to support hardware they do not make. They have also every moral and legal right to tie their operating system to their hardware by any means they wish.

If they wanted to be mean and stupid, such as Microsoft, they could institute a similar activation scheme. They could also refuse to sell you a copy of the operating system unless you came up with a valid Mac serial number they have on file. Apple did not do much against the Hackinosh community until Pystar came along. In the end, if Apple should not prevail in court, which is unlikely, but may happen, they may be forced to restrict the sale of their operating system to bona fide Macintosh owners. Then anyone wishing to build a Hackintosh will have to violate copyright law.

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

I think you are correct. Beyond your hypothesis, I predict Apple RESTORES Atom capability at some point in the future

Why RESTORE atom capability, when they can just carve out a fine-grained exception to the blacklist for their specific board model?

Maybe their netbooks will be tattooed to exempt them from the blacklisting, or they could contain a special Apple-branded internal flash reader, with a special vendor id field, that causes blacklist to exempt the board, etc, etc...

Re:No biggie

[arminw]

... A $500.00 price point would be about right ....

To make a measly profit, compared to the immense profit they are now making on their hardware. Apple is not a charity, but a for-profit stock company. Apple has been smart to avoid the race to the bottom in computer pricing.

Re:No biggie

[gyrogeerloose]

Wrong, there is a perfectly legitimate ethical reason for it: the benefit of having OSX working on Atom computers is likely far bigger than the effort required on their part to fix whatever problem is causing this

Okay, interesting Wikipedia articles. But I still don't understand your argument; please take the time to explain to me the benefit to Apple of them continuing to support a processor that they do not use in any of their products. Or, for that matter, the benefit to society as a whole. As far as I can tell, the only people who would benefit are the relatively small number of experimenters who have hacked their netbooks to run OS X. I have no problem with them doing that--I've played around with building a Hackintosh myself--but they're not making Apple or it's shareholders any money and under U.S. law, that's a publicly owned company's main objective.

Re:No biggie

[arminw]

...Intentionally breaking interoperability through blacklists...

is something you know for a FACT that Apple is doing? All of Apple's computers that they actually sell have multiple cores, or at least two. The atom is only one. Could it be, just possibly, that Apple has decided to increase the efficiency of their operating system by optimizing for multiple cores? Apple is entitled to do this, just as they are entitled to drop PPC support in their current operating system. If you don't update your hacked computer, it will continue to run just fine. Apple is not breaking it.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

So you think Microsoft somehow released a firmware update to the Xbox that bricked them, there wouldn't be significantly more complaints there than at Apple here?

One thing's for sure: you and your buddies would be at +5 whining that if Apple did that, nobody would complain about them.

Re:No biggie

[shutdown -p now]

The MacOS X retail package has a note "sale is subject to acceptance of the license".

Does it also present the license?

If not, then how can a sale be subject to a contract, the exact wording of which is not known to one of the participants until the sale goes through?

Re:No biggie

[arminw]

...they do not purposefully break said system that already works....

If you have a hacked system with an atom processor that works now, it will continue to work unless you install an update intended for Macintoshes. Apple is not forcing you to install anything at all.

Re:No biggie

[shutdown -p now]

I think the complaint is that the requirement for a Mac computer is a business requirement for Apple to make money, not a technical requirement in order to run the software

Of course it is. But it's Apple's software, and they warn you about this beforehand (that's what "Mac computer with an Intel processor" means). They won't sue you for trying to run it regardless of that, but technical measures to prevent it are fair game.

Re:No biggie

[mysidia]

The atom is only one. Could it be, just possibly, that Apple has decided to increase the efficiency of their operating system by optimizing for multiple cores?

Not the case.. There are dual-core atoms, for example, the Atom 330

Also, There are old Apple systems that are single-core 32-bit like the Atoms: the Mac Mini Intel Core Solo 1.5GHz

Which is supported by Snow Leopard...

Re:No biggie

[Draek]

please take the time to explain to me the benefit to Apple of them continuing to support a processor that they do not use in any of their products.

Well, there I made a slight mistake: when referring to Consequentialism I was thinking of its most popular branch, Utilitarianism, which only takes into account the benefit to society at large rather than that of the individual executing the action (other branches of Consequentialism differ in that), so Apple wouldn't necessarily have to see a benefit for it to be ethically proper.

Or, for that matter, the benefit to society as a whole. As far as I can tell, the only people who would benefit are the relatively small number of experimenters who have hacked their netbooks to run OS X.

Correct. However as I pointed out, given that they had a working build not too long ago, it's fair to assume that the situation could be easily fixed with no considerable loss to Apple, likely taking at most one engineer's afternoon to detect the flaw and fix it, then sending it for testing along with any other security/functional patches they may integrate later. The benefit may not be *huge*, but I do think the cost of it would be negligible.

If it weren't, of course, and it was a result of an architectural change so deep it'd require thousands of man-hours to execute properly (like asking them to port iTunes to Linux, for instance), the situation would be vastly different but I doubt that's the case here.

I have no problem with them doing that--I've played around with building a Hackintosh myself--but they're not making Apple or it's shareholders any money and under U.S. law, that's a publicly owned company's main objective.

Law is, for the most part, independant of Ethics: an action can easily be argued to be illegal yet ethical, or unethical yet legal. Now, Consequentialism (and by extension, Utilitarianism) would probably add the legal costs of the potential lawsuit into the calculation but, as I said before, I think the costs of the fix would be so small as to be irrelevant and, as such, easily forgiven by any significant shareholder.

Re:No biggie

[Macgrrl]

Presumably the harm it is doing is the cost of the OS is subsidised through the price for hardware sales. In seeking to install Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware you are avoiding pay the full cost of the product and denying them revenue. They are a commercial business run to produce a profit. They are not a charity obliged to provide discounted (or free) software to any one who thinks they deserve it.

Re:No biggie

[pdabbadabba]

You'd be surprised how many interesting ways there are to "sign" a contract. (And isn't that the way it should be? If I offer to give you $100 if you walk across the Brooklyn bridge, shouldn't you be able accept that offer just by walking across? The law will enforce this contract as well.) Actual signing of a name only happens in the formation of a small minority of the contracts in the world.

Shentino is right; as far as the shrinkwrap issue goes, that contract would be fine. That's why we also have rules against unconscionable provisions.

Re:No biggie

[pdabbadabba]

Because the transaction is not complete until you accept the license. The exchange is actually structured so that you get to use the product in exchange for money and acceptance of the terms (which you usually manifest by using the software, breaking the seal, etc.). That your acceptance comes in two stages chronologically doesn't matter. You are put on notice that this is the structure by the mere indication that there are more terms on the outside of the box.

Re:No biggie

[zoloto]

While slashdot loves their car analogies, this is far off.

An engine is a physical piece of equipment.
Software is not.

One is governed by rules and the other is not. You can't take impressions from a disc and apply the same rules as a car. The software has strings attached governed by law, similar to the engine but in the end they're very different. Don't like the law, go through the system to get it changed.

Re:No biggie

[howlingmadhowie]

once more i will try to explain the difference. you have often said "apple should not be required to actively support hardware they do not make" to which i reply "i don't think they should either, that is not what we are arguing about here". but there is a world of difference between "not actively supporting hardware" and "actively and deliberately modifying a product so it won't run on that hardware". is this now clear?

what people here are accusing apple of is deliberately modifying osx so that it will no longer run on intel atom processors. if this is the case (and from what i can tell, there appears to be no conclusive evidence either way), then apple has done something that is not nice to the people who use osx on intel atom equipped computers. if this is not the case, then this is little more than bad luck.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you get this notion that noone wants OS X on an Atom? I and several friends deliberately held off on notebook purchases hoping for an Atom powered tablet or netbook announcement at events earlier this year. None are still waiting, however, due to Apple's apparent plans to use the crippled iPhone OS rather than full-fledged OS X on future tablet designs.

There's plenty of demand, and given the performance I was able to get out of a G3 two years back with 10.4 Tiger, plenty of opportunities to perform well at the lower end of the market.

Re:No biggie

[Moridin42]

A shame you are on slashdot and don't understand boolean logic. Mac must be true AND Intel processor must be true in order to pass the requirement posted by Apple.

The fact that half of the requirement can be met by many systems is entirely moot.

Do you expect software that states it requires 1gb of ram to function just because some old system has 512mb and therefore has half the requirement? Pretty sure you wouldn't.

Re:No biggie

[gyrogeerloose]

Apple wouldn't necessarily have to see a benefit for it to be ethically proper.

I'll grant you that, but I think you're getting a bit theoretical here. While I share your outlook and wish that business (not to mention society in general) adhered to a higher ethical standard, it's not entirely realistic to expect them to do so.

it's fair to assume that the situation could be easily fixed with no considerable loss to Apple, likely taking at most one engineer's afternoon to detect the flaw and fix it

Actually, I don't think it's fair to assume that at all. While I'm not a professional developer, I've messed around with coding enough to know that:
1) it's entirely possible that Apple doesn't even know what broke Atom support and
2) Making even a seemingly minor change at one location in a block of code as complex as OS X can have severe unintended consequences elsewhere.

Law is, for the most part, independant of Ethics

You are absolutely correct here. But we still have to abide by those laws whether we like it or not and so does Apple.

Re:No biggie

[jythie]

Considering that customers who did call and buy the tested and validated components generally did have more favorable reviews of our stuff then the ones who put in random 3rd party stuff.... yes, I do imply that on the whole they ended up less frustrated if they bought parts that we knew would work then not.

Sure, the 3rd party part would get the unit up and running quicker, but more often then not the part resulted in quirky behavior that degraded the user experience for months before it finally failed again.

And of course during that whole 'quirky' time they end up ranting on boards or calling up tech support complaining how crappy our stuff is because it was not working right... and every user who walked away from the unit was less likely to use the unit again (even at another location) because of the negative experience.

So the problem is, there is more at stake then just the time to get the unit going again.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Until there is my signature on a contract, I consider the EULA bullshit. You could put a sticker on the box saying that buying it, the company owns my house and car now, doesn't make it true.

So when you go "shopping" you don't actually buy anything because there is no signature - got you.

Re:No biggie

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, sorry. There could be hardware features/instructions that MS chooses not to use, specifically because they promise to support a wide range of platforms. Or, since they claim to run on all those platforms, they could have code to detect the presence or absence of certain processor features and adjust accordingly. I'm not saying either of these are true, just that they are counter-examples that undermine your argument.

Re:No biggie

[Civil_Disobedient]

It's more about "user experience" than anything else. They don't want to allow OSX to run on anything other than their hardware, because some cheap chipset might make the whole thing malfunction and users would be fast to blame apple for a bad product.

I'm sure a bunch of Atom fan-boyz are trying to mod you into oblivion, while a bunch of Apple fan-boyz are doing the same with their fucking echo chamber ("APPLE IS A HARDWARE COMPANY") but the fact remains, the Atom is a truly pathetic platform for OSX. Anemic doesn't even start to describe it. Anemic, with a low blood-sugar level and a bad case of gout would be closer to the truth.

"Waaah! Why won't the big bad Apple let me install OSX on my Timex Sinclair-1000?"

"Did you know Apple has specific code to prevent OSX from running on a Commodore VIC-20? IT'S TRUE!"

Re:No biggie

[Uberbah]

Wow, that's an awfully prickly bug you've got up your ass, how do you manage it?

Do you use a cannon or a howitzer for your projection?

But I DID find it amusing that you picked two examples from a few years ago.

I picked that example because that's about the only time a Dell quality control issue has made it onto Slashdot, when they have 3-4 times Apple's of their computers are supplier-of-the-week POS specials.

Sorry you lack the capacity to understand MY point.

I understood your point just fine. Your point just sucked so bad that Ray Charles could see it. And Ray Charles is blind.

And dead.

Dell Zino

[tompeach]

I wonder if the recently launched Dell Zino could have been a motivator? http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/Desktops/inspiron-zino/pd.aspx?refid=inspiron-zino&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1

Re:Dell Zino

[socsoc]

I'd say no more than the countless netbooks that it (previously) could be installed on.

Re:Dell Zino

[Nerdfest]

Who needs OS X with that ... they sell a version with Ubuntu installed. I just wish they'd sell a larger range of laptops with Linux already loaded.

Re:Dell Zino

[drinkypoo]

Absolutely not, Apple has sold machines and sells machines to that demographic already. It's netbooks that challenge Apple, because they don't actually offer anything in that market.

Re:Dell Zino

[gEvil (beta)]

I'm not familiar with the Zino, so I read the specs then clicked the gallery link to get a look at the machine. Then I read the captions. Seems they need to get some things in order on their site. According to the gallery captions, there's an HDMI port, optional Blu-ray drive, integrated HD3200 graphics, and an AMD Athlon dual-core processor. Of course, none of those are available on the Zino. But if all of those actually were options, it would be a nice little machine worth considering...

Re:Dell Zino

[tompeach]

I'm not familiar with the Zino, so I read the specs then clicked the gallery link to get a look at the machine. Then I read the captions. Seems they need to get some things in order on their site. According to the gallery captions, there's an HDMI port, optional Blu-ray drive, integrated HD3200 graphics, and an AMD Athlon dual-core processor. Of course, none of those are available on the Zino. But if all of those actually were options, it would be a nice little machine worth considering...

I agree the website isn't clear, it's the Zino HD that has those options and it is too expensive IMO. http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/Desktops/inspiron-zino-hd/pd.aspx?refid=inspiron-zino-hd&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1

Re:Dell Zino

[drinkypoo]

it's the Zino HD that has those options and it is too expensive IMO

It's too ugly IMO. The place you really need those features is in a Media center PC. Who wants that thing in their living room, it looks just like a game console, which is to say HUURRRRRRGH BLURGH. I still can't find even in aftermarket a PC case that looks like it belongs with my other stereo components; lots of efforts out there, but so far all are huge misses for huge prices.

Re:Dell Zino

[Anubis350]

On the other hand, since a lot of people already have a couple game consoles in their living room, it fits in just fine :-p

Re:Dell Zino

[Stele]

Probably someone who needs to run Mac programs. Just a guess.

Re:Dell Zino

[Anonymous Coward]

How does a product that doesn't compete with anything Apple makes somehow challenge them? If I sell pull-knit sweaters, and Apple doesn't offer anything in that market, have I somehow stolen a run on them?

Re:Dell Zino

[s73v3r]

But if you need to run Mac programs, wouldn't you already have... a Mac?

Re:Dell Zino

[Korin43]

What, you haven't heard of the iSweater? It's three devices in one: A shirt, a sweater, and a heat retention device!

Re:Dell Zino

[Inner_Child]

Probably someone who needs to run Mac programs. Just a guess.

If a person actually needs to run Mac programs, he or she should probably just break down and buy a Mac.

Re:Dell Zino

[djdavetrouble]

only if you run Mac Os on it.

Re:Dell Zino

[gEvil (beta)]

Ahhh, in that case, it at least makes some sense. I thought they'd just pulled the gallery copy from something else entirely.

Re:Dell Zino

[drinkypoo]

I have three in my living room already, but I put them in boxes of various sorts (entertainment center-ish things) so I don't have to see them, except my 360 because I'm afraid it will cook. I have no such fears about the Xbox or the Wii, because I have taken SOME care to prevent it... but I want to give my 360 the best chance at life I can manage.

Re:Dell Zino

[ILongForDarkness]

You can need to run Mac apps before you own a Mac. Or it could be time for an upgrade and you want to by the $400 Walmart special rather than a 1k+ system from Apple.
While I'd love to see Apple open up their OS to other systems if they don't want to that is their right. They own the software so they can decide who can run it.

Re:Dell Zino

[pleappleappleap]

Antec has some nice ones. Not too much money either.

Re:Dell Zino

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, who wants game consoles in their living room?

They're so UGLY! Oh wait, you're just retarded...unless you're talking about the Atari Jaguar.

That's funny

[paimin]

I saw this on Google News yesterday, and I figured, "Huh, must have missed that on /."

Ah well, let the shitstorm begin.

Re:That's funny

[wjsteele]

It happens every day here on /. I like to call it "Slashdot: Yesterday's news, Today!"

Bill

Re:That's funny

[zerosomething]

And it seems to be getting worse. Important things don't seem to get through. Articles like this one get moded down by Mac Mac fan boys connecting to http://slashdot.org/recent and don't show up till a day or so after submission. Then the anti Mac Windows fan boys do the same when positive Apple things show up and etc etc...

Re:That's funny

[commodore64_love]

(sigh). And the 9/11 demolition was an inside job. I hate conspiracy theories.

Re:That's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw this on Google News yesterday, and I figured, "Huh, must have missed that on /."

To make up for the delay, it will be posted here a second time, probably next week.

Re:That's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

(sigh). And the 9/11 demolition was an inside job. I hate conspiracy theories.

But it's true! It's all true! Don't you see? If it weren't for The Cabal working against Apple, their clearly superior computers would have won out over Microsoft! I make all of this clear on my blog; I even have all the calculations and spreadsheets which prove how much more efficient and aesthetically pleasing Apple is, down to the nearest thousandth of a unit of efficiency! And I worked out that, after considering the average reaction time of the human brain, a single mouse button on every computer would have saved us all enough time that 9/11 never would have happened! Why can't you people see any of this?!?

And that's how Amiga^H^H^H^H^HMac users have been prosecuted throughout their existence.

Re:That's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that the "official" explanation is a conspiracy theory, too, don't you?

That whole explanation revolves around a number of men from the Middle East and surrounding areas, possibly affiliated with certain extremist groups, conspiring in Germany and other nations to partake in a series of attacks against the US.

It involves just as much conspiracy as just about any other explanation that has been proffered.

Re:That's funny

[davester666]

"And repeated a day later. And driven into the ground a couple of days after that."

Re:That's funny

[commodore64_love]

No. The 9/11 plot consists of a guy named Bin Laden directing ~8 men to visit America, hijack 4 jets, and then fly them into large buildings. It's not complicated at all. Hijacking planes prior to 2002 was easy and had been done many times.

In contrast the "Bush did it" campaign proposes that hundreds of people know about the TNT implanted in the towers to bring them down, but somehow feel no guilt for their actions, and have kept completely silent about it, even after Bush is no longer in power to threaten them.

It's simply not reasonable to believe.

Re:That's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanings change.

As any modern dictionary will tell you, "conspiracy theory" has a non-neutral meaning nowadays (and it's been that way at least from the seventies). It doesn't just mean a theory that includes a conspiracy, it means a _fringe_ theory that includes a conspiracy.

Re:That's funny

[ogdenk]

Well, I'm pretty sure Bush was warned it was going to happen but didn't think it was a credible enough threat to act on or forgot about it.

He was an idiot, I don't think he was smart enough to construct an elaborate conspiracy.

Letting Pearl Harbor happen I kinda believe was a possible conspiracy to drag us kicking and screaming into WW2 though.

Anyway, isn't this stuff a bit off topic ;)

Re:That's funny

[Swift2001]

Well, the same "logic" is rampant on the right, if you haven't noticed. Just watch Beck and FOX and listen to Limbaugh. Apparently, Obama is in the pay of the Rothschilds. No, really.

Bush didn't arrange 9/11. He just demagogued two wars out of something he might have stopped had he and his staff been more alert.

"Officially"....?

[benwiggy]

I RTFA, and there's no acknowledgement by Apple of what they have done or why they have done it. So the update does not "officially" break Atom support, it just breaks Atom support.

Re:"Officially"....?

[LWATCDR]

I don't think that OS/X ever had official atom support to start with. The interesting question is this caused by intent or because Apple didn't test the update on an Atom. Of course they have no reason to test the update on an Atom because they do not sell a single computer that uses the Atom.

Re:"Officially"....?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it "officially" breaks it because 10.6.2 is now an official build.
Official admission = Apple acknowledges it
Official break = Official release version breaks

Posting AC because I modded in this thread.

Re:"Officially"....?

[Mysticalfruit]

What does official "Atom" support give you? Some additional power savings? No, this was a targeted patch to kill netbooks. As other posters have pointed out, Apple doesn't have any offerings that match netbooks.

Personally, I think it's a dick move on Apple's part. Honestly, how much can it be cutting into their business? Everybody I know whose got a "Hackintosh" netbook/laptop running OSX went out and bought a legitimate copy of OSX.

I can only see upside for Apple. Yeah, it's not *their* hardware, but honestly, more OSX out in the world means less MS out in the world, I can't see how that's bad for apple.

Re:"Officially"....?

[nine-times]

Even saying it "breaks Atom support" is perhaps a little inaccurate. There has never officially been Atom support in OSX. It just happened to work. Now it happens to not work. Maybe it was intentional on their part, but it was never "official".

Re:"Officially"....?

[Disgruntled Goats]

No, this was a targeted patch to kill netbooks

Really? So you were able to see all the source code of the patch to make this statement?

Re:"Officially"....?

[LWATCDR]

Not exactly. I have been programing for a long time. Way back when the PII came out our application blew up. We used Borland Pascal and there was an issue with the CRT.o unit that blew up on the Intel PII. At the OS level the Atom is not 100% identical with the Core2Duo, P4, i7, or AMD line. It is possible that their is a bug that only happens on the Atom and Apple didn't test for it because they do not support the Atom or plan on supporting the Atom with this OS.
You think that they did this to be a pain but to be honest if they where going to do this then why not break all hackintoshs and not just netbooks?
They may have done it intentionally or it could just be a side effect that they didn't test for and frankly don't need to test for.
What I am saying that I can not say why it happened or what exactly did happen. But then nobody outside of Apple can know for sure.
But since Apple never officially supported any none Apple hardware it seems funny that people are saying that they officially stopped supporting Atom netbooks.

Re:"Officially"....?

[Mysticalfruit]

Nope, not a line of it. Luckily this is the internet so I can make completely unqualified statements!

It just seems odd that OSX was working quite nicely on netbooks and now suddenly a patch later they are not.

Who knows, maybe there's some feature that all the other Intel processors have that the Atom doesn't and Apple wanted to suddenly use it, stranger things have happened.

Re:"Officially"....?

[s73v3r]

Again, are you sure its intentional? If they added some additional compiler optimizations, and those optimizations generate code that the Atom can't run, then that's not really Apple's fault. They tried to make things run better for their customers, who are the ones that purchase Apple computers. Those computers would support the generated code, and they would have tested them to make sure they do.

There can be a downside for Apple. If someone decides to put OS X on underpowered hardware, then complains that it runs slowly or buggy, then someone who doesn't know much about computers might hear that, have no idea what a Hackintosh is, but know that OS X runs terribly, then those people might be put off of an Apple purchase.

Recently, there was a story about an iPhone Worm making the rounds. It got a decent amount of press, but hardly any of the stories that weren't aimed at the geek crowd mentioned that it only affects jailbroken iPhones. Now, the iPhone as Apple ships it isn't affected, but they still take damage to their reputation because of it.

Re:"Officially"....?

[godawful]

Technically not even "support" as there never was support "compatibility" is a better choice of words.

Re:"Officially"....?

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, the problem with crt.o was a division by zero because the CPU was too fast, so a "delay" calculation yielded 0. It wasn't because of the CPU architecture.

Re:"Officially"....?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who's written crt.s from scratch on multiple occasions (for embedded systems) and at loosely understanding the difference between the P-I and P-II instruction sets and the level of conformity the Atom has to x86(64) I'm afraid I have to call your theory unlikely. The Atom does an excellent job of being a low power x86(64) chip and basically carries the full x86(64) instruction set. In actual performance I have never heard of anything not running on Atom but running on standard Intel or AMD x86(64), and I've personally got 2 boxes with Atom in them running standard x86(64) software with no problems. I highly suspect Apple simply grabbed a portion of the CPU/Architecture ID and made their boot loader or kernel simply jump to a grinding halt when it encountered the Atom.

Re:"Officially"....?

[LWATCDR]

It also could be an errata that the Atom has that the some other Intel CPUs don't. The reason that I feel that it may be an unintentional act is because it was in a patch. If Apple really wanted to kill Atom netbooks why wait for a patch? The latest version of MacOS/X isn't that old and they could have put that into the release version.
My guess is that when they built the patch it broke on Atoms and they choose to not fix it because they don't sell any PCs that use Atoms.
Last I checked MacOS/X doesn't work on AMD or VIA cpus and they are also Intel compatible.
I would guess that Apple just got lucky.

Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

Wah... oh well, sooner or later people will look at the price of their preferred genuine Apple portable, divide it by the number of hours they spend hacking to keep things working every time there is a point update, subtract a bit for general annoyance, come up with a single-digit hourly figure, and if they have half a brain they'll just buy one.

Or if they're not capable of working that out they'll just post whiny little messages on Slashdot about how their freedoms are being repressed by the big bad company that chose not to support hardware they don't even ship.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Nursie]

"Free" software people won't touch Apple with a long pointed stick. It's even more closed and unfriendly than MS.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

"Or if they're not capable of working that out they'll just post whiny little messages on Slashdot about how their freedoms are being repressed by the big bad company that chose not to support hardware they don't even ship."

I see you've proved me right :-)

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[3vi1]

>> "Free" software people won't touch Apple with a long pointed stick. It's even more closed and unfriendly than MS.

You do realize that OS X comes bundled with 100's of 'free' open source utilities/apps, right?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Gopal.V]

They do actually. It has more to do with the devil that works than the devil that doesn't ...

At least, here's what one of my f/oss gurus who uses Apple had to say.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Techman83]

Indeed, I like their products and their software seems impressive (discounting itunes on windows). But the cost both in monetary terms and my philosophy on how I feel the world should work, mean that I'll never own an apple product in at least the near future. If they change their philosophy, maybe I'll consider it then.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Chris Mattern]

Wah... oh well, sooner or later people will look at the price of their preferred genuine Apple portable, divide it by the number of hours they spend hacking to keep things working every time there is a point update, subtract a bit for general annoyance, come up with a single-digit hourly figure, and if they have half a brain they'll just use Linux.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Kleppy]

Have a website and want to use iWeb to edit it? Tough noogies, you have to start from scratch again because you can't import a website(or so that I have seen so far).

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[magnus.ahlberg]

Ah, there's nothing to support an argument like a blog post from 2006.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

>>At least, here's what one of my f/oss gurus who uses Apple had to say [lerdorf.com].

Well done! That article is only 3 years old.

How is it even relevant?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[JackDW]

Exactly. One thing I love about my Debian laptop is: it just works.

It's really user friendly, at least according to my definition of "user friendly". You can see that thousands of man-years have gone into the development of the software that it runs. Decades of evolution have brought the shell, the GUI and the productivity apps close to the point of perfection.

It's based on a Unix-compatible kernel, so I get all the power of Unix in a portable machine.

It came loaded with hundreds of free, open source utilities. The great thing about Debian is, whatever you need to do, there's an app for that. There's this network of software repositories, like an "app store", all ready to download and seamlessly install. Tens of thousands of apps! All free!

The laptop is a Thinkpad; quite an expensive brand, but the costs are kept down by two things. Firstly, there are hundreds of competing manufacturers, thanks to the open market for PC compatible hardware. Secondly, all of the software is free as in beer as well as speech, so there is no "tax" to pay to Microsoft or any other monopolistic manufacturer of proprietary operating systems.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[drinkypoo]

You do realize that OS X comes bundled with 100's of 'free' open source utilities/apps, right?

You do realize that I can get all the same shit for free for Windows with Services for Unix, right? It's not bundled so that you're not forced to receive it if you don't want it, but it's a free download.

Further, you do realize that Apple is abysmal at keeping up with updates on that Open Source stuff, so that it's almost always outdated and thus often useless anyway, right? And in fact creates security holes that they do not see fit to address?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

Masterful karma whoring there! So the trick is just to recommend Linux no matter what?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[samkass]

Apple's kernel is OPEN SOURCE, isn't it? Isn't the whole theory of open source that if something doesn't work for you, go write some code to make it work? If folks are so pissed that the Xnu kernel that underlies MacOS X is now missing Atom support, then why not go add atom support, recompile your kernel, and use your own kernel?

I haven't installed a custom-compiled Xnu kernel on my own MacOS X box in a couple years, but as I recall the process isn't even very onerous...

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a feeling that those folks would have their Hackintoshes even if it costs them more than buying a Mac because they just enjoy the hacking experience.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[mikael_j]

MS still has that whole "Services for Unix" thing? I remember poking at that a bit when I wanted to get NFS (as a client) working under XP but I could never really get it working properly (read: at all), never had any problem with FreeBSD, Linux or OS X machines talking to the same NFS server though...

/Mikael

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[vadim_t]

You do realize that OS X comes bundled with 100's of 'free' open source utilities/apps, right?

Do you realize that getting the apps themselves isn't the point?

I can get things like GCC and bash on Linux, Windows, Solaris, OS X and so on.

The difference is in that when something goes wrong, on Linux and OpenSolaris I can debug all the way up to the kernel, while on Windows and OS X I'm stuck if the problem happens to be somewhere in the closed components of the system, and the core system is very unfriendly towards any kind of interesting customization.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[TheRealMindChild]

Or if they're not capable of working that out they'll just post whiny little messages on Slashdot about how their freedoms are being repressed by the big bad company that chose not to support hardware they don't even ship.

ARTHUR: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN: No one live there.
ARTHUR: Then who is your lord?
WOMAN: We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS: But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.
ARTHUR: Yes, I see.
DENNIS: By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,--
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: --but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more--
ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN: Order, eh -- who does he think he is?
ARTHUR: I am your king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN: Well, how did you become king then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went around saying I was an empereror just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
ARTHUR: Shut up! Will you shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!
ARTHUR: Bloody peasant!
DENNIS: Oh, what a give away. Did you here that, did you here that, eh? That's what I'm on about -- did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn't you?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[jedidiah]

As the sort of user you are trying to misrepresent, I am far more concerned about
what Apple will or won't do with my data than whether or not it will run on some
random machine. Although "locked" installation disks are a bit of a pain.

The more important issue with Apple is their tendency to ignore data formats and
otherwise act in a manner that assumes that you've never created or imported data
from another non-Apple system.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[drinkypoo]

Microsoft still has that whole "Services for Unix" thing, they refreshed it when Vista came out and that version works on Windows 7 because they're the same OS with minor changes, mostly in the area of kernel tuning. I've been using it off and on since Windows 2000 or so, and have never had any problems with it whatsoever, using it primarily for NFS.

With that said, using NFS today for any purpose is generally a bad idea. Samba will run practically everywhere and you can even get binary packages for most legacy systems. In practice, CIFS outperforms NFS in nearly every situation. I use it even for mounting a remote filesystem from my little Debian server to my big Ubuntu desktop because NFS is so annoying. Samba works very reliably and provides superior performance. I've also used other NFS solutions for Windows (like that from Chameleon) and Samba is the clear winner over all. Except in the very rare cases where Samba cannot be used at all, avoid NFS.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[thijsh]

You do realize that I can get all the same shit for free for Windows with Services for Unix, right? It's not bundled so that you're not forced to receive it if you don't want it, but it's a free download.

You are not even forced to download it if you need it. I once ordered the DVD with Windows Services for Unix from Microsoft, and got it by international priority mail for free. :)
That is the way I like my software from Microsoft... free for me and very costly for them. Too bad it's mostly the other way around...

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh fucking diddums. So don't fucking buy Windows or OSX.

What's that, you say, you don't? Bully for you -- I'm genuinely happy for you.

What's that, you say, you're going to make another thousand posts on Slashdot bragging about how you can "debug all the way up to the kernel"? Give it up, no-one sane cares what you run on your computer or how, and won't care (or probably listen) to your desperate evangelising.

What's that, you say, no-one on Slashdot is sane? I'm beginning to believe that might be the case.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[commodore64_love]

Okay.

Switch your Debian laptop to 640x480 mode. Done? Now change it back to your previous resolution without using some secret keyboard combo. It can't be done because the Desktop Properties window doesn't fit in the 480p height, and therefore no way to mouse-click the "okay" button. I got stuck like that for several hours until finally I said "fuck it" and reinstalled the whole damn OS from a CD.

So much for your "user friendly" claim.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[psergiu]

Learn to tune your NFS exports & mounts. Samba is slow compared to a well tuned NFS setup.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Gothmolly]

1) buy Dell mini
2) download DellEFI
3) boot DVD
4) swap DVD with OSX DVD
5) wait...
6) reboot into OSX

Since clearly you haven't tried or done this, perhaps you should STFU.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[gander666]

And hard travel time will take its toll on any laptop (Toughbook aside). I have found that in general, my MacBook Pro(s) have held up remarkably well to the toils of road warrior-ness. The magnetic power cord has probably saved me at least one logic board replacement.

Of course, my last employer used Dell's, and the Latitudes I have had sucked pretty hard. My new employer gave me a 3 year old Thinkpad, that has seen better days, and I have to say that I HATE the lenovo XP install. Their "handy utilities" suck. Nothing like watching the ATI driver panel, and the lenovo display presentation mode selector fight over the video port for the projector. I almost want to buck IT and load up a clean install, but I am not supposed to do such things...

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[JackDW]

My little get-out clause is "at least according to my definition of "user friendly"". It's user friendly for absolutely everything I need to do with it. For any system, it is possible to think of things it does not easily do, perhaps because of not being designed to do them, and then complain that it is not user friendly on that basis. User friendliness is in the eye of beholder.

Incidentally, when I need to, I change the screen resolution using "xrandr". I've only needed to do this when attaching a projector.

Finally I stand by all of the grant parent post even though it is apparently now "trolling" to advocate Linux and free software on Slashdot if your basis for comparison is Apple.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[drinkypoo]

You can turn off features or you can change the block size. Turning off features (which reduces reliability by delaying writes and the like) is a non-starter for me. Changing the block size doesn't help; large files especially still transfer faster through Samba than even the nfs kernel daemon on Linux. I've been using NFS for many years and have used it across many platforms and I am always pleased when I can drop it for Samba. NFS is especially sad because you'd like to use UDP mode for fastest transfer, but if your link becomes flaky NFS will shit itself if you're not using TCP. The ONLY valid reason I can find to use NFS is where you can't mount CIFS on the client or can't run Samba on the server. These cases are becoming increasingly rare. NFS is also a less-secure protocol by design than Samba since it has inferior authentication (with no user-based security option.)

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that Apple releases updates that intentionally break support for non-apple hardware, right?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise that they've got a perfect right to do so and that if they choose to release a totally pointless update that breaks support for Sinclair Spectrums and 386 processors, or machines with more than 64gig of RAM then that's their prerogative, right?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[icebraining]

Several hours? Really? Google "linux change resolution". First hit has a line ready to copy and run (xrandr -s 1024x768).

By the way, that happened to me in XP. Pitty I can't CTRL+ALT+F1 to console, but tabbing a few times and then Enter did the trick. (Also works for Gnome, btw).

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[commodore64_love]

Uh huh. But you spoke as if you thought Linux should be user-friendly for everyone. Here's some other things my Linux laptop won't do properly:

- Emulate Atari, Commodore 64, or NES games
- Connect to my Netscape dialup ISP
- Run Internet Explorer
- Run Microsoft Office so I can update my resume
- Let me select a hundred songs from a window, and play them in order. Instead it tries to play all 100 at the same time?!?!?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

...and if they have half a brain they'll just buy one.

Apart from the fact that the motivation for 'Hackintoshers' generally seem to be:
a) The fun/challenge of getting OS X running on non-Apple hardware
b) That they want to run OS X on a type of hardware (e.g. 10" Netbook) that Apple just doesn't sell at all.
So 'just buying one' in no way meets their requirements even if they have the money.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Theovon]

Only problem is, most of the people on Slashdot going on about how they can't fix bugs in Windows also do not have the technical skill to fix bugs in Linux. For most people, the "can fix bugs" thing is a straw man argument.

Don't lose sight of the fact that the primary issues in FOSS are (a) freedom from being controlled by evil corporations, and (b) communal development. Access to the source code is merely a requirement for those things.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[phooka.de]

The difference is in that when something goes wrong, on Linux and OpenSolaris I can debug all the way up to the kernel, while on Windows and OS X I'm stuck if the problem happens to be somewhere in the closed components of the system,

Granted, but let's be honest:
- have you ever done this?
- would you know how to debug the application?
- do you believe that you'd be able to just debug the kernel or some complicated framework, understand the coding, write a fix and be sure that it won't break all other applications because your fix breaks some other expected functionality?

I agree that with colsed source, you just can't do it. But let's be honest, for most of us, we still wouldn't do it if we (technically) could because we lack the skills and the knowledge about the underlying layers of software.

This comes from a software developer currently doing development support (that means fixing bugs in our applications). If something goes wrong in someone else's coding - hand the issue to them, don't touch it; chances are you'd break something you didn't understand.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

I've found nfs to be faster than samba.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[trapnest]

What are you talking about? Maybe if you're talking about microsoft's latest DRM document format... Oh wait MS Office runs on OS X.

What data formats are you unable to open on OS X?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[IndustrialComplex]

the price of their preferred genuine Apple portable, divide it by the number of hours they spend hacking to keep things working every time there is a point update, subtract a bit for general annoyance, come up with a single-digit hourly figure, and if they have half a brain they'll just buy one.

Or if they're not capable of working that out they'll just post whiny little messages on Slashdot about how their freedoms are being repressed by the big bad company that chose not to support hardware they don't even ship.

I'd just rather companies didn't go out of their way to 'not support' ways in which they didn't intend their products to be utilized.

Should my television 'not support' my computer since their only input is VGA and my computer's output is DVI? Should they 'not support' that choice by implementing something that physically prevents me from using an adapter?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[vvaduva]

Vadim Tudor is on /. ?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[makomk]

Some of Apple's kernel is open source, but important parts of it aren't - like, for example, the code required if you want to run any of the Apple GUI. (Critical applications are copy-protected and require closed source kernel code to run, which enforces the restrictions on which hardware can be used.)

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that I can get all the same shit for free for Windows with Services for Unix, right?

Sure, but they actually work on OS X.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay a three year old article about Apple laptops, that is entirely anecdotal. Complaints listed:

• User says hardware isn't holding up. Maybe it wasn't, but that's one anecdote. This is from a period where Apple laptops scored highest in long term hardware reliability from consumer reports by a large margin. One also might note the specific complaint about power cords bending was addresses rather uniquely by Apple and not at all from most other vendors.
• Apple uses chips with TPM and I don't know what for. Apple did use those chips but was clear they did not use it for any DRM in any way. They did expose it via an API for application developers who wanted to use it for cryptography. Very few people did and Apple moved on to chipsets without TPM after a year and no one noticed.
• Valgrind and it's variants don't work. This was fixed some time ago and OS X is part of the main branch these days, despite not really being needed anymore due to other dev tool improvements.

So basically this is a three year old blog post that complained about problems that were the opposite of the norm for Apple hardware, were just plain wrong, and which are no longer true.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

>> "Free" software people won't touch Apple with a long pointed stick. It's even more closed and unfriendly than MS.

You do realize that OS X comes bundled with 100's of 'free' open source utilities/apps, right?

You do realize that Red Hat comes bundled with 100's of 'free' open source utilities/apps, right? You aren't paying for the free apps! You are paying for the very polished GUI and system tools...

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Nursie]

"Switch your Debian laptop to 640x480 mode. Done? Now change it back to your previous resolution without using some secret keyboard combo."

Done. I changed it using xrandr at the command line and changed it back the same way.

Oh, you meant "in a way my grandmother would be able to do it!". Well, let me know when you've finished explaining resolution to grandma, then we can talk to her about that. In the mean time I'll carry on with my system, that just works and works perfectly for my needs.

not everyone considers the same things user friendly. Frankly if I can't script something I consider it a pain.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Brett Buck]

Several hours? Really? Google "linux change resolution". First hit has a line ready to copy and run (xrandr -s 1024x768).

            Well, there you go, every child of 3 knows that. Who needs a dialog box that fits the screen resolution with straightforward "just works" workarounds like that?

          Brett

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Nursie]

1. You're still on dialup? How about joining us in the 21st century sometime?

2. All those things are possible, YOU FAIL. Not linux, YOU.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[vadim_t]

Granted, but let's be honest:

Ok

- have you ever done this?

Yes. I looked at the code of several libraries, messed with the code of several utilities, and made some attempts at debugging the Linux kernel, some successful. I made contributions to several open source applications.

It's not that difficult really, even if you don't know the specifics. I figured out why there was a crash when using the GRsecurity kernel patch some years back, by looking at the kernel oops, and figuring out how the assembler dump correlated to that part of the source code, without having ever looked at the kernel before or knowing assembler. Took some thinking though. In C it's easy to make errors when dealing with data structures, and that code looks pretty much the same in the kernel and userspace. A linked list is still a linked list in the kernel.

I used git bisect to find the particular commit that made an USB device stop working.

Some days ago I figured out a deadlock in an experimental version of the Second Life viewer, but it turned out somebody got there first.

Compiling Mono from source, and reading the source for some parts of the framework helped me figure out why some things were crashing. I looked at the Npgsql source to gain a better understanding of what would happen if the server closed the connection at a specific point.

I've ocassionally looked inside the glibc source to see how some functions were implemented.

- would you know how to debug the application?

I'm proficient with C and GDB, can do C++ and C# competently too.

Worst case I can get a stack trace, get a rough idea of what may be going wrong, and send that to a mailing list.

- do you believe that you'd be able to just debug the kernel or some complicated framework, understand the coding, write a fix and be sure that it won't break all other applications because your fix breaks some other expected functionality?

To a point, yes.

Some things are complicated. I don't think I could figure out laptop suspend issues for instance, because issues there probably involve some deep understanding of ACPI and various hardware internals. But if I manage to make the kernel oops with a NULL pointer dereference, I'll probably be able to figure it out, and actually have once.

There are many problems in software that aren't caused by deep magic going wrong, but by such common things as incorrectly handling an exceptional situation that never happened to the developer writing the code, but that I happened to run into.

I agree that with colsed source, you just can't do it. But let's be honest, for most of us, we still wouldn't do it if we (technically) could because we lack the skills and the knowledge about the underlying layers of software.

But I'm not "most people", and actually can do this stuff. It happens to drive me bonkers to know that some issue that bothers me particularly could be fixed in a couple hours but remains in the vendor's bug list for months because they can't be bothered.

This comes from a software developer currently doing development support (that means fixing bugs in our applications). If something goes wrong in someone else's coding - hand the issue to them, don't touch it; chances are you'd break something you didn't understand.

But sometimes they're not working on it anymore, or consider it low priority, or don't agree that the program should do what you want at all. In such cases it's good to be able to do it yourself.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[jo_ham]

I'm sure you do, but your assertion that "OS X is even more locked down than Windows" is a little bit a stretch, surely. How much of the Windows source is open? How much of OS X? Clearly both are closed OSes, but the core of OS X is a lot more open than Windows.

On the second point, some citations would be nice. Apple is moaned at a lot for their contributions to the OSS community and their "theft" from it (funny, I thought it was free) especially in cases like Webkit/KHTML and Darwin itself.

So, what currently unaddressed security hole exists in the open source stuff Apple ships? Are you claiming that Apple doesn't update the OSS stuff it ships in security updates? Are you claiming they specifically ignore security holes?

What's to stop you from rolling your own implementations of these vulnerable services on OS X if they are open source and you need to run them but are concerned that the shipped Apple version is insecure, assuming that the current OSS version has also been patched, or are you claiming that because Apple doesn't push a patch down on OS X the very same day a patch to the OSS stuff is done by a third party because they may need to test it on their internal OS X builds first that they are "abysmal at keeping up to date".

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[vadim_t]

Different Vadim.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[foniksonik]

True Apple doesn't always keep all of the bundled OSS apps updated... OTOH they don't prevent you from compiling and installing (or finding pre-compiled) an updated version. I rarely use the bundled versions of PHP, MySQL or Ruby on my Mac.

Just be sure to install them under /usr/local/ or a similar standard but not Apple default location or your next Apple update will wipe them out.

There are a few apps which while OSS are tightly coupled to the OS itself and do not have timely support from their original maintainers for OS X - these often do require Apple to keep up to date, but in general they are pretty good about fixing security issues, with some notable exceptions... for which there is always the option to disable the service or app until the fix has been ported.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[sarhjinian]

The core system is open-source, up to and including the kernel, much of the drivers and the UNIX userland tools.

The display server, window manager, audio manager and other userland tools are closed-source. Not all of them (Safari/WebKit, for example) but most.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[nether]

Apple's kernel is XNU. This is Open Sourced. Apple's GUI is proprietary code and is not Open sourced. However, the GUI is not the kernel.

So to be correct, Some of Apple's OS stack is open source, some of it is not. Specifically for this story, the kernel does not support Atom. The hackintosh community is going to "fix" the kernel to add support for Atom. Here's a link from the source itself. As a workaround, if you upgrade to 10.6.2, you can simply drop in the 10.6.1 kernel to fix the problem.

There is no "closed source kernel". You can find them at Apples Darwin site. As 10.6.2 has just been released, the corresponding XNU is not there, yet.

Your comment is full of fail.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is in that when something goes wrong, on Linux and OpenSolaris I can debug all the way up to the kernel, while on Windows and OS X I'm stuck if the problem happens to be somewhere in the closed components of the system,

Granted, but let's be honest:
- have you ever done this?
- would you know how to debug the application?
- do you believe that you'd be able to just debug the kernel or some complicated framework, understand the coding, write a fix and be sure that it won't break all other applications because your fix breaks some other expected functionality?

- Yes
- Yes
- Yes

I'm a lightweight so I actually need the OS source to do this, but I used to work with a guy who does it with just the object code you can see in the debugger.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[vadim_t]

The core system is open-source, up to and including the kernel, much of the drivers and the UNIX userland tools.

The kernel, not as of 2006 or so

UNIX userland is IMO mostly unimportant. It's quite standard, very stable, and there exist several versions of it. If OS X offered no source for ls, I could mess with the GNU version instead.

The display server, window manager, audio manager and other userland tools are closed-source. Not all of them (Safari/WebKit, for example) but most.

Right, precisely the stuff that makes OS X be OS X, and precisely the stuff I'd be interested in looking at.

The parts that are left open are mostly unimportant as they're generic and replaceable. And I can get them in Linux anyway, where I can have a fully open system without having to put up with Apple's hardware obsession and closed parts I can't debug.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that OS X comes bundled with 100's of 'free' open source utilities/apps, right?

You means like the SAMBA client that's been broken for many years that won't allow >2GB transfers? Or the four year old rsync?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[commodore64_love]

>>>1. You're still on dialup? How about joining us in the 21st century sometime?

As Buffy the vampire slayer might say, "Rude much?" If my company sends me to Grand Rapids Michigan, I use whatever the hotel provides. That's typically just a phoneline. Also it's nice to have dialup as a backup in case the Comcast fails.

>>>2. All those things are possible, YOU FAIL. Not linux, YOU.

Yeah I'm sure that will go over really big with potential customers. No wonder Linux remains a niche product with less than 1% use on the desktop

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[commodore64_love]

>>>By the way, that happened to me in XP.

False. On XP all you have to do is press enter and the Properties window will auto-select "okay", so it doesn't matter if the button is offscreen. On XP you can escape, and it's rather silly that Linux is not similarly easy to use.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[commodore64_love]

>>>>>Now change it back to your previous resolution without using some secret keyboard combo
>>
>>Done. I changed it using xrandr at the command line

Fail. "xrandr" qualifies as a keyboard combo that the average user would not know, and therefore is Not user friendly. Pimply-faced nerd-friendly? Yes. But not user-friendly.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[jeremyp]

The OS X kernel is Open Source. If you sign up to ADC (free as in beer) you can have it and the kernel debug kit for free (as in beer).

Speaking from experience, I wouldn't recommend trying it. Better just to isolate the bug, report it to Apple and let somebody who understands the XNU kernel fix it.

The above is probably true for Linux too. Most people are just not technically competent to code in the kernel of any modern operating system.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Chris Pimlott]

I agree that with colsed source, you just can't do it. But let's be honest, for most of us, we still wouldn't do it if we (technically) could because we lack the skills and the knowledge about the underlying layers of software.

But that's the beauty of open source. Most of us don't have to; if just one person does do it, he can release the changes and we can all benefit from it.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[vadim_t]

The OS X kernel is Open Source. If you sign up to ADC (free as in beer) you can have it and the kernel debug kit for free (as in beer).

What is this then? Did things change?

Speaking from experience, I wouldn't recommend trying it. Better just to isolate the bug, report it to Apple and let somebody who understands the XNU kernel fix it.

That only works if Apple cares about the bug, and it's a bug and not some unusual thing I'd like.

Also, what if my bug is "It doesn't work on Atom"?

The above is probably true for Linux too. Most people are just not technically competent to code in the kernel of any modern operating system.

I don't consider myself to be "most people" and aim a bit higher.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Nursie]

It's not an obscure key combo.

Not comfortable with the command line? YOU FAIL.

GTFO of my linux.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Nursie]

"Yeah I'm sure that will go over really big with potential customers. No wonder Linux remains a niche product with less than 1% use on the desktop"

It's niche product because you're inadequate, got it.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[JackDW]

Uh huh. But you spoke as if you thought Linux should be user-friendly for everyone

If I gave this impression, it was not my intention. The point of that part of what I wrote was: the "user-friendliness" of Macs is not a selling point for me, because my idea of what makes a machine user-friendly is different to that of Apple (and also Microsoft).

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[s73v3r]

XNU Kernel Sources for Snow Leopard. Enjoy. http://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[s73v3r]

Snow Leopard Kernel Sources. http://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/

If you need anything else, I'll be off getting coffee.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[reub2000]

I've never had a problem with rsync on OSX. Always use it to copy pictures from a CF card. As long as it works, why would I care that it's outdated?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[mjwx]

Apple's kernel is OPEN SOURCE, isn't it?

But very little beyond the basic kernel is OSS. The GDM for example, is completely proprietary. Apple open sources only what it has to in order to avoid a law suit from OSS groups.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[vadim_t]

Sure, where is the source to the display server, window manager, and audio manager?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you do, but your assertion that "OS X is even more locked down than Windows" is a little bit a stretch, surely.

Did you read the summary, or even the title?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

For the love of god, add a "-1, Redundant" option. This guy posts the same thing every time linux is mentioned...

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[ckaminski]

The only times I have ever had Windows 2003 BSOD that weren't hardware related where due to SFU's NFS. I hate that thing with every fiber of my being.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[mikael_j]

I prefer using NFS since it fits better into an environment that is almost entirely *nix with the occasional windows box. Also, I've found NFS to have better performance and reliability than Samba.

/Mikael

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Wolfier]

> Emulate Atari, Commodore 64, or NES games

My brother does it all the time. He's not a computer junkie by any measure.

> Connect to my Netscape dialup ISP

Had no problem doing this even in 2003.

> Run Internet Explorer

Great. It's a feature.

> Run Microsoft Office so I can update my resume

No problem doing this with Wine.

> Let me select a hundred songs from a window, and play them in order. Instead it tries to play all 100 at the same time?!?!?

Again, no problem doing this since 1998.

I think you need to give Ubuntu live CD a try.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[ckaminski]

It's not YOUR Linux, douchebag. How about taking some positive criticism? Something like the "SCREEN RESOLUTION CHANGER DIALOG" should at least work on the least-supported resolution.

I also love how the CentOS/RH installer has the same problem on any resolution less than 800x600.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[samkass]

The GDM for example, is completely proprietary.

Great. What's a GDM? And how is that relevant to getting the Xnu kernel up on an Atom processor?

Apple open sources only what it has to in order to avoid a law suit from OSS groups.

Actually, Apple is a prolific open source contributor these days, having started several projects and contributed to countless more. They are under no obligation to anyone to open source most of what you find on http://www.opensource.apple.com/ .

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[ogdenk]

Let me know when Linux has a GUI remotely on par with OS X for professional apps.

X11 is cool and I love network transparency but X11 and Aqua/Quartz are two very different tools.

Let me know when you can run a modern version of Photoshop and InDesign as well. WINE doesn't count. I don't want Win32 apps anywhere near my machine.

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and BSD and use them daily but it's wrong to try to compare Linux and OSX. Very different animals. Linux is NOT the right tool for every job but it's a great tool. I just wish the RMS-humping freetards would get this. Commercial/closed != crap.

ObjC/Cocoa is also an awesome development environment and don't try to bring up GNUstep, it doesn't have most of the modern frameworks present in modern OSX.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[ogdenk]

You do realize that SFU is 10 times worse and Apple's OS is actually a real *NIX under the hood right?

You do realize SFU is a joke and Cygwin is far better right?

You do realize it's very possible to update that open source stuff yourself if you really wanted to, right? Or even easily install current stuff from Fink or Macports with a Linux/BSD-like pkg management system, right?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[ogdenk]

You said the kernel sources weren't available and well, you were mistaken.

The other stuff really IS closed, always has been and it makes sense. Apple is a software/hardware BUSINESS in direct competition with MS. The bits that are closed really are very innovative and impressive and they don't want to give it away. That's their choice.

They don't want your contributions to it, which I doubt you would make anyway (most open source users do NOT contribute, they just whine and expect free support) and they don't want to give it to you for free. Wah, go cry about it or simply don't use it. Just because they don't follow the GNU Freetard business model doesn't mean they are screwing you. They really do screw iPhone users AND developers though. Those guys have a legitimate beef.

I love open source but I have respect for closed things as well. I am NOT a GPL-fan however. And really, I prefer BSD over Linux anyway.

If your license and OS are so great, why are you even whining about Apple not being open? Because you want their goodies for free. Just use Linux and STFU.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[ogdenk]

Also, what if my bug is "It doesn't work on Atom"?

That's only a bug if you bought an Apple machine with an Atom CPU.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[ogdenk]

Huh... that's odd. I transfer 2-6GB files to and from our Win2k3 servers here at work all the time using SMB. Smoke crack much?

BTW, ever heard of Macports and Fink. Easy to fix the issue. I see Linux distros and installs with outdated crap all the time. Especially in embedded devices.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[s73v3r]

That stuff's closed source, and you didn't ask for those. You were bitching about the kernel, and were spreading FUD about how it wasn't open. I disproved you.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[jisatsusha]

do you believe that you'd be able to just debug the kernel or some complicated framework, understand the coding, write a fix and be sure that it won't break all other applications because your fix breaks some other expected functionality?

It's not about rewriting the kernel to fix an issue you're having with your application, that'd be ridiculous. But if you have access to the source code, you can actually see what's going on at a level far below your own code. Without that, all you really have to go on is developer documentation from the manufacturer which may be inaccurate, or the object code which is harder to read and comprehend.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[vadim_t]

You said the kernel sources weren't available and well, you were mistaken.

I cited an article that suggested it was closed. So, I repeat the question: is that article completely wrong? Or something changed since its publication?

The other stuff really IS closed, always has been and it makes sense. Apple is a software/hardware BUSINESS in direct competition with MS. The bits that are closed really are very innovative and impressive and they don't want to give it away. That's their choice.

Yeah, that's great, doesn't work for me though.

And BTW, Red Hat is a "BUSINESS" too, yet I can get the source to their stuff. Funny.

They don't want your contributions to it, which I doubt you would make anyway (most open source users do NOT contribute, they just whine and expect free support) and they don't want to give it to you for free. Wah, go cry about it or simply don't use it. Just because they don't follow the GNU Freetard business model doesn't mean they are screwing you. They really do screw iPhone users AND developers though. Those guys have a legitimate beef.

I'm not whining. You should read the thread you're posting in.

I'm explaining why the mere availability of GCC and other OSS applications in OS X mentioned earlier in the thread by 3vi1 means very little in regards to overall openness, and why that a few parts turn out to have source available still don't fulfill my needs. I'm interested in the ability of debugging the entire system from top to bottom (and yep, I actually do that and not just talk about it), and the ability to open bash in a terminal window doesn't do that much for that.

If your license and OS are so great, why are you even whining about Apple not being open?

I'm not. I'm perfectly happily using Linux on all my computers. Really I'm not really very interested in even a 100% OSS Apple system, as what I currently have works fine for me.

Because you want their goodies for free. Just use Linux and STFU.

Meh. I could probably have their goodies for free from BitTorrent if I really wanted, and I could easily pay for them as well. No, payment isn't the issue. It simply doesn't do what I want it to do, and I was explaining why. In its current state it they could pay me to take it, and I'd still not be interested.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[vadim_t]

That stuff's closed source, and you didn't ask for those.

I thought I made it clear enough, I want source for everything. I actually use it, as described in another post of mine.

I can get the source for the userland tools and run that under any other OS, and to my knowledge the OS X kernel doesn't contain anything particularly awesome. AFAIK the cool stuff is in the GUI, which is closed. So long it stays that way I'm just not really interested.

You were bitching about the kernel, and were spreading FUD about how it wasn't open. I disproved you.

I pointed to my source.

So I repeat the question yet again: what precisely is wrong with that MacWorld article, and was it ever right, or did something change since then?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[vadim_t]

Things not working the way I want them to is always a bug (from my point of view). That's why I want the source to everything, so I can fix things to my liking.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[jo_ham]

You mean the bad summary and the erroneous title. Apple didn't "officially" do anything, let along "drop" support for a chip it never supported in the first place.

Either way, that has nothing to do with the relative open-ness of the respective OS sources.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[GaryPatterson]

Ah the agony of choice.

Should I post about how the parent is factually incorrect, and doesn't even try to back up their little bit of rhetoric with anything?

Or should I post about how sad is it that the parent was modded insightful for posting a trite piece of doggerel?

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[GaryPatterson]

The kernel, not as of 2006 or so [macworld.co.uk]

No, you are wrong. Please do your homework before posting factually incorrect information.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[StuartHankins]

Have you considered using an aircard as an alternative to dialup? Mine is like $60 a month (company pays for it since I need access at all times for emergencies), it connects everywhere Nextel has service (which in my continental-US travels is pretty much everywhere I go). Connect speed varies significantly though based on reception, from 128K or so up to > 2Mbps. I'm at the 2 extremes having moved 2 miles and am now at the edge of an "uncovered" spot in my area. Supposedly it's "unlimited" service -- I don't pay the bill and have been told to use it anytime I want and no one has ever mentioned any extra fees. I have the Merlin EX720.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[StuartHankins]

On your #4, you might try OpenOffice. I have a license for Office XP and 2003 but I only use it for Visio. I was forced to find other options when trying to manipulate relatively large documents (tens of thousands of pages) and Word kept puking. I haven't switched back; I save all my docs in Word format and also provide PDF's in cases where I don't want to allow edits. I am not the only employee who uses OO -- all our CSR's on the terminal servers use an old version (and as soon as I can figure out how to prevent the user prompting / license crap on upgrade they're getting migrated from 2.2 to 3.1). We set their defaults to "save as Word, Excel" and most of them don't know the difference; a few people require MS Office for custom macros.

Some of the functions in OO work easier (for me) -- styles seem to be simpler, TOC's and field entries on long documentation seem to work better, and of course you have the built-in PDF export.

OO seems more responsive in the way that previous versions of MS Office seemed to be more responsive than others. In some ways it's not as far apart from Office XP as MS Office 2007 is.

I use OO Calc exclusively except for the small number of times I need to insert a special trendline -- OO has only basic trendlines in its GUI and requires a bit of programming for anything more complex. I especially use the text import "wizard" many times a day since I create SQL result worksheets as mock-ups before placing them in Crystal for distribution to everyone (because of the broken Windows clipboard which freezes with large copy & pastes over the WAN, I paste to a pipe-delimited text file instead). When importing this data into OO Calc, I don't get the dropped leading zeros that can make you tear your hair out in Excel, and I don't get unexpected text conversions because a field is "sort-of" formatted as a date or whatever.

Of course the features you find important may not even be present in OO (or that need work, such as their "database" application interface, their "gallery" for pictures / backgrounds, and their very limited set of templates), but in my experience and for my needs I could justify paying an amount equal to the MS Office suite for it.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

re: "Clearly both are closed OSes"

The Mac operating system is Darwin - it *is* open source.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, now. Put a music CD in your Mac. Start installing on of the many critical kernel-updates that are regularly released then cut the power (if a laptop you need to remove the battery first). You are faced with several issues:
1. Your machine can't boot
2. You need to reinstall
3. You need to put the installation CD/DVD, but it has no eject button
4. You can only eject CDs from a loaded Mac OS X
5. After doing all this, Macs still doesn't boot from a inserted CD or DVD

There is actually a solution using "magic" key-press power combination to get the CD out, and ANOTHER "magic" key-press power-on combination to make it boot from CD. Still Macs are the worst the examples of user-interfaces I've ever seen, only GNOME comes close in making things so simple they don't work at all.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

Several hours to go through 3 iterations of tab and enter? Maybe you should try sugar.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[makomk]

The GUI is not the kernel - however, the (closed source!) code preventing the GUI from running on non-Apple hardware is in the kernel, not the userland.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[s73v3r]

Having glanced at the title of that article, I'd say that the part about the Kernel being closed is definitely wrong.

Re:Start complaining, "free" software people

[Anonymous Coward]

...and if they have half a brain they'll just buy one.

Apart from the fact that the motivation for 'Hackintoshers' generally seem to be: a) The fun/challenge of getting OS X running on non-Apple hardware b) That they want to run OS X on a type of hardware (e.g. 10" Netbook) that Apple just doesn't sell at all. So 'just buying one' in no way meets their requirements even if they have the money.

IOW, they should be fucking cheering that Apple again allows them to hack away at their hackintosh instead of giving them "it just works" - what are they complaining about?

Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone mod the article -1 Troll. We all know that PCs are the ones that are shit, Macs Just Work.

makes me rethink things

[Skraut]

It's funny as someone with an aging MacBook Pro, I was contemplating passing it down to my wife, claiming her netbook, installing osx86 on it, and then picking up a new Mac desktop, either an iMac or a Mac Pro, and just standardizing on OSX throughout the house.

Now I wonder if I'm better off just installing Ubuntu on the MBP and the Netbook and spend a lot less money on the desktop and build myself one with Ubuntu as well.

I'm not totally stating that this has caused Apple a hardware sale, (at least not yet) but it has made me re-think my strategy.

Re:makes me rethink things

[Skraut]

should have said "caused Apple to lose a hardware sale" That'll teach me not to hit preview.

Re:makes me rethink things

[benwiggy]

Why would you put osx86 on an Apple MBP....? You can run OS X 10.6.2 on it.

I can't see how the "decision" not to support hardware for which the OS is not designed affects your setup one jot.

Re:makes me rethink things

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading is an odd thing. I read it as "I'm not totally stating that this has cost Apple a hardware sale" and it made perfect sense.

Re:makes me rethink things

[benwiggy]

Oh, hang on. Sorry, had trouble reading. I see now.
Still, either the osx86 crowd will hack the kernel, or something else will happen.

Re:makes me rethink things

[bhtooefr]

Learn to read. He said he was going to get his wife's netbook and put OSx86 on THAT.

Re:makes me rethink things

[vvaduva]

I almost bought a netbook for the very same reasons - keep my macbook pro at work, take the netbook with me wherever I need to go and have a small computer with me.

This is not causing Apple to sell more stuff...it's just pissing off people like you and I, making us wait until a fix is out.

Re:makes me rethink things

[StuartHankins]

OS X vs Ubuntu have not only entirely different target audiences but are entirely different experiences. I use XP, OSX Tiger, RHEL 5 and Fedora 8 daily but switching my laptop from OSX Tiger to Fedora or RHEL would be a huge difference in capabilities and would greatly reduce my performance -- until I found replacements for all the things I do, assuming that's possible.

And please before you tag me as not friendly to open source, I've been using Fedora since it was called Red Hat 5.2. Just make absolutely sure you are willing to put up with the change in scenery... Ubuntu tends to be a rather cutting-edge distro. Hope it works for you.

Re:makes me rethink things

[Skraut]

Yeah my main desktop at work is an Ubuntu machine, which runs VirtualBox whenever I need to do something which requires windows (not often). I also have an old iMac at work, but it doesn't do much but serve as an iTunes player, and doing the occasional SVN merge. I've always appreciated the OSX ui, and a few years ago bought Final Cut Pro to do some video editing as a hobby. I'd like to keep using it, but I'm caught in the Mac Hole. iMac isn't the ideal platform for it. Mac Pro is to expensive for something I'll be doing as a "hobby" I want to get my wife off of Windows, and the transition from Windows -> OSX would be just as easy/hard as the transition from Windows -> Ubuntu. Yes they aren't equal yet, but for what she'll use it for there will be close enough.

Re:makes me rethink things

[psergiu]

"a few years ago", a Final Cut Pro license was A LOT of money ... iMovie is good for a hobby. Final Cut Express is good for a expensive hobby. But you got the Pro version at the top height of it's price and now you're saying a Mac Pro is too expensive ? Darn this recession.

Re:makes me rethink things

[Anonymous Coward]

My thought exactly, I call BS.

Re:makes me rethink things

[VisceralLogic]

should have said "caused Apple to lose a hardware sale" That'll teach me not to hit preview.

Please, this is Slashdot... the proper fix would be: caused Apple to loose a hardware sale

Re:makes me rethink things

[Skraut]

A few years ago I was working in television as a video editor. I bought Final Cut to do some side projects on, to make my demo DVD as professional as possible while looking for another job, and because I was used to working with pro tools.

Now I'm a software developer, I make maybe 2 or 3 fun videos a year, friends weddings, highlights of hockey, and it isn't worth it to upgrade the software. There still is that pull of "I spent over $1k on that software I should make sure I can still use it, but at the same time when I look at how much more I'll need to spend on a hardware in order to still run it, I need to figure out where to cut the losses.

I thought I had justified it if I could make the entire house Mac centric, but to upgrade the netbook to the cheapest MacBook, and to buy a Mac Pro vs build a home system just doesn't justify it.

Re:makes me rethink things

[mjwx]

It's funny as someone with an aging MacBook Pro, I was contemplating passing it down to my wife, claiming her netbook, installing osx86 on it, and then picking up a new Mac desktop, either an iMac or a Mac Pro, and just standardizing on OSX throughout the house.

Now I wonder if I'm better off just installing Ubuntu on the MBP and the Netbook and spend a lot less money on the desktop and build myself one with Ubuntu as well.

I'm not totally stating that this has caused Apple a hardware sale, (at least not yet) but it has made me re-think my strategy.

You're better off with the Linux/Ubuntu strategy, not only will it be cheaper it will also be better able to play with other OS's if your wife/child/other family member insists on bringing a Windows machine into the network. I've found Ubuntu to be very friendly to a local domain and Windows SBS domain where as OS X is openly hostile to anything not Apple.

Dont bother apologising to the fanboys, as far as they're concerned you're a traitor for even thinking that.

Re:makes me rethink things

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at my house we have an iMac with Leopard, a desktop that mainly runs amd64 Debian (with a bunch of partitions with various other free OSes/distros for testing things), and two laptops - one Ubuntu, one dual-boot Ubuntu and Windows XP.

As far as "capabilities" and "performance" are concerned, all of them do pretty much whatever most people would want to do with a computer (apart from things like developing linux-native software, where obviously XP is a non-starter). I really don't see anything special about OSX. The Ubuntu and Debian machines are by far the easiest to keep updated.

Just try Ubuntu on one of the machines and make sure you like it. One caveat is that you won't have iTunes.

Re:makes me rethink things

[drinkypoo]

switching my laptop from OSX Tiger to Fedora or RHEL would be a huge difference in capabilities and would greatly reduce my performance -- until I found replacements for all the things I do, assuming that's possible.

If you happen to run a bunch of programs with no good Open-Source equivalents than that's obviously true. Anyone else will find a great deal to like and very little to dislike assuming that their hardware is supported. This is never a safe assumption no matter what operating system you are switching from or to, and you always need to check compatibility lists, so you should not take this as a drawback of Linux. Of course, hardware support is one of the things you pay for when you buy OSX.

Re:makes me rethink things

[iron-kurton]

It sounds like you got FC Pro for professional reasons, but then switched careers and now use it as a hobby. To continue using it as a hobby, it would cost a lot more money. Makes sense to me.

When people say they want to make their house Mac centric (like my dad), I always cringe. It's not because it's a Mac, but because you're locked in to a specific vendor. Once an item dies, you *have* to buy a replacement from Apple (for example, Airport Express), there isn't a device that can do that same thing (i.e. communicate with iTunes wirelessly, that I know of) without the Apple brand (and price). That's the beauty of open-source software - the community makes ports for just about every platform. /rant

By the way, awesome sig

Re:makes me rethink things

[uglyduckling]

Buy yourself a second-hand Mac Pro from eBay, one or two decent-sized hard drives, and a load of third party RAM. You'll get a workstation-class machine for a similar price to a midrange Dell PC, and you get to run OS X and all the relevant applications without the fear that the next update will break your Hackintosh. Parallels Desktop in Coherence Mode runs Windows very nicely and hides all of the desktop UI if you happen to need and Windows only apps.

Re:makes me rethink things

[mambodog]

So just run it with the Voodoo Kernel?

Re:makes me rethink things

[kklein]

Now I wonder if I'm better off just installing Ubuntu on the MBP and the Netbook and spend a lot less money on the desktop and build myself one with Ubuntu as well.

So you like an OS and want to standardize on it, but now because of a totally forseeable bump, you're thinking of throwing away both OSes you use now and go with a brand new one...

No, I'll tell you what you're going to do: You're going to suck it up and just buy a MacBook Air and an iMac and stick to your plan. Or, at least, that's what I did, despite making the same noises as you're making here.

I, too, was banking on a Hackintosh netbook, but because of some problems with Dell, and the fact that I don't like the idea of suddenly not getting updates, and the Air coming WAY down in price, I just got an Air with everything maxed. It is hands-down the best laptop I've ever had. And despite all the whining I did about the lack of ports... Um, I haven't even noticed. I already used an external monitor and USB hub at work, and although I got the external network cable, I haven't actually ever used it. I don't even know if it works.

No, if you want to standardize on an OS, you should just do it, instead of cracking open a brand new can of worms in protest. I've got the whole house on OSX now, and everything is super smooth. Way smoother than it ever was on Windows, and I don't even want to think about what it'd be like on Ubuntu. It's hard enough to get that to work right on one machine, let alone a network of 4 including a TVputer. Ugh.

Don't be silly.

Re:makes me rethink things

[mdm-adph]

Ubuntu tends to be a rather cutting-edge distro. Hope it works for you.

Regardless of the cred you give, was that an underhanded stab at Ubuntu? Like all distros, there's stable and more unstable versions. Use the Ubuntu LTS release if you're worried about stability -- it's released once every two years. Never had a problem with it.

vvbx

[czychk]

Thanks for ugg bootsthis post. I have finally found the time to comment, because you raise a very good point for the open and transparent community you and may of us, your readers, aspire to adopt and be a part of. It is hard to feel hopeful at times.

Oh, great.

[saintlupus]

Time for another thousand posts on how Evil Apple should leave in support for hardware that they don't sell. Fantastic.

--saint

Re:Oh, great.

[dunkelfalke]

"Disabling support" in this case is an euphemism for intentionally breaking stuff.

Re:Oh, great.

[Quantumstate]

There is a difference between leaving in support and explicitly disabling "support". I put support in quotes because there was never anything extra done to support atom, it just acts like a normal processor. This si like websites which look at your browsers user agent and deny you access because you are running the wrong browser, when the page would run in the blocked browser anyway.

Re:Oh, great.

[ircmaxell]

You haven't read through the previous comments, have you? I see far more people (at least at this point) complaining about the anti-apple comments than anti-apple comments...

Now, with that said, I think it's genius what they are doing from a business perspective... Making the software an beacon to their hardware profit center. From a moral perspective, I don't care what they do, cause I'm not spending $3k on a MacBook Pro... OSX may be amazing, but I am quite happy with Ubuntu, so this news has no consequence for me. If you want the freedom to do what you choose, use a free OS (Linux flavors, BSD flavors, etc). If you want the polished yet non-free OSs (OSX, Windows), then you have to live with the restrictions... It's as simple as that. They own the copyright on the OS, so they can tell you how they want you to use it. You can argue about the moral implications of what they do all day long, all it does is keep their name in the news...

Re:Oh, great.

[Anonymous Coward]

They own the copyright on the OS,...
Yes, they do
so they can tell you how they want you to use it.

They can tell you anything they like; it doesn't necessarily have any legal force.

In some jurisdictions EULAs (I assume that's want you're referring to) are completely unenforceable and you can do anything that basic copyright law allows (e.g. run it on any machine you like but not make copies for others); in other jurisdictions specific EULA clauses may be partly or wholly invalidated by consumer law. As far as I am aware there is *no* jurisdiction in which a EULA is automatically fully enforceable even if it conflicts with other laws or is impossible or unreasonable to follow.

There seems to be a significant strand of opinion on slashdot that believes that *every* clause in Apple's EULAs automatically have the full force of law beind them in every respect and that *any* EULA 'breach' automatically means you are illegally running the Apple software in breach of copyright law, which is a pretty bizarre position not supported by case law.
 

Re:Oh, great.

[ThrowAwaySociety]

There is a difference between leaving in support and explicitly disabling "support". I put support in quotes because there was never anything extra done to support atom, it just acts like a normal processor. This si like websites which look at your browsers user agent and deny you access because you are running the wrong browser, when the page would run in the blocked browser anyway.

They are not "explicitly disabling 'support'" and they were never "leaving in support." As you said, they never did anything to support Atom, and now they've coincidentally broken it. Just like when a website starts using a JavaScript function that breaks in Opera/Safari/Chrome because it was never tested on that browser.

Re:Oh, great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but who the fuck cares? It's Apple's OS, they don't sell anything with an Atom. Why should anyone give a toss if Atom support is disabled? For all it matters to me they can go through the kernel and explicitly kill support for every chip ever manufactured except those they use. It won't affect Apple, me, you, or anyone else -- except people illegally putting OSX onto their netbooks, and why should Apple, me, you or anyone else give a toss about them either? It only "breaks" stuff that isn't licensed in the first place and has no place in their current line-up. From their point of view, it breaks nothing. From *my* point of view it breaks nothing.

Whine whine whine apple just ruined my hobby boo hoo. Grow up for fuck's sake.

Re:Oh, great.

[Eil]

I see far more people (at least at this point) complaining about the anti-apple comments than anti-apple comments...

Welcome to The Slashdot Fashion Phenomenon, where the things we collectively laud or eschew change like the seasons.

In the beginning, the trend was anti-Apple because PCs were superior.
Then, Jobs came back and the Macintosh became sexy, so the trend was pro-Apple.
Then, we came to loathe their closed and litigious behavior, so the trend was anti-Apple.
Then, in response to all the anti-Apple sentiment, the trend was anti-anti-Apple.
Now, we're starting to see the next emerging trend: anti-anti-anti-Apple comments.

I love this place.

Re:Oh, great.

[dunkelfalke]

It is not about me - I honestly prefer Windows to OS X. It is about Apple intentionately breaking stuff without any real need and potentially introducing bugs and security flaws because of it. Imagine some virus changing the CPUID search string so OS X suddenly stops working on a genuine Apple hardware.

Re:Oh, great.

[Anonymous Coward]

You had me up until here:

They own the copyright on the OS, so they can tell you how they want you to use it.

Because, no; no they can't. Once I've bought it, I can do with it as I please, including hacking it to make it compatible with my hardware.

Re:Oh, great.

[sarhjinian]

They never officially supported it in the first place. It'll also be, oh, about a day and a half until someone builds a new kernel and allows this to work again.

Because, you know, the kernel is open source and you can actually do this kind of stuff.

Re:Oh, great.

[Anonymous Coward]

cause I'm not spending $3k on a MacBook Pro...

Exaggerate much? The absolute top of the line 17" MBP is only $2.5k. A very good 15" is about $2k. The 13" models are $1.5k and under.

Re:Oh, great.

[sbeckstead]

Except you only bought the physical disk it came on, the OS is merely a granted license. And this has been upheld in courts. So, you are wrong!

Re:Oh, great.

[sbeckstead]

If you weren't anonymous, I'd bother to post further. Get a Name bozo.

Re:Oh, great.

[AaronMK]

"They own the copyright on the OS, so they can tell you how they want you to use it." There is a distinction between deciding which uses they want to support versus them being able to tell you, as a purchaser, what uses are allowed. A company owning the copyright means they can make copies and sell those copies. It does not mean they have the right to tell me what I may legally do with something I have purchased, and calling a sale a license does not change that. Now, whether you want to call Apple evil or not for the uses they decide to support is a different story.

Re:Oh, great.

[ogdenk]

They own the copyright on the OS, so they can tell you how they want you to use it. You can argue about the moral implications of what they do all day long, all it does is keep their name in the news...

I'll use a purchased copy of software any damn way I see fit and if they don't like it they can kiss my ass or stop selling retail boxed copies.

Just because I write in my EULA that all end users have to give me 3 blowjobs a year in the back of an Apple-branded sports car doesn't mean it's legally enforceable.

That doesn't mean I expect them to make it easy to install or even support my hardware they don't even use in their own products however.

I will use it any way I want (on a single machine) and I dare them to try to do something about it.

Re:Oh, great.

[mjwx]

Time for another thousand posts on how Evil Apple should leave in support for hardware that they don't sell. Fantastic.

Well it does kind of prove that Apple are anally retentive control freaks and are against any kind on unsanctioned OS X or Mac community (as in inherently geek unfriendly).

Obligatory, I know I'll be modded down for this but...

Re:Oh, great.

[sbeckstead]

Wow, an anon get's modded to interesting for stating garbage and I get modded to 0 for stating the truth. Slash Dot is great. There is no dot but slash.

Re:Oh, great.

[stiller]

I don't care what they do, cause I'm not spending $3k on a MacBook Pro...

Ok, your call. But for the record, $2500 buys you a 17" MacBook Pro, which leaves you $500 for some DIY (SSD, 8GB) upgrades. Pretty cool stuff.

If Only /. Admins Were More Vindictive

[Anonymous Coward]

I RTFA, and there's no acknowledgement by Apple of what they have done or why they have done it. So the update does not "officially" break Atom support, it just breaks Atom support.

It's official because CmdrTaco said so!

My news stories have leveled whole cities! I'm not afraid of you!

Sincerely,

CmdrTaco

It's about money

[Adrian Lopez]

... because some cheap chipset might make the whole thing malfunction and users would be fast to blame apple for a bad product...

I'm sure that has nothing at all to do with it. What's actually happening is that Apple is the sole supplier of computers that can run OSX out of the box and it wants to make sure things remain that way. It's simply a matter of Apple maintaining a profitable hardware monopoly.

Re:It's about money

[m.ducharme]

Er, I think you're slightly mis-informed as to the meaning and definition of "monopoly." Last I checked, Apple did not have a monopoly on computers (plenty of manufacturers sell plenty more computer than Apple), did not have a monopoly on computer components (most Mac parts are middle-quality or better commodity stuff), and did not have a monopoly on OS (if I have to explain that one to you, please turn in your geek card at the door). So where's the monopoly position that Apple's supposed to have? Music players/stores don't count in this particular discussion.

Apple ties their OS to their hardware, and makes no secret of this. Many other companies do the same thing, and suffer no legal consequences. Apple does this because it makes good business sense to do so. They have a very good OS, far and away better than the market leader, and part of the reason the OS experience is so good is that they strictly limit the hardware their OS will work with. Of course it also means that they can charge more money for their hardware offerings than their competitors.

If there's no legal reason (and there isn't) to give up this advantage, why should they? This isn't a monopoly strategy, it's a niche strategy. Apple gets to charge higher prices for their computer/os combination, and the price of that is they get a niche market share instead of a huge market share. If they keep making a profit (and they are) then what does it matter if their market share stays low?

As for moral reasons, this isn't about morality. It's about a bunch of frustrated nerds and hackers who want what they perceive as a really great operating system but don't want to pay the extra price.

Re:It's about money

[Adrian Lopez]

I use the word monopoly in the colloquial sense rather than the legal sense of the word. I'm saying Apple has a monopoly on computers that can run OSX out of the box, which is really just another way of saying they are the world's sole supplier of such computers. Ignoring your nitpick about my use of the word "monopoly", my point remains the same: Apple is the sole supplier of hardware that runs OSX out of the box and it wants to remain the sole supplier at any cost, even if it means crippling OSX to fail on otherwise compatible hardware.

Re:It's about money

[m.ducharme]

OS X was never meant to be compatible on that hardware, and hackers have to use all sorts of tricks to get it to run. I looked into it myself, at one point. It wasn't a trivial procedure, even then.

As for your use of the word monopoly, it's essentially meaningless. Many companies have a "monopoly" on the particular product they sell, in the sense that they're the only supplier of that particular product. And many companies go to great lengths to protect the unique nature of their product. You've defined the "market" too narrowly. Of course Apple has a "monopoly" on Apple products, that's a tautology, not an argument. There is no moral or legal reason for Apple to make its OS compatible with any other hardware.

Using the term monopoly the way you do is abusing a term of art. Would you think it okay if I referred to Apple's computers (or worse, monitors) as CPU's or hard-drives? It's not a nitpick to correct your usage of the term when that term -- and its meaning -- is at the heart of your argument.

Re:It's about money

[Gilmoure]

Yeah, but they suck because they don't run their business exactly how I'd like them to run it, to my benefit. Darn them. Darn them to HECK!

Re:It's about money

[Adrian Lopez]

Of course Apple has a "monopoly" on Apple products, that's a tautology, not an argument.

I never said "Apple has a monopoly on Apple products". That's just a straw man you set up to pretend that what I said is tautological. In fact, there is nothing tautological about my actual claim, which is that "Apple has a monopoly on computers that can run OSX out of the box".

Forget about the word monopoly if you prefer. It's a small point. The important point is that OSX is tied to Apple hardware through artificial means, and that Apple does this in order to protect its position as the sole supplier of hardware that can run OSX without the need to circumvent Apple's anti-competitive technical measures.

Re:It's about money

[m.ducharme]

Forget about the word monopoly if you prefer. It's a small point.

You used it. You've been around here long enough to know better than to try mis-using a term of art to make a point. Suck it up, low-UID-boy. :-p

The important point is that OSX is tied to Apple hardware through artificial means, and that Apple does this in order to protect its position as the sole supplier of hardware that can run OSX without the need to circumvent Apple's anti-competitive technical measures.

Ah, the meat of the argument (you'll note that I said essentially the same thing somewhere up there, but without the moral pissiness). So here's my question.

What's wrong with that?

Re:It's about money

[Adrian Lopez]

You used it. You've been around here long enough to know better than to try mis-using a term of art to make a point.

I don't think I was misusing it at all. Language is far more flexible than you give it credit.

What's wrong with that?

That's rather like asking what's wrong with IBM wanting to prevent Compaq and other computer manufacturers from making and selling IBM-compatible computers. The PC market has benefited greatly from the presence of IBM clones, making possible even Apple's own transition to commodity PC hardware. From IBM's perspective there was absolutely nothing wrong with preventing others from cloning the IBM PC, but the market would no doubt have suffered if IBM had been successful in its lawsuit against Compaq.

Whether Apple's behavior is wrong beyond the fact that it's bad for consumers is a moral argument I don't care to enter into. The best I can do is to look at what the market might look like if Apple weren't in the habit of intentionally crippling OSX on non-Apple hardware.

Re:It's about money

[m.ducharme]

A market where Apple allowed Mac OS X to run on anyone's hardware would soon be a market without Macs, and shortly after that a market without Mac OS X at all. Apple did try this once, remember? Didn't work so well for them, did it? They've only just recently recovered. Apple doesn't sell OS's, Apple sells hardware, and more specifically, Apple sells good design and a very particular user experience. Licensing out Mac OS X to anyone who can build a box would take a big enough bite out of their hardware sales, that it would no longer be worth maintaining and upgrading their OS.

How is a market without Mac OS X better than a market where Mac OS X is available only on a Mac?

Apple Netbook on the Way

[wkurzius]

Another sign of the rumored Apple Netbook?

Re:Apple Netbook on the Way

[fluch]

I doubt it. More likely a sign that they care a damn about Atom processors which is at most a sign that they do not plan to have Atom powered toys around.

Re:Apple Netbook on the Way

[NekSnappa]

Either that, or maybe they are having a custom version of the Atom developed for them.
I seem to recall that they did a similar thing with the Core2 Duo for the MacBook Air.

Re:Apple Netbook on the Way

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably the most insightful comment by far.

1. One day they support
2. Next day the don't
3. The next one again
4. Generate buzz and lots of drama
5. New release
6. ...
7. Profit!

Steps 1 to 4 are traditional marketing strategies from Apple.

Re:Apple Netbook on the Way

[NekSnappa]

Or maybe they're having the kernel check for this.

Intel Corp. will reveal more details about its next-generation Intel Atom platform for netbooks and nettops on the 21st of December '09 and computers makers will launch actual systems powered by Intel Atom N450 and derivatives on the 4th of January 2010, just in time to show them on the Consumer Electronics Show.

"Intel is planning for a fast transition to Pine Trail. To generate excitement for the platform ahead of launch, Intel is planning a press release in late December publicly disclosing the details of the platform," an Intel document seen by X-bit labs reads.

Intel Pine Trail platform includes next-generation Atom "Pineview" processor with improved performance, integrated graphics core, built-in DDR2 memory controller, x86-64 capability, a new core-logic set as well as a Broadcom video decoding processor

Re:Apple Netbook on the Way

[Professor_UNIX]

Apple already sells a Netbook. They call it the Macbook Air and it starts at $1500. LOL!

Re:Apple Netbook on the Way

[Xest]

Not if it uses an Atom processor :p

Hackintosh is for the hobbyist, not the end-user

[Anonymous Coward]

If you know what any of the techno mumbo is in this article, you should know better then to care. The OSx86 project is facilitated by hobbyists who lived for this kind of nonsense. Oh sure, we all fret and cry out "Oh noes"...but we all know someone's gonna fix it sooner or later.

If putting OS X on anything you wanted was easy, it'd take all the fun and geek cred out of it.

Not that big of a deal

[Fred IV]

Hackintosh users can live without the 10.6.2 update. This doesn't really break anything, it just prevents netbook users from having the latest set of OS patches between now and whenever the community finds a workaround.

Re:Not that big of a deal

[Zandall]

Hackintosh users doesn't need to live without 10.6.2 update: make a copy of 10.6.1 kernel, install 10.6.2, DON'T REBOOT, rename new kernel to kernel10.6.2, rename old 10.6.2 kernel again, reboot. The hackintosh user will have everything updated except the kernel. you can even use new and updated kexts made for the new kernel... You can also a small patch on source code and have kenel 10.6.2 but it's a little bit of work for a tiny hackintosh:

Re:Not that big of a deal

[Eli Gottlieb]

If I want to do that much work keeping my computer running, I'll use Linux.

Note: I use Linux.

Mods on crack today?

[StuartHankins]

One of the more uninformed posts I've read today.

Apple owns or participates in a HUGE number of open-source projects.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes. It's the little things that matter.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Free" software people won't touch Apple with a long pointed stick. It's even more closed and unfriendly than MS.

One of the more uninformed posts I've read today.

Apple owns or participates in a HUGE number of open-source projects.

There are people who make a distinction between Free and Open Source. The GP specified Free software people. You've made one of the more uninformed posts I've read today.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[ducomputergeek]

Reminds me of a conversation with a Linux Zeloat the other day:

LZ: "Look at my Ubuntu, it automatically finds my printer!"
Me: "Thank Apple"
*LZ GIVES ME A CONFUSED LOOK*
LZ: "What do you mean?"
Me: "Point your browser to localhost:631"
*screen: CUPS is the standards-based, open source printing system developed by Apple Inc. for Mac OS® X and other UNIX®-like operating systems.*

Having to deal with linux printing a decade ago, be glad that Apple bought CUPS and continued to develop it.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you noticed? Plenty of slashdot moderators are easily won over by insults, the us-against-them mindset (whether real or imagined), and general internet "tough talk", while the less-exciting yet technically accurate posts go unnoticed.

This is why on slashdot, you often find the agitated "this sucks" posts modded to +5, while the calm and logical response is modded down. It's not how much sense you make, it's how "strongly" you feel about it and how loud you can yell. Just like in politics.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[commodore64_love]

(shrug)

Amigas had plug-n-play back in 1985. I always find it amusing when Mac or IBM PC users get all excited about stuff I was already doing in the 80s. "Hey look. My OSX can do true preemptive multitasking!" or "My Linux can detect when I plug in my printer!"

"That's nice. Been there; done that."

Re:Mods on crack today?

[epee1221]

There are people who make a distinction between Free and Open Source.

There is definitely a distinction between the two, but do those people refuse to use BSD-licensed code?

Re:Mods on crack today?

[larry bagina]

Webkit is LGPL. Cups is GPL. Their gcc fork is GPL.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Abcd1234]

Yeah, my OS also has memory protection and doesn't look like ass. How 'bout yours? :)

Re:Mods on crack today?

[makomk]

CUPS is the standards-based, open source printing system developed by Apple Inc. for Mac OS® X and other UNIX®-like operating systems.

Bought up by Apple Inc. more like. Like pretty much all Apple's Open Source projects, it was written by someone else and Apple just took it over because it was useful to them. (See also: WebKit, which originated as the open source KHTML, not that you'd know that if you listened to Apple.)

The Ubuntu printer detection stuff is probably not part of the Apple CUPS code anyway. All the pretty GUI apps for managing CUPS certainly aren't part of the Apple-owned code - Apple's own equivalents are closed source and always have been.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[IndustrialComplex]

It's not how much sense you make, it's how "strongly" you feel about it and how loud you can yell. Just like in politics

Really? In that case, $5 for everyone that mods me +1.

Now it's just like politics.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said anything about "plugging in"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_(software)

Re:Mods on crack today?

[roju]

Apple didn't create CUPS. They just recognized a good thing and got on board.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[nine-times]

Sure... been there; done that. But where are you now? Are you still using Amiga?

Re:Mods on crack today?

[wall0159]

...so kids, remember: don't be a silly Linux "Zeloat," use Apple and be smart.

In seriousness, good on Apple for running with CUPS and improving it. And good on Free Software for making it possible for them to do so (and leverage a heck of a lot of their OS at the same time).

My iBook can't be kept up-to-date with Apple OSs now, but it can with Free Software. I don't blame Apple for this (it's 6 years old), but I think it demonstrates one of the superiorities of Free Software over closed-source software.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of a conversation with a Linux Zeloat the other day

be glad that Apple bought CUPS and continued to develop it.

Buying or developing a functional spell-checker is yet to occur, clearly...

Re:Mods on crack today?

[commodore64_love]

No I stick with Windows (with a little linux here and there), since it's become the defacto standard, but there are still some of us Amiga users on OS4.0 or 4.1:

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp0ukoM_rNQ
More videos - http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=amigaOS%204&search=Search&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&spell=1

I think it's important to remember where you came from. Just as Ford's Model T turned the car from a hobby to a mainstream product, so too did Commodore 64 and Amiga effectively invented the idea of a "multimedia computer" that played full-color images (yes including nudie pics), near-CD-quality music, and full-motion videos. Prior to that IBMs and Macs had an ugly 4 colors and went "beep" for sound. They saw the Amiga and were essentially trying to catch up

Re:Mods on crack today?

[TheRealMindChild]

(shrug)

Women had plug-n-play back in the beginning of time. I always find it amusing when Amiga users get all excited about stuff primates were doing at the start of civilization. "Hey look. My Amiga can be turned off!" or "My Amiga gets hot flashes!"

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bribery is commonplace in the business of politics, for sure. The end goal of politics (and government) is money, after all. But outside of the power class, and outside of the business of government, it usually comes down to how loud you yell.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, Apple didn't develop CUPS at all. They bought it. From Wikipedia: In February 2007, Apple Inc. hired chief developer Michael Sweet and purchased the CUPS source code. Prior to that they simply adopted it from ESP.

Such a clueless Apple zealot. And don't get me wrong, there are tons of zealots out there for everything but take the time to read your computing history instead of trying to rewrite it to suit your needs. Otherwise your geek cred is going to look like crap, just like it does now.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what if he's not? He's not playing the fanboi by making false claims. I guess that must sting a bit, eh?

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Uberbah]

Uh, Apple didn't develop CUPS at all.

Uh, can you read? At all? Because the parent clearly said:

Having to deal with linux printing a decade ago, be glad that Apple bought CUPS and continued to develop it.

And don't get me wrong, there are tons of zealots out there for everything but take the time to read your computing history instead of trying to rewrite it to suit your needs.

Why don't you work on that reading comprehension BEFORE jerking that knee.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Uberbah]

Apple didn't create CUPS.

Which is probably why he - clearly - said Apple bought CUPS.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Uberbah]

Bought up by Apple Inc. more like.

Wow, you're the third person who needs to work on his reading comprehension.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Adm.Wiggin]

This is why on slashdot, you often find the agitated "this sucks" posts modded to +5, while the calm and logical response is modded down.

Oh, so that's why you're modded Insightful? Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[roju]

Haha that'll teach me for not reading to the bitter end.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Uberbah]

Good thing you weren't a dick about it, like the other guys replying to him. :)

Re:Mods on crack today?

[soupd]

That's odd, because my first Amiga was an A1000 and my last an A4000 and, unless you wanted to most basic functions, printers attached to Amiga's needed dedicated printer drivers.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[makomk]

Does the notice on the CUPS homepage advertising OS X mention that they just bought CUPS, and didn't create it themselves and release it as open source out of the kindness of their hearts? Does the person who the grandparent poster pointed that notice to realize it? Plus, CUPS actually worked very well even *before* Apple bought it - thanks to it, the historic problems with Unix printing are long gone. (Oh, and printer configuration is normally done by distro-specific third party CUPS frontends, not CUPS itself.)

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

Errm, in the light of the AC comment "He's not playing the fanboi by making false claims":

near-CD-quality music == 8-bit stereo
Mac "beep for sound" == 8-bit mono

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Uberbah]

That was a "hint hint" to re-read the parents post, where he plainly said that Apple purchased CUPS.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

The A1200 could actually do 14-bit stereo sound. Not sure if that applied to the older models, since my memory on their capabilities are a little hazy and the A1200 is the only one I owned.

Re:Mods on crack today?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange you mention that. I got out my almost 20 year old Amiga 1200 the other day, booted up, and would you believe it, it was actually quicker than my brand new IMac 21.5inch... not as prety, not as flash, but wow was it quick.

Could be something to do with the OS on the Amiga being only a few megabyte in size, against OSx being somewhere around several hundred.. Oh and no internet to speak of, but I did make me wonder just how far we have come in the last twenty years.

P.

Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who's capable of installing OS X on a non-Apple machine understands how computers work. Further, it violates the OS X license, meaning even if they do blame Apple, they wouldn't give a hoot.

FIRSt

[Anonymous Coward]

200 running NT Market. Therefo8e or chAir, return parties, but here

Parent Posts Case In Point

[Ukab the Great]

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/29250/1023/

Nowhere does the article say "Jailbroken", even though the worm only targets jailbroken, non-officially sanctioned stuff that lives outside Apple's cage. This is an open and shut case of Apple's hardware getting blamed for something the hobbyist hack community does. An IT manager who's considering brining iPhone's into the business might read the article, not go the extra mile to find out the exploit's for jailbroken phones only, decide that iPhones are not secure enough yet, and go with a blackberry or something else.

Re:Parent Posts Case In Point

[Xtravar]

They'd go with the Blackberry because iPhones are NOT MEANT FOR THE ENTERPRISE! Sorry to take this off on a tangent, but if you saw the BS you have to go through to deploy an iPhone app at the enterprise level... the *only* reason any technical person would agree to do it is because the user demand is so strong. There are various things Apple could do to fix this, but they don't seem willing to make those changes. They're more interested in selling to the end user, not the enterprise. The iPhone's security is a secondary concern to deploying and managing the devices. And yes, even after all things considered, companies still go through with Apple's enterprise licensing - because demand is that strong.

I do not see the fuss about it...

[fluch]

If people want to run Mac OS X they should get a Mac and not one of those silly Netbooks!

Nobody is blaming M$ for their windows not running on PowerPC chips (as they never intended it to be useable on this processor) and neither should anybody blame Apple for not taking care that Mac OS X boots nicely on a Atom (under-)powered Netbook.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[FrostDust]

There's a difference between not developing support for a certain architecture, and breaking functionality for a specific processor model that previously worked.
The point of the matter is whether Apple broke support on purpose to impede Hackintoshers, or if it just happened as a side-effect of some unrelated change.

Atom (under-)powered Netbook.

They're supposed to be underpowered, it's a Netbook. The point of the Atom line was to make power-efficient processors, which would thrive in a market of devices that prioritizes battery life over performance.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is blaming M$ for their windows not running on PowerPC chips (as they never intended it to be useable on this processor)

Because x86 and PPC are totally different architectures. Microsoft hasn't explicitly prevented the code from running on PPC; there is simply NO WAY to get the code to run on PPC.

Atom, on the other hand, is an x86 chip. Mac OS X is targeted for x86 and would run except for the fact that Apple has put in an actual check into the code to forbid it. Understand the difference?

and neither should anybody blame Apple for not taking care that Mac OS X boots nicely on a Atom (under-)powered Netbook.

Straw man. Nobody asked Apple to optimize the user experience. Tinkers and hackers simple want to use it and deal with the associated issues of an unsupported platform.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[drinkypoo]

If people want to run Mac OS X they should get a Mac and not one of those silly Netbooks!

People who want one of those silly netbooks and want to run OSX are being ignored by Apple. You're blaming the consumer for getting what they want, which is stupid. Thanks for making slashdot grate, Apple fanboy. Blame Apple for not offering potential customers what they want; it's short-sighted and in fact a bit pathetic.

Nobody is blaming M$ for their windows not running on PowerPC chips (as they never intended it to be useable on this processor)

Windows used to run on PowerPC, but nobody wanted it, so they discontinued it... just like Apple.

and neither should anybody blame Apple for not taking care that Mac OS X boots nicely on a Atom (under-)powered Netbook.

People are blaming Apple for taking deliberate and unnecessary steps to make it not boot on Atom. Not all intel-based macs have instructions lacked by Atom, so the only way this would happen is if Apple made a deliberate and yet unnecessary change which stops Atom from working. Since my brain works, I bet I get more done on my "silly" Atom-based netbook than you can accomplish on any computer. Now go away, and stop telling consumers what they want.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[jedidiah]

> Nobody is blaming M$ for their windows not running on PowerPC chips ...except as an x86 OS, MacOS doesn't have to "do anything extra" in order to run on an Atom netbook.

Apple has to specifically go out of their way in order to keep MacOS from running on such a machine.

This is by no stretch of the imagination equivalent to Windows not running on PPC.

This is on par with Microsoft checking to see if Windows is running on top of DR-DOS.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[Rockoon]

Indeed.. and isnt an Atom a fully compatible x86 chip?

I'm thinking that such a break would HAVE to be intentional.. but maybe I'm missing something.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[jellomizer]

Unless there was something about the Atom support that was just naturally broken with the update. Oh this will break Atom support however it will boost performance 10%. Well we don't sell any systems with the Atom processors so lets do it.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a difference between not compiling and configuring your program for certain architectures and actively blocking use with some chipsets. Both require EXTRA work, but only apple is prepared to do it (and paradoxically, reduces the amount of customers).

It's just a different philosophy. While bill gates admits part of the success of windows comes from pirates that stay on the os they pirated, apple is blocking access to anyone who doesn't buy apple products, making the product a proof you're rich.

Both work (just look at the profits), but don't compare two things that can't be compared.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

But people would blame Microsoft if Windows didn't work on a particular type of x86 processor. PowerPC isn't at all analogous to the Atom. Since the Atom is an x86 processor, in order to not support it with software that otherwise works on a range of other x86 processors, Apple had to specifically code it to not work on Atom processors. This isn't a passive, "We're not going to make sure it works on Atom processors." This is an active, "We will code it to make sure it doesn't work on Atom processors."

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT#Major_features
 
"Versions of NT family operating systems have been released for a variety of processor architectures, initially Intel IA-32, MIPS R3000/R4000 and Alpha, with PowerPC, Itanium and AMD64 supported in later releases."

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

People want OSX, on a platform larger then an iPod/iPhone and with a full phyiscal keyboard, but smaller then the smallest macbooks. It's not really all that confusing. Things getting in their way, like Apple deliberately disabling that functionality, frustrate them. It's natural.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[Speare]

No, Mac OS X is not targeted for x86, it is targeted for Apple hardware, and they have decided not to make machines that use the Intel Atom processor. Whether Intel wanted Atom to be 99.995% software compatible with other Intel processors used by Apple is irrelevant. Whether hackintosh users want to use Apple software on non-Apple hardware is irrelevant.

If Apple did this to be spiteful, they're within their rights to do so. If they did this because maintaining the difference in that 0.005% of the code that really does need to work differently for Atom vs non-Atom usage was a problem for them, that's also something that's up to them to decide.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[the_humeister]

It almost seems that way. The Atom supports the same processor extensions as Core Solo, which Apple did use on the Mini.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[Vladimus]

I blame Microsoft. Microsoft did come out with a PowerPC version of Windows and then stopped supporting it.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[NekSnappa]

It's not about Apple "telling consumers what they want."

It's about Apple making an OS to work on their computers. If they don't make a computer that uses a particular processor, then there is nothing that compels them to support that processor. The consumer has a choice. If they want to run OSX, and have it fully supported, buy a Mac. If they want a netbook, buy one from their preferred vendor, either with WinXP, or Linux. Or if they want a non-Apple netbook running OSX. Cludge something unsupported on the machine, and deal with the consequences when Apple changes something in the future that effects said cludge.

Here's a car analogy. Suppose one of Ferraris models had engine mounts that aligned perfectly with engine mounts for my Dodge pick-up. Which allows me to do an engine swap with nothing more than a simple alteration to the wiring loom. Ferrari is doing nothing to support me making that swap, it's just happenstance that works in my favor. If in next years model the Ferrari mounts change, I am in no position to bitch that I can't put the newer engine in my truck without a lot more effort on my part.

If your response to this is. "Well Ferrari changed the motor mounts to meet their own design criteria, not specifically to keep you from doing an easy swap." See my post elsewhere under this article about Intel releasing a new generation of Atom processor later this year. It could be that Apple is starting to incorporate code to support the new Atom in one of their own products, and that is what is causing the problems with today's netbooks.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[sbeckstead]

Apple has to specifically go out of their way in order to keep MacOS from running on such a machine.
I seriously doubt this is true. More likely they simply use an unsupported instruction in the start up code.

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[sbeckstead]

Since my brain works

Citation Needed!

Re:I do not see the fuss about it...

[fluch]

People who want one of those silly netbooks and want to run OSX are being ignored by Apple.

Apple offers the MacBook Air. And also the 13inch iMac is a small mobile computer with long lasting battery. And if you want to have it cheaper with worse hardware ... feel free to use any other hardware with the remaining choices for the OS.

I myself use Linux next to Mac, so I wouldn't call myself Apple only fanboy. I know what Apple is good but I do not see it as the only good choice of operating system. If people want to use it on some small Atom machines, fine. But please stop moaning when something breaks for what ever reason...

It doesn't compete with Apple in my situation

[Anonymous Coward]

I am on my third OS X Apple (17" Powerbook, 20" iMac, now a 24" iMac), currently have four iPods (home, car, shuffle for workouts, Touch for multimedia) and have had another three in the past, and AAPL is my largest single stock holding. So clearly, I'm an Apple fanboy.

Until Apple releases something with the footprint of a netbook, Apple is not losing any sales to me by virtue of me hacking a MSI Wind to run OS X.

I looked at the Macbook Air before I purchased the Wind. The footprint was just way too large. It was marvelously thin, but the overall size was a dealkiller for me. So I decided to go with the wind and the small headaches it takes to update OS X periodically. It work for me and works well.

Now if hackintoshes never existed because OS X wouldn't run on them, I still wouldn't have purchased a Macbook air (or any other iBook or Macbook) due to the size. So no foregone profit for Apple in my situation.

Now if Apple made a netbook (or possibly the rumored tablet) I'd probably be one of the first to buy one, as the stuff they put out is second to none. Until then, my Macbook will serve my portable needs rather well.

Re:It doesn't compete with Apple in my situation

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you really consider yourself a typical osx86er, as compared to the everyday PC user who owns no authentic Macs whatsoever and just wants to install OS X?

Besides, I don't know why you you think you're entitled to any special treatment here. It doesn't matter who you are: Apple has no requirements to support unsupported hardware. This is much ado about nothing.

Re:It doesn't compete with Apple in my situation

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure what the "typical osx86er" is. I'd imagine that quite a few are those who aren't willing to pay for the hardware so just pirate the software and go the sub-$400 route. But there are plenty like me who want another option and some who start off in the first category but like the OS so much that they end up Apple customers.

I'm fully aware that Apple doesn't owe me anything, and I'm glad the support was there while it was (and surely will be with a few more hacks). But I guess it really depends on how this was approached. If Apple simply stopped supporting the processor that's one thing. If they proactively took steps to disable that support simply to target the hackintosh community, that's another. Of course, they are well within their rights but IMO it's counter productive.

As the /. community well knows, fighting the technology community is a losing battle. Much like Apple with the iPhone jailbreakers, it's largely wasted time with the constant back and forth.

The best thing Apple could do is to try and fill this niche market rather than fight it. Perhaps they see it as a fad or not profitable, and perhaps they have something in the works and are prepping it's release. But Apple has always been one to create a market with a fantastic product. They have the same opportunity to do that here.

So if they are killing off support in preparation for releasing their own product, more power to them. If they are simply trying to close a door out of spite then IMO their motives are misguided, though admittedly well within their rights.

Re:It doesn't compete with Apple in my situation

[s73v3r]

The MacBook Air is their entry into the netbook/ultraportable market. It just doesn't seem that way because its much more expensive than any other netbook. But as been said time and again, they have no interest in getting into the netbook market, because the margins are way too small. Apple is happy, and very profitable at, selling fewer machines with higher margins. This helps them to keep their support costs lower, and profits per machine higher.

Re:It doesn't compete with Apple in my situation

[Anonymous Coward]

The MacBook Air is their entry into the netbook/ultraportable market. It just doesn't seem that way because its much more expensive than any other netbook.

The Air is very much something in the traditional "executive ultralight" mold, 'it just doesn't seem that way' because it simply is not a netbook by any normal definition of the term.

That's fine

[psergiu]

Less support for CPUs not sold by Apple means less bloat in the Darwin XNU kernel, means more speed for us legitimate mac users.

Thumbs up, Apple. Our money were well spent.

Re:That's fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm. No it doesn't. It actually means *more* bloat, albeit insignificant, because they have to explicitly check to see which CPU you are using.

Re:That's fine

[psergiu]

Can you please show me the relevant code from the kernel's source ?
 
Thanks.

Re:That's fine

[kamochan]

Go look for yourself: http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/

I would expect the cache configuration handling in osfmk/i386/cpuid.c be a bit simpler, but quite frankly, dropping Atom support is probably a trivial code change aimed to prevent users running 10.6 on underpowered machines...

Re:That's fine

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/libkern/i386/
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/libsyscall/mach/i386/
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/EXTERNAL_HEADERS/architecture/i386/
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/iokit/Kernel/i386/
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/osfmk/i386/

Re:That's fine

[Arakageeta]

The size of a code baseline often has little to do with execution speed. What matters is the speed of the execution paths in the code (i.e. what code actually gets executed), not how much code there is.

Does the fact that there is a road from Los Angeles to San Francisco slow down your drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas?

Re:That's fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahaha, look at this passive-aggresive baby. Were you offended little one?

Re:That's fine

[the_humeister]

There really aren't any code changes necessary for Atom to run any of the other OSes at this point (Windows 7, Ubuntu, ect.). And the Atom supports the same processor extensions as the Core Solo that Apple used in the Mini. There's really no reason for OS X not to run on the Atom unless there is a processor check. The other option is that there is no processor check, but the installation of 10.6.2 hasn't been fully worked out by the Hackintosh community.

Re:That's fine

[trapnest]

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a joke or not.
No one here has posted any source code or any legit backing for their argument.
We have either:
1. The Atom processor doesn't support some instruction set used by 10.6.2, and support has been unintentionally broken due to compiler settings or any number of changes. (Irrelevant, since Apple has no obligation to make their products to your specification.)

2. Apple has added checking for a specific CPU ID, and calls panic() or whatever because it's not an Apple approved device. (Irrelevant, since Apple has no obligation to make their products to your specification.)

Anyone care to post some evidence?

(On a side note, people who refer to companies by their stock symbol are pretentious bastards.)

Re:That's fine

[sarhjinian]

Go play.

Re:That's fine

[sbeckstead]

I seriously doubt that they are actively checking for the Atom processor. More likely an efficiency cut in the code has left out something that the Atom needs to initialize properly. Or possibly the Hackintosh crowd have a bug in their installer that messes this up.

Re:That's fine

[Hamsterdan]

10.6.1 runs pretty good on my 900HA. It's not slower than the XP it came with. It's not slower than 10.5.8 it replaced (in fact it's a little faster). We're not talking CAD/Gaming or any fancy stuff, it's a netbook. But for managing music (iTunes), browsing & email, it's not that slower compared to a full-blown laptop. The point is, the cheapest MAC is $1k and 13 inch. A netbook is $400 and 9". Apple is missing a lot by not having a netbook-class machine. It's gonna have a little slowing apple on the lid, so sell it 5-600$, but keep it at 9-10 inch. They would sell a *lot* of those little machines. How many people use small netbooks in cafes, at school ?

Instead of competing in that range, they're actively preventing atoms from working. It's their OS, it's their right, but it doesn't mean it's the best decision.

Re:That's fine

[LanMan04]

Ummm. No it doesn't. It actually means *more* bloat, albeit insignificant, because they have to explicitly check to see which CPU you are using.

We have no evidence it's an explicit check. It could be something they developed for official Macs happened to break Atom support.

Re:That's fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the fact that there is a road from Los Angeles to San Francisco slow down your drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas?

Yes. If the road from Los Angeles to San Francisco didn't exist, there would be more money in the CalTrans budget because that's one less road to build and maintain. There might be enough money in the budget to widen the 15 freeway to 5 lanes in each direction (anything less is just a bandaid). Instead, we have two lanes for most of the drive, which gets backed up like crazy at certain times of the weekend.

Thank goodness I haven't been out to Vegas in a few years - that drive used to suck! Much like your attempt at a car analogy sucks. ;)

Not in Darwin?

[wandazulu]

I'm guessing that, since the actual kernel is open source that they are doing some additional check further up the chain in a non-open source module. Otherwise wouldn't it be trivial to do a diff, search for the code that checks for the stepping, and if it's an Atom, call exit(0)?

Re:Not in Darwin?

[blueg3]

I'm not sure calling exit(0) in the kernel will do what you expect.

Re:Not in Darwin?

[Anonymous Coward]

you'll notice that the 10.6.2 sources aren't there...

Re:Not in Darwin?

[joh]

They always take a while. "The sources are not there!" is the usual cry and when they show up a while later, nobody says a single word...

Re:Not in Darwin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they have something like Window's Hondon tool to defeat you binary differs.

Re:Not in Darwin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the conspiracy theory? Maybe they're just using cpu instructions that are supported on core solo chips and higher that don't exist in the little atom chips? It could even be a compiler optimization. Remember they're using GCC and LLVM + clang for different things now and possibly certain optimizations take advantage of more featuer complete cpus.

I don't know this to be fact because i have not compared the ISA for the core cpu vs the atom, but i would imagine that a energy efficient chip like the atom was designed with to a little slimmer in features so as not to compete with their more expensive products.

yay slashdot

[drinkypoo]

Where "flamebait" means "anything with which I disagree". I guess some Mac fanboys who can't stand it when Microsoft does as well as Apple have modpoints.

Re:yay slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Well no, someone just made the perfectly reasonable judgement that there was really no cause for some cretin to bring up the "My OS is better" stuff yet again. Please, the grown-ups are talking now.

It is so pathetic that you're still here after all these years, and still whining about your karma.

Re:yay slashdot

[jo_ham]

No, pretty sure where flamebait means exactly that. Your post is hardly a calm and measured discussion on the merits on the potential downsides to OS X versus Windows and the diligence or lack thereof of Apple in regard to the OSS code that it ships.

Pretty sure you were merely spoiling for a fight rather than actually attempting to discuss it.

yuo f4il it

[Anonymous Coward]

smells worse than a We strongly urge It has to be fun it transfor8s into is dying. Fact: Trying to dissect Users With Large won't be standing world-spanning BitTorrent) Second,

Standardization

[Anonymous Coward]

Why exactly would you want to "standardize" on any platform "throughout the house? Does it really matter if one or two of your machines is running Ubuntu instead of OSX?

re OSX

[freddieb]

This is not surprising. It only indicates that Apple doesn't plan to 1) either use the Atom in a netbook or 2) bringing out a netbook with an Atom in the immediate future. My guess is if they do introduce a netbook it will have a variant of the Atom it can continue to make sure OSX does not work on most netbooks. Apple has a very specific business mode which does not include selling OSX to the masses.

Re:re OSX

[Jesus_666]

My guess is that an Apple netbook would be ARM based - they already have the kernel running on ARM (iPhone OS) and the Cortex A9 is not unattractive. Then again I have no idea what Apple is going to do in the future, except that it will probably be smaller and more elegant than what they offer now.

Re:re OSX

[ogdenk]

I would much rather have an ARM netbook than that POS Atom and its power-sucking chipset anyway. Especially if it ran real OS X and not a stripped iPhone-like OS tied to that obnoxious app store.

I'd happily run Linux or BSD on ARM as well though. I don't believe in x86-everywhere. x86 sucks, it's just had enough R&D dollars thrown at it to make it fairly quick and cheap to produce. Hell, I'd much rather Apple had stuck with PPC.

If this were another company...

[C10H14N2]

Microsoft ended up in hot water for tying a !@#$ing BROWSER to their operating system and everyone cheered for their defeat. If Apple's market share wasn't so comparatively small, they'd be torn to shreds by the DOJ over this.

Re:If this were another company...

[Old97]

And that's what happens when you become a monopoly. Some previously permissible behaviors are no longer. If Microsoft wasn't a monopoly they'd not have had a legal problem. Besides, they didn't get torn to shreds by the DOJ. Their wrists were slapped.

Re:If this were another company...

[penguinstorm]

Sure, but that's the whole point...Apple's market share is comparatively small.

Filing an anti-trust suit against your local book store for selling self-published works by local authors wouldn't make any sense; filing one against Chapters/Borders/Amazon might.

I'm not saying that if I were The Steve this is a decision I would have made...but Apple's got no more obligation to provide support for "universal" hardware than any other software vendor.

My iPhone won't run Windows Mobile: is that Microsoft's fault? Just because the Atom's instruction set is substantially similar to a standard Intel CPU doesn't mean supporting it is required.

Re:If this were another company...

[Chyeld]

Part of the reason Microsoft got shat on was its history.

1. They illegally tied the sale of Windows to the sale of MS-DOS, a product which they had a number of legitimate competitors for.
2. When they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar, they voluntarily settled rather than go to court. Part of their settlement was they would never ever tie their products together in that way again.
3. They then loosely tied IE (an existing product with an existing competitor) into Windows 95.

On the reverse side of this coin, as much as we might have liked it if they had, Apple has never really had a legitimate competitor to their hardware or OS. The only "Mac clones" that were ever legally sold were still licensed by Apple. Additionally, they've never explictly agreed not to tie their products together in order to avoid a spanking from the Department of Justice.

I'm not a particular fan of Apple, the company is just as arrogant as MS. And though I haven't seen as much unethical behavior (just agressive asshattery) from them as from MS, they still stomp all over the consumer and their rights as a matter of routine.

That said, comparing MS's antitrust trials to Apples current situation shows either a lack of perspective and history or a talent at hyperbole.

Re:If this were another company...

[wvmarle]

No, that happens when you ABUSE a monopoly.

Even if Apples were selling say 80-90% of the personal computer market, then still they can support whatever they like. They can sell Atom chips, or not. Currently they don't. They do not support their O/S to be run on third-party hardware, and have the business right to stop that.

It would be different if Apple had a monopoly, and then actively stopped supporting digital music players that are not iPods. That would become abuse.

Currently, if you wish to run OS/X, then you have to buy Apple hardware. Actually it is more like the other way around: buy Apple hardware, get OS/X with it.

Monopoly abuse that would be indeed when MS would stop supporting a processor without technical reason - after all they sell software, not hardware.

MS would possibly be able to get around that by becoming a hardware company and not selling their OS in the open market any more. Just with a Microsoft branded hardware. That would be an interesting scenario indeed.

Re:If this were another company...

[woodsworth]

I don't believe this is true. While market share certainly plays a major role in the MS IE thingy, this is a different situation.

As pointed out a billion times already in this post and others on /. Apple is primarily a hardware vendor. They happen to have a pretty cool OS for their systems, but they are selling hardware. In fact, you are even able to install other OS on their hardware, since they are using Intel processors. So, in fact they have even decoupled their software from their hardware, allowing others into their hardware. There is no obligation on any level for them to also get their software into anybody else's hardware.

Now, MS as we all know is a software vendor (they might sell the occasional mouse, but well...). They have tightly combined software with software. Apple happens to prevent (accidentally or on purpose) their software to run on other hardware they do not support.

And just for the record: if they've done this on purpose, I'd prefer they'd better not, but it's their business after all...

Re:If this were another company...

[bonch]

Nobody would go after Apple for not supporting a chipset they don't sell any hardware for. That would just be ridiculous and unfair. It would be like going after Microsoft for not being able to run X11 apps natively.

Microsoft got in trouble because it was using its monopoly position to prevent competition. Apple not supporting a chip that they don't use in any of their hardware doesn't fit that definition.

Re:If this were another company...

[nhytefall]

Oddly enough, from a former support technician standpoint, this is fantastic news.

Now, with the update disabling Atom support, I can relatively sure that when a user calls in for support on their netbook, and saying it worked before the update, but now it doesn't and that is somehow my fault, and it was running OSX... my teams can hang up on their stupid asses.

Apple sells the OS, it is their IP, they alone can determine the requirements for what hardware it will run. Why is this *so* incredibly difficult for the /, community to grasp?

Imagine if the reverse were true... and it was latest Linux kernel which broke support for some unplanned for device. Chances are, you would have known it was not supported going into the install, would have recognized the risks, and did it anyway. Can you call up Linus at that point, and fucking whine that his new kernel broke your cheap-ass toy? I think not.

Same concept here folks, move along, move along.

Re:If this were another company...

[slack_justyb]

Microsoft ended up in hot water for tying a !@#$ing BROWSER to their operating system and everyone cheered for their defeat.

Therein you missed the parent's point. Apple is not in the business of software, they are in the business of hardware. Microsoft is in the business of software. If Apple was to try to use their hardware to remove HP and Dell from the market then, "yes" you would have something that looks like an antitrust case. Microsoft got hauled into court over the fact that a software company was trying to use it's software to remove other software vendors. Please note the word software being repeated in that last sentence.

Now let's try that with say Apple. Apple should be hauled into court because a hardware company is trying to use it's software to remove other hardware.

Nope, sorry, doesn't seem to hold water quite as well as you would have hoped. What you are arguing is almost like trying to sue some CD player manufacture for not allowing the ability to load your own ROM image on their chips. Understand that the first Macs had ROM images for the OS, Apple has not moved away from this thinking of OS = machine. Are you going to sue Apple for not allowing you any way to replace the chips in an early Macintosh with your own?

Trust me, I think Apple is pure evil and Steve Jobs sold his soul and hides the scar where it was extracted with those trendy Turtlenecks. But you are going about your argument in totally the wrong way and as an Apple hater to another, let's not do any disservice by making Monopoly claims by argument of the OS. Apple = hardware company, I would have thought the 70s would have shown why static images by the hardware vendor were such a bad idea.

Re:If this were another company...

[ogdenk]

Microsoft ended up in hot water for tying a !@#$ing BROWSER to their operating system and everyone cheered for their defeat. If Apple's market share wasn't so comparatively small, they'd be torn to shreds by the DOJ over this.

Torn to shreds for what? Not supporting hardware that none of their products have in it anyway?

In fact, MOST operating systems in existence are tied to particular platforms. Been that way since the 80's. People just got used to cheap crappy PC clones and DOS/Windows running on most of them so they assume that every OS is supposed to be this way.

I'm all for building a Hackintosh, I have several times myself, but Apple isn't obligated to help me by supporting hardware they don't even use. Get a grip.

Re:If this were another company...

[tres]

As I recall, they were 'torn to shreds.' Rumor was, they were going to be split up. We were all talking about which company Microsoft would still be after it split up -- would it be the OS creator or would Bill Gates want to hold on to the other lucrative software...

Then prezitend bush took over.

Suddenly the DOJ folded up the case & MS didn't see any real penalties for actually being found guilty of abusing their monopoly.

Re:If this were another company...

[Old97]

They were threatened with being torn to shreds, but as you say, it never happened.

I wonder if Microsoft would not have been better off if they had been broken up. The parts might have become more nimble and innovative in order to compete. Instead they continue to degenerate in their complacency. Too bad for everyone.

Re:If this were another company...

[Anonymous Coward]

They do not support their O/S to be run on third-party hardware, and have the business right to stop that.

It would be different if Apple had a monopoly, and then actively stopped supporting digital music players that are not iPods. That would become abuse.

How are those not the same thing? Apple software (OSX, iTunes) not supporting non Apple hardware (hackintoshes, non-apple digital music players). Leveraging ones position in one market to gain position in another market is abuse, regardless of what the market is. But you seem to have decided that abuse is dictated by the market it occurs in.

MS would possibly be able to get around that by becoming a hardware company and not selling their OS in the open market any more.

Let Apple try not selling their OS in an open market first and we'll see how that goes over. If it works and MS follows suit, It probably won't be long before Apple gets out of the computer hardware market.

Re:If this were another company...

[mysidia]

If a Linux kernel update contains code to blacklist your cheap-ass toy specifically by hardware ID, and it would otherwise work perfectly (if not for the blacklisting effort), then you bet you can complain.

That's the issue here.

Re:If this were another company...

[nhytefall]

And I am pretty sure his response would be something to the effect of...

It's not supported, was never designed for it, is not going to supported, and I am tired of having to deal with those that *demand* I do. Enough is enough.

I am assuming, based on your response, you are one of the hackintosh fans.

Re:If this were another company...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft got in trouble for requiring Windows to run IE? That sure is news to me.

This stock holder...

[rinoid]

I am fine with this. After making more than a 1000% off my initial investment everything is pretty damn peachy. You can decry them, excoriate their "cool", label them as poseurs, but it doesn't really change the fact that Apple makes good hardware, a great OS, and a shit load of money.

Re:This stock holder...

[sbeckstead]

I like the shit load of money part. Apple stock has been good to a lot of us.

Re:This stock holder...

[Anonymous Coward]

AAPL is currently at $203 and change. That equals 2800% for me! Woo hoo!

Re:This stock holder...

[rinoid]

Frack me I'm on auto-troll today. This is not a troll post ... it's an accounting of the FACTS!

Re:This stock holder...

[ogdenk]

Who modded this troll? This guy is right.

Re:This stock holder...

[rinoid]

Maybe someone who bought Dell stock in 2003 instead of AAPL ? Now this is seriously OT.

Re: Any other company?

[King_TJ]

Actually, I doubt that.... The computer industry has a LONG reputation of building OS's that only run with specific hardware configurations sold by the OS vendor. Until the idea of a "PC clone" came along, this was pretty much how ALL personal computers were sold. (You weren't going to get your Commodore 64 to run anything written for the Atari 800, and your TI99/4A didn't work with any of those, OR a computer from Radio Shack....) SPARC machines ran their own operating systems too. (I think Intergraph had to sell a special port of Windows NT for them, to get them to run that.)

Certainly, the minicomputers and mainframes out there all ran their own proprietary OS's too.

No it doesn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to kill Atom support in Mac OS X is if Mac OS X supported Atom in the first place. Since it never did, there's nothing to break.

Re: load of crock?

[King_TJ]

Not completely. Sure, Apple is a *business* and as such, they're very interested in turning a good profit.

But to say they don't really care about the "user experience" as long as they rake in a lot of money? There are FAR too many facts that refute it to genuinely make that claim.

I'll give you just one story from last week. A woman I know convinced her best female friend to purchase an Apple Macbook, when she was in the market for a new laptop last year. (She already owned an iMac she was really pleased with, and wanted her friend to switch to Mac too so they'd be running the same type of computer, not have all the potential virus or spyware issues, etc.)

Well, unfortunately, her friend isn't very computer literate in the first place, and on top of that, it seems her Macbook's chicklet keyboard had an issue with one of the letter keys sticking occasionally. She managed to screw all sorts of things up that were simply user-error (locked herself out of visiting any web sites while trying to play with the parental controls feature, for example), and kept getting frustrated. The Apple store was a good 1 1/2 hour drive away from her house, making matters worse. When she did vist, the Genius Bar people helped straighten out her software issues ... but she was still upset about the sticking keyboard key. They had her mail it back to Apple for service at that point, but for some reason, Apple shipped it back without her issue being addressed.

So at THIS point, despite it all being relatively minor stuff - she was PISSED at Apple and their products and service. She stormed back to the Apple store to complain about the repair not being done properly, and you know what? They "bent some rules" for her, and swapped her for a BRAND NEW Macbook Pro which had more RAM, a better graphics card, faster processor and more drive space than her low-end Macbook that was just out of the 1 year warranty!

Now she's finally "seen the light" on Apple customer service, and is buying an iMac as her next desktop machine at Xmas time.

There's a reason Apple consistently gets top ratings in magazines like Consumer Reports for customer service. They screw things up like ALL companies do, but they're known for resolving issues to people's satisfaction, eventually ... not just saying "Sucks to be you!" or wasting hours of your time on hold with someone who can't speak your language very well, reading off a card to you.

Re: Any other company?

[postbigbang]

There were going to be four processor families supported by Windows NT and 2000. Guess that didn't happen, although the ports were completed.

Apple is known for this behavior. It's part of their business model, viz the Palm Pre, and so on. Apple gets control; you have to put up with that or go to a different platform.

Apple didn't write CUPS

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple didn't write CUPS, they bought it.

The usability there was there before Apple purchased.

So, "*screen: CUPS is the standards-based, open source printing system developed by Apple Inc. for Mac OS® X and other UNIX®-like operating systems.*"

Is incorrect.

It has its development CONTINUED by Apple, mainly in order to get best compatibility for Apple Inc, Mac OS X. It was developed almost entirely by others.

Once again, so what?

[jht]

Apple doesn't make an Atom-based Mac. Nor did they in the past. They explicitly sell and license Mac OS X to run only on Macs. If you want to try and get it to work on a non-Mac with a different CPU and/or chipset than what Apple supports, you're on your own, good luck to you.

Apple isn't going to send an army of lawyers to your house to stop you from trying to build a hackintosh. They will if you figure it out and then start selling them - see Psystar for details. But they won't do anything to make it easy for you to build a hackintosh, and if it breaks - oh well, sucks to be you, next time buy a Mac or stick to a supported OS on your hackintosh.

Me, I stick to Windows 7 Pro on my eee901 for now, but I may switch to eeebuntu soon. I like it. I'll keep Mac OS on my Macs.

Re:Once again, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

eee k. thank you, mr. apple spokesman who posts on /. with his real name in his sig. brilliant!!!11

Re:Once again, so what?

[jht]

eee k. thank you, mr. apple spokesman who posts on /. with his real name in his sig. brilliant!!!11

I like my real name and my online persona. They're one and the same. I prefer that to "l33td00d1" or Anonymous Coward. If you don't mind saying what you actually think, there's no reason to be an AC here, and handles have never really been my thing either. Been around long enough to not give a damn, either - as my UID here might point out.

And I'm not an Apple anything, though in my consulting business I and my employees work about half on Macs and half on Windows. I'm Apple-certified because that's a requirement to be in their consultant program. I'm registered with Microsoft and Novell, too.

Most importantly, I like Apple stuff. I've got quite a bit of it. And an iPhone. I like it, too. It'd be nice if I could run any unsigned app on my iPhone without jailbreaking it, but I'm OK with it as-is. I've got a bunch of PCs, too. And an eee901. And lots of other gear. I like it, too.

But I still don't care if you can't run Snow Leopard on your netbook. Suck it up.

Re:Once again, so what?

[initialE]

The wierd thing is that OSX runs much better on an Atom than Windows 7 does, or even XP. I find the experience just as snappy as I would on a mac mini. Of course, don't use it for any heavy lifting, like making movies. If Apple sold an atom-based notebook, it would sell well.

Re:Once again, so what?

[trouser]

If Apple sold deep fried dog shit in a box it'd sell well. The fanbois will buy almost anything with an Apple logo on it.

build your own from darwin

[sgt scrub]

Why not just create your own replacement "OS/X" like OS and GUI?

Darwin currently includes support for both 32-bit and 64-bit variants of the PowerPC and Intel x86 processors used in the Mac and Apple TV as well as the 32-bit ARM processor used in the iPhone and iPod Touch. An open-source port of the XNU kernel exists which supports Darwin on Intel and AMD x86 platforms not officially supported by Apple.[7]

XNU is Open Source. http://code.google.com/p/xnu-dev/

If you want full compatibility you will need Open Source ports of Carbon, Cocoa APIs, the Quartz Compositor, and the Aqua user interface. Isn't Cocoa just Objective C? I'm not a big fan of the Apple desktop but I think it could be replicated. IMHO X is sufficient.

If you don't want to go through all of that work why not just use Linux?

Re:build your own from darwin

[sbeckstead]

Wow why go to all that trouble. Just get an Apple computer and you can run actual OS X.

Re:build your own from darwin

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is to have a tiny OS/X'ish laptop that only costs a few $100's. I haven't priced out anything Apply in a LONG time. Do they have anything priced near, or under, $350?

Re:build your own from darwin

[sbeckstead]

Nope, I guess if you want to run OS X you have to spend a bit more Money.

Re:build your own from darwin

[mambodog]

Objective-C is the language, Cocoa is the API. Cocoa APIs are also available for some other languages, but Objective-C is the primary language for Mac software.

Re: Any other company?

[peragrin]

Palm is breaking all USB devices to make their one work. Mean while the motorola droid already has a third party app to give them full access with out breaking anything.

Msft stopped supporting non intel processors for 6 years until the xbox 360 came out. And if you mod that you can't access xbox live anymore. Also msft has never supported sparc therefore they are evil.

Apple provides support and software for a limited number of devices. They build itso thatthe hardware is less likely to crash. If you don't like it then don't use it. Any of it. You can't pickand choose which parts you want as it only works as one piece.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re: Any other company?

[Stradivarius]

what USB device has Palm broken?

Morons:

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple OS software is only designed and licensed to run on Apple hardware.

There is no Apple hardware that uses the Atom CPU.

Therefore it was never supported, so it can't be "officially unsupported" now.

Jesus.

It's dreadful

[Anonymous Coward]

Anddd....receiving the Slashie for "Worst Car Analogy of the Year"...

Q'est-ce que c'est... You did not like this car analogy? I thought it was magnifique. It speaks to the very heart of the matter, using an analogy of cars to present a compelling example of such complete distortion of the issues that one able to accept the completely bent version of the facts could not help but agree - though it is likely they would have in the first place...

The problem is, there is no way of preventing a car engine from working in a different car than the designer intended. You can even put the car engine on the ground, connect up fuel and electricity and start and run it without a car. It's not a good idea, but you can do it.

It's a mechanical device - just like a door lock, a wheelbarrow, or a food mixer. It cannot do any checking on what it is attached to, simply because it is a simple mechanical device.

The statement that changing the "gearing" can render a car engine unable to function in a different car simply reveals that the writer knows very little about car engines or related mechanical devices.

I've done many engine swaps in different vehicles over the years and it just isn't possible to create such an obstacle. Either the engine and whatever adapter parts are necessary fit in the vehicle's engine compartment, or it doesn't.

Re: load of crock?

[twosmokes]

Wait, so Apple fixed a hardware error and we should cheer them for it? After they gave her the runaround twice? Yes, stellar customer service there.

That's an issue that should have been resolved the first time she brought it to the store. If not then and there she never should have been required to mail the laptop back herself. Which then should have never been returned without a repair.

I'm sure there are many happy Apple customers, I just don't think that's the best story to show how great their service is.

1/2 Right - 1/2 Vast

[konohitowa]

Well, I RTFA and followed the links there. I found the part where this build isn't working with the Atom processor. However, I was unable to find the "official" part. Any links to that?

Re:1/2 Right - 1/2 Vast

[sbeckstead]

Nope since it never officially existed it can't actually be killed. So it should work officially as good with the Atom processor as it officially ever did.

Re:1/2 Right - 1/2 Vast

[konohitowa]

I suppose I should have added a sarcasm tag on there as it seems that there are more people than not who won't get my point. Glad to see at least you did.

It would be interesting to know how many of the people expressing outrage and indignation on this thread actually even use a hacked OS X install on an Atom processor. Given how many of them are obviously lacking in hardware knowledge as well as software development experience (Can you say "regression testing?" Sure. I knew you could.) I think it's unlikely that many of them actually have the nerd 'nads necessary to deal with a hackintosh. Then again, script kiddies generally show the same level of ignorance (the jailbreak "exploit" *cough* *cough* being a fine example), so who knows.

Why do I think I've just set myself up for a stream of worthless, anecdotal replies?

Uh, you come off too much as a fanboi

[Shivetya]

Your quote reminds me very much of that Glen Beck story yesterday.

Unless they //Apple// specifically deny or acknowledge the event it has not occurred?

this is like their constant updating of iTunes or iPod firmware to prevent non Apple use. Yet they would never come and say it.

Look at the title of the article, OS X update officially kills, not Apple. It is the same type of reference as saying "guns kill people, instead of blaming the people".

I understand what you intended to say but it comes off as someone knee jerk defending Apple for their latest stunt.

Re:Uh, you come off too much as a fanboi

[ogdenk]

Latest stunt? WTF?! What makes you think Apple owes it to you to support hardware they don't even use in their products?

I could see getting pissy if they stopped supported all but a couple specific Core 2 Duo chips but Atom was never officially supported in the first place.

I like my Macbook and my Hackintosh desktop but I don't think they owe it to me to support my hardware. They don't support it and I don't expect them to help but if they tried to sue me for running OS X on a PC, I'd be angry but this is a silly non-issue.

Re:Uh, you come off too much as a fanboi

[Macman408]

this is like their constant updating of iTunes or iPod firmware to prevent non Apple use. Yet they would never come and say it.

Maybe not outright, but in iTunes 8.2.1, they made it pretty obvious to anybody that knew what was going on, when the release notes said "iTunes 8.2.1 provides a number of important bug fixes and addresses and issue with verification of Apple devices."

As an Engineer, I'd agree with others who think that there could be a legitimate reason for this - they might have changed something that now makes it explicitly incompatible.

As an Engineer who has worked in a company with a Marketing department, I'd bet this wasn't primarily an Engineering change - if it worked before and it doesn't now, they're not going to choose a point release to break it; if 10.6 broke the Atom, I'd be more likely to believe that it was an optimization. It's still possible, I just don't think it's the most likely situation.

As a Mac user, I have just one thing to say: Who cares? Does this topic really merit hitting the Slashdot front page 3 times?

Personally, I'd bet on an Apple product in the first half of next year that will fall between the iPhone/iPod Touch and the MacBook Air. And it won't run on an Atom. (Hey, isn't it about time for PA Semi to come out with something useful?)

Re: load of crock?

[s73v3r]

Yes, because had this been Dell, Gateway, or most other computer companies, they'd have given her the run around twice, and then said "Ooops, your warranty is up. Too bad."

Atom is Dead Anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

I just paid $400 for one of these: Dual core celeron, 2GB RAM, 11.6" screen. Blows the Atom netbooks out of the water.

"Kills Intel Atom Support"?! What support?

[timbloom]

Apple did not "Kill Support" as there was no support to begin with. You can't kill something that doesn't exist in the first place.
They broke the unsupported hacks that were allowing people to use Atom processors. There's a pretty large difference, even though some people want to keep blaming Apple for this. Intentional or unintentional, they're not killing any support.
I'm sure it's only a matter of days until somebody bypasses this anyway.

Re:"Kills Intel Atom Support"?! What support?

[Anonymous Coward]

First, everyone here knows that hackintosh machines are not "supported", so thanks for the pointless comment. Second, the existing hacks have nothing to do with enabling Atom support, so you're also wrong.

Re:"Kills Intel Atom Support"?! What support?

[timbloom]

Precisely why this is a non-issue and nothing for people to rag on Apple about. This article shouldn't have even made it to Slashdot. It's just another forum to people to complain their pirated and pre-hacked versions of OS X aren't working on unsupported hardware.
If you want a Mac, buy a Mac.
If you like getting software running on hardware it was never supposed to be on, congrats, you now have a challenge to fill your day.
If you just want to have a Mac without paying for a Mac.. I have no sympathy for you.

Re:"Kills Intel Atom Support"?! What support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from the fact this topic made every other goddamn tech website, hacking software where it doesn't belong has always been a central topic on slashdot. So thanks for your censorship concerns, but GTFO.

Wow, you can Kill That!

[sbeckstead]

How does one actually officially Kill something that one never officially had? And any other company would get pretty much the same treatment as Apple if they didn't actually have the support that they um "officially killed" at least on /.

Atom vs PPC

[not-my-real-name]

What I find ironic is that there is more fuss being made about support for Atom processors than PowerPC processors, and Apple even made PowerPC based computers. Once could also complain about the lack of 68k support, but probably most people don't remember back that far.

Re:Atom vs PPC

[mdm-adph]

Or, it's because 68k and x86 are completely and utterly different things, yet there's practically no difference in the instruction set between Core2 chips and Atom chips.

We can defend it all we want to, but this is a dick move from Apple, plain and simple. It's their right, sure, but it's still dick-ish.

Re:Atom vs PPC

[Anonymous Coward]

/. - Where doing things that make sense, without having any responsibility to do otherwise, makes you a dick.

Re: Any other company?

[Golddess]

I believe peragrin is referring to this, although I don't really understand how it breaks all USB devices.

Re: Any other company?

[mabhatter654]

complaining about OSX on Atom is like complaining that you can't run Microsoft's Xbox OS on your computer. As Microsoft previously sold Unbundled OSes an OS tied to THEIR hardware was a change in business... but I don't really see any "Xbox on PC" projects out there, nor people crying there wasn't one.

personally, I think Apple just decided to optimize for higher level processors. Atom is basically a Pentium 3 shrunk small. Apple really wants to build for only Core 2 Duo and higher as all but the first round of Core Duo/Solo Macs are fully 64-bit and VT aware CPU models (hence the premium) For the longest time the Java 6 updates specifically excluded the Core Duo/Solo chips and several of the new features of Snow Leopard are "diminshed" on the oldest Intel Macs. When the oldest Intel Processor they have to support is a higher bin Core 2 Duo, Apple has a lot of room to optimize code that would make even Gentoo Linux users envious. It also has the neat side effect of cutting out the cheapest bottom-barrel processors from running their OS, but I doubt that was even a thought in design meetings.

Re: Any other company?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I buy this XBox OS? You can buy MacOS at apple.com

Re: load of crock?

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Apple bent the rules on my iMac G5 that was three months over it's three year warranty. Power supply failed, they replaced the power supply and logic board for free. New power supply failed after 3 months, they ordered the part in to arrive the same day, it came by motorbike from Manchester UK to Solihull store, and my computer was fixed by 6PM that day.

I also suffered from the faulty NVIDIA 8600M GT GPU's that plagues the MacBook Pro, some Dell, Sony and HP machines. I required a new logic board on my . Metal around the screen was also scratched, so they replaced the whole entire screen (not just the LCD panel, but the whole thing) in with the repair.

Apple have also replaced my battery three times, it was holding 80% capacity after 9 months.

Never had a problem, I have used three Apple Stores for repair work.

On the other hand, I have had a to get a Toshiba and a Sony laptop replaced. Toshiba took three weeks and came back scratched, the Sony was took three months and returned without a battery.

I'm not an Apple fan in some respects, but their support is top notch.

Re: Any other company?

[ADRA]

NT4 did ship with 4 OS revisions: X86, Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC.

Apply did intentionally cripple their OS because Atoms are standard X86 instruction sets. Its not like building some new fangled incompatible technology like mips, alpha, PPC, or ARM. Its like building an Intel X86 architecture instruction set supported OS then checking to see that the CPU version ID is 5 instead of 7. If 7 then fail to boot. That is effectively what Apple is doing.

Re: load of crock?

[SimonTheSoundMan]

I should also proof read. Apologies. :D

Evil Apple!

[Swift2001]

Let's see... how much is the Mac OS? A point version has been $129. Snow Leopard is $29, for a few minor changes on the surface, and some major changes under the hood. The business strategy for Apple has been quite consistent through the years. From 3.2, which was on the Mac Plus I bought, through System 6, it was free. As in, go into the store with the floppies and get them to make you three or four floppies, and you have the update. Then they started charging for 7, 8 and 9, though not what you pay with Windows. Apple makes money on the hardware. Same model applies to the music store and the app store; software charge just covers third-party profits and/or copyright holder fees. It's there to make the hardware more useful.

So, where's the profit if people put it on a netbook? Miniscule. By the way, where's the profit on netbooks? Well, nowhere. They're selling like hotcakes, losing money on each, but they'll make it up in volume. You'll notice that, last quarter, Microsoft lost money. Last quarter, sales were up for PCs but they lost money -- except Apple.

Everybody's waiting for the supposed tablet/big iPhone, whatever.

Re:Evil Apple!

[Ash-Fox]

You'll notice that, last quarter, Microsoft lost money.

Which market was it lost in though? Microsoft does far more than just PCs.

Last quarter, sales were up for PCs but they lost money -- except Apple.

Which market did Apple make the majority of their money on? Apple does far more than just PCs.

Re:Evil Apple!

[Anonymous Coward]

Which market was it lost in though? Microsoft does far more than just PCs.

It was lost in their software division. The XBox isn't big enough to cause a major dent, and their hardware lines are profitable.

Which market did Apple make the majority of their money on? Apple does far more than just PCs.

Macs. $3.95B worth. iPod and iPhone combined revenue: $3.86B. Other revenue: $2.06B (software, peripherals, other hardware, accessories, iTunes Store).

http://www.osx86project.org/ infected my PC XP

[rezaroo]

I read this article and proceeded to http://www.osx86project.org/ website to check it out - clicked on InsanelyMac button from my Windows XP browser (I.E. 7.0) and was the beneficiary of a virus attack - which ended up disabling my desktop. I can only boot to windows recovery and I can see seven .exe loaded on c:\. This is akin to throwing nails on the road and watching people get a flat tire - it must be illegal. Is there any government agency you can report this to?

Re:http://www.osx86project.org/ infected my PC XP

[Hamsterdan]

Strange, loads up fine in both FF and IE8 (XP)

Mac OS X? What about NT? Huh?

[toriver]

Spare some thought on the multitude of NT 3.5 users, happily running on MIPS or Alpha, when EVIL Microsoft decided to just release NT 4.0 on Intel hardware!

Seriously, it's their product. Want to run an operating system on Atom? Make and sell one! There is a market opportunity for you to exploit instead of whining.

Re:Mac OS X? What about NT? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

NT 4 did run on MIPS and Alpha machines. When Win2k came out was when the cutoff happened. I remember there being a lot of whining from the Alpha people when that happened, because Alpha support got dropped during the Release Candidate stage.

Re:Mac OS X? What about NT? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, NT 4.0 did support those platforms...It was dropped in a later service pack I think, and certainly by the time Windows 2000 came out. By then it was x86 and Itanium only, although technically with the 360 I guess the Windows Kernel is back on the PPC.

Despite what law says a company is not a "moral"

[Fastfwd]

...I don;t necessarily agree with Apple's decision here, but I don;t think they were morally wrong to make it.

Despite what law says a company is not a "moral" person. I think what they did is legal and I think it's not very nice to the few people using OSX on an Atom. Then again those people were cheating the system and Apple is in there for making $$$, not happy feelings.

Also there is the possibility that the change was not meant to break Atom but just happens to do it. Just because something works out for you does not mean that you intended it.

Apple is no hardware company

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has always been a software company. Their hardware is just an expensive dongle to go with their software.

Re: load of crock?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, so after failed attempts to get it fixed the first time and she had to drive 1.5 hours to the nearest Apple store to finally do something is great customer care? We must have different metrics of great.
Buy ANY PC from Costco, it comes with a two year warranty, two years of technical support and you can return it within the first 90 days no questions asked for a full refund.

Re: load of crock?

[b0bby]

Wait, so Apple fixed a hardware error and we should cheer them for it? After they gave her the runaround twice?

It's pretty well established that if you screw up, and then fix the problem in a generous manner, the customer is going to be even happier with you than if you'd never screwed up at all. This case seems to be yet another confirmation of this principle.

Not Entirely

[weston]

OS X vs Ubuntu have not only entirely different target audiences but are entirely different experiences.

I don't know about entirely: I'm certainly in the audience for both and find them both to have well-thought out desktop experiences on top of unixy goodness.

OS X wins out for me largely because of support for a number of commercial apps that I find valuable, but I like Ubuntu quite a bit, and in a world where it had those useful apps, I might well choose it over Apple's stuff.

Shareware on both platforms

[LanMan04]

The amount of useful shareware/freeware available for Mac OS X (that actually works and isn't crippled w/out a license) absolutely dwarfs what's available for Windows.

And I care way more about getting apps that do the job I need them to do than with the "purity" of OSS.

Re: load of crock?

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as we're comparing anecdotes, my cousin had a Gateway computer several years ago with a 15" monitor. The platic stand on the bottom of the monitor broke, and Gateway didn't have a part to replace it with, or any 15" monitors in stock. So they sent him a new 17" monitor. No run-around at all.

Of course, if Gateway had 15" monitors still in stock, even if they had chronic stand breakage problems, he probably would have got one of those. I think every one of these companies gets it right sometimes and wrong other times. I can't say I have much personal experience with this sort of thing... I build my own. When parts break or go on the fritz I provide myself with cheap-ass customer service by cannibalizing old machines and implementing stupid workarounds.

Sorry you just proved you're a fanboy!

[syousef]

So at THIS point, despite it all being relatively minor stuff - she was PISSED at Apple and their products and service. She stormed back to the Apple store to complain about the repair not being done properly, and you know what? They "bent some rules" for her, and swapped her for a BRAND NEW Macbook Pro which had more RAM, a better graphics card, faster processor and more drive space than her low-end Macbook that was just out of the 1 year warranty!

Have you ever dealt with a keyboard that sticks on a laptop? What the fuck are you smoking? Calling this a "minor issue" is insane! It's enough to make a computer so frustrating it's UNUSABLE. On top of that they didn't fix it when it was shipped for repair at considerable inconvenience to her, and you call that a minor point too. Lastly you blame her for being a clueless user - yet isn't one of the big selling points of the Apple p latform? That it "just works". A swap of hardware at that point sounded like a reasonable thing, but nothing extraordinary or that required special mention of extremely good customer support.

Making excuses for your pet company doesn't do it any favours. The service just keeps degrading if you let them get away with it. Blaming the user is asinine.

Re:Sorry you just proved you're a fanboy!

[pdabbadabba]

OK, I happily grant that a stuck key is a major issue. But giving her a new MacBook Pro as compensation for the Apple repair department's failure to fix the key is phenomenal customer service any way you slice it.

Let us know what happens next time you have a stuck key on your Dell (or whatever). I'll bet they will not give you a new Adamo.

Call me a fanboy if you want, but you might be interested to know that I just bought my first Mac (literally) four days ago. So, either I can't be a fanboy, or you must concede that Apple is doing something right if they've already made a fanboy out of me.

Re:Sorry you just proved you're a fanboy!

[syousef]

OK, I happily grant that a stuck key is a major issue. But giving her a new MacBook Pro as compensation for the Apple repair department's failure to fix the key is phenomenal customer service any way you slice it.

Why exactly? They weren't able to fix the issue in a prompt manner. If they can't fix they must replace. They must do so in a timely manner. It's called a warranty. It's not phenomenal anything. They should be apologetic for wasting her time.

Let us know what happens next time you have a stuck key on your Dell (or whatever). I'll bet they will not give you a new Adamo.

Funny you should mention Dell. My latest laptop has been tragic. I've had 2 hard drive replacements, 2 screen replacements, a broken hinge, a stuck fan and a couple of other issues I've fixed myself (including a strange memory leak that required a BIOS reset). Their customer service hasn't been great. Repeated missed appointments etc. It's not my first laptop and I don't treat it roughly. So guess which manufacturer I'll be avoiding for my next purchase DESPITE them honouring their warranty. Worse customer service elsewhere doesn't make Apple's stellar (and in fact I have had bad experiences with Apple customer service when looking after a machine at work some years back....oh and their warranty on iPods is awful).

Call me a fanboy if you want, but you might be interested to know that I just bought my first Mac (literally) four days ago. So, either I can't be a fanboy, or you must concede that Apple is doing something right if they've already made a fanboy out of me.

Or perhaps it's a new shiny toy that you're in love with at the moment and you don't have the maturity to keep your sense of perspective.

Re:Sorry you just proved you're a fanboy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why exactly? They weren't able to fix the issue in a prompt manner. If they can't fix they must replace. They must do so in a timely manner. It's called a warranty. It's not phenomenal anything. They should be apologetic for wasting her time.

I think you missed two important details:

1. The machine they gave her was much better than the one they failed to repair. She started with a Macbook and finished with a Macbook Pro of far superior specifications. This is certainly well beyond their obligations under the warranty.
2. The original machine was actually just out of warranty.(at least the standard 1-year warranty. There is no mention of whether she had AppleCare)

Or perhaps it's a new shiny toy that you're in love with at the moment and you don't have the maturity to keep your sense of perspective.

That's certainly possible. :) The thrust of my point, though, is that I'm not a Mac die hard. I have one Mac, and I like it. I also own four PCs. So far I'm liking the Mac experience, but I'm not blind to the virtues of the other options. I don't know from personal experience how good Apple's service is - I have heard a combination of raves like the one here and horror stories. My point is just that, in at least this one case, Apple did a great job taking care of their customers. I hope they do as well for me if I have problems.

And why the personal attack on my maturity exactly? I think this is probably the sort of thing that gives /. discussions such a reputation for quickly descending into name calling.

Re:Sorry you just proved you're a fanboy!

[pdabbadabba]

Sorry. Posted as AC by mistake.

Re: Any other company?

[R3d M3rcury]

Apply [sic] did intentionally cripple their OS because Atoms are standard X86 instruction sets.

But what is a standard X86 instruction set? Does it include SSE3?

The Atom includes SSE3, but Intel's compilers require a special switch to generate SSE3 compatible code for the Intel Atom. So I would assume there is something "special" about SSE3 on the Atom.

So, possibility one is that Apple is explicitly saying that they want to crush these people making Hackintosh Netbooks. Possibility two is that Apple is now using instructions that are not available on the Intel Atom because they don't make an Intel Atom-based machine and would rather optimize their code for the machines that they do make.

Which one seems like it makes more sense?

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Re: load of crock?

[BikeHelmet]

Yeah, roughly the same thing happened to my Uncle, twice, so it must be a common occurance.

The Apple store is about 2 hours away for him. His old PPC iMac bit the dust just outside the warranty period. It had been repaired once in the past, free of charge. (dead HDD) Apparently this time the HDD decided to go a bit crazy with write commands, so any file written to after the problem began was corrupted. (Mostly system files, thank goodness)

He upgraded to a low end x86 iMac, but with lots of RAM and HDD space. Unfortunately, the HDD went flakey about 6 months later. When he went in to get it repaired, they just gave him a new one with all his stuff copied over.

However, they messed up - this new one had half the RAM of his old one, and a smaller HDD. Ooops! So he drove back and talked to them. They were very apologetic, and offered him $350 off the price of an upgrade to any other iMac. Since they had to copy everything over again, it kind of made sense. They also discounted the price he paid for his original iMac, so he got a $1700 machine for about $250, one year ago. The specs are strikingly close to this.

It's not the best deal in the world, but it sure beats the experience at most places pawning computers on people.

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Re: Any other company?

[Draek]

But there were complex technological obstacles to overcome to support alternate platforms back then, you couldn't just take the SPARC source, recompile it for the Alpha and expect it to work. Whereas in this case, the fact that there's a fairly recent OSX build that *does* run on Atom CPUs means that whatever the problem is, it's a fairly small one that could feasibly be corrected as easily as any normal bug.

Re: load of crock?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a little known warranty issue that they can actually replace things out-of-warranty as-if it was under the warranty. They can also replace things that are under warranty, but with respect to things NOT covered by warranty.

I believe they call it Customer Satisfaction (something similar, and I am not being sarcastic).

Re: Any other company?

[arminw]

.....You can buy MacOS at apple.com....
only for computers built by Apple.

Re: Any other company?

[shutdown -p now]

There's no single "standard x86 instruction set". There are variations between AMD and Intel offerings, and there are now many generations of x86 even if you disregard those differences.

It's DRM.

[cyn1c77]

You seem to be operating under the premise that Apple is a Software company like Microsoft. They're not. They're a hardware company like HP or Dell. That the operating system they provide with their hardware is their own creation is irrelevant, and they're under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to provide support for any platform that they didn't sell.

That they're disabling support for the Atom platform is irrelevant. They're disabling support for a platform that they don't sell. The EULA that comes with their software specifically prohibits your using that platform in the first place, so if you were using their software legitimately, it shouldn't affect you. If it does affect you, too bad.

I'm always excited when another company introduces DRM into my life too!

waahh

[smash]

OS X doesn't run on my Powerbook either. I think i'll bitch and complain to apple about it. What do the system requirements on the box say? I'm guessing it is "An apple XXX with YYY mb ram"? If your system doesn't fulfill the requirements ("apple macintosh" being one of the requirements), then don't be shocked that it doesn't work.

Re: Any other company?

[Carewolf]

Intel's compiler generates codes that check for non-intel CPU's and disable some optimizations on them. This was introduced in icc 7 to make sure the generated code would run slower on AMD Athlons than on Pentium IV. You can short-circuit the checking functions in the binary and the code runs fine on all x86 chips. I assume the reason Atom needs a specific flag is because it is identifies slightly different than other Intel chips and gets caught by the non-Intel harrasment blob.

So what you just used for your argument that Apple doesn't add extra code to harrass Atoms is that the Intel compiler always adds extra code to harrass non-Intel. That's not a good argument ;)

No ATOM product from Apple Computers

[hicksw]

About all one should infer from the ATOM user problem is that Apple has no plans to build and sell an ATOM based product that runs OS X. Not until the next update, anyway.

Re: Any other company?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apply did intentionally cripple their OS because Atoms are standard X86 instruction sets.

Do you know what "errata" are? And that Atoms (while having the same ISA) have different errata than the chips Apple uses?

Re: Any other company?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you take into account Apple's previous behaviour on trying to stop people hacking the iPod, and preventing people using anything but iTunes with the newer ones, the first option does actually seem quite likely.

Rationally, I think it is the second option in this case, but with Apple's past behaviour, I wouldn't bet on it.

history teaches not to fixate on org type for OS

[JohnnySoftware]

I will do a lo-rez crash course in computer history over most of the past half century to make the point that the intrinsic quality of an OS seems to be what gives it staying power. By low-rez I mean I am clipping out lots of bit players or companies that are redundant in the big picture.

In the mid-1970's, when 8-bit microprocessors first came out, there were two kind of computers.

CP/M computers (Imsai, Altair, Processor Technology)

one-off computers (PET, TRS-80, Apple II)

The CP/M computers all used the same 8-bit OS which was in spirit, and some say body, the precursor of MS-DOS (born "SCP-DOS" since Microsoft licensed it for $60K instead of writing it themselves).

When IBM invented PC who made the BASIC used in almost every microcomputer at the time. Microsoft had no OS so they license SCP-DOS really fast and then rel-icensed it to IBM for a low-rate per system that quickly added up.

CP/M died pretty quickly after that, taking the 8-bit systems with it and some 16-bit systems that had moved up to CP/M-16. They pretty all died together. Moral is, if you are different brand computers who share a common OS and the OS becomes uninteresting you ALL become uninteresting at once.

The Commodore PET was replaced with the Amiga (which died ages ago), the Apple II was replaced with the Macintosh - and the TRS-80 went threw a few iterations, then became a PC clone and then went away.

I will limit discussion of minicomputer to just this: they had Unix and they had one-off operating systems.

Just before those microcomputers were around, there were mainframes. IBM had mostly batch systems that were appalling, Univac, Sperry, Control Data Corporation, Cray, etc. And a computer named Multics that had a secure, interactive operating system which Unix was loosely based on. These brands had their own OS except for one little anomaly.

A company named AMDAHL made an IBM mainframe clone (yes, but do not freak out yet). AMDAHL and IBM feuded a lot, vying for customers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl_Corporation

Amdahl's customers were allowed to license IBM's OS and run it on their computers. The reason was IBM had a monopoly (and acted like it) so they ran afoul of the DOJ. Amdahl computers were cheaper than IBM computers.

Anyway, history of the computer industry clearly shows there is no one "right" way for an OS to work. At any given point over the past three and a half decades, there have been some operating systems that only ran on the brand of computer who invented it and some that were mostly voluntarily licensed out to OEMs.

Apple II was way more foolproof & fun computer to use than CP/M computers. The Mac OS was way better than MS-DOS for doing white color work.

Multics was laid to rest in the mid 1980's having been sold to some very chic, though mostly discrete, rich customers. Sadly, Multics passed having never exceeded microscopic market share. However, the ripples it sent downstream early in its life shaped the operating systems and the computer security models we use today.

Unix, its heir, was kind of king in the late 1980's and early 1990's for business users and some hobbyists ran the one inexpensive commercial distribution of it.

Macs with System 7 were too slow in the mid-1990's compared to MS-Windows 95 PCs, and Linux was still a bit shaky. But by 2001, all 3 operating systems had found their legs and were coming out with new versions that got great acceptance in the market place.

Amdahl had faded away not being able to keep up up the relentless pace of IBM's hardware innovation, leaving IBM mainframes cloneless for the first time in a quarter century. IBM very roughly around this time introduced Linux to zOS, a fusion of several decades of proprietary mainframe technologies that runs on the 64-bit zSeries mainframes. It was the 64-bit zSeries that dealt the death blow to 31-bit Amdahl machines in 2000.

Today, about 70% of IBM PC clones still run Windows XP which came out in 2001. Ma

there is a compiler switch to optimize out pirates

[JohnnySoftware]

Sigh, every time a computer-making OS vendor does something nice for their customers, god kills a pirate.

My Mac seems to be running a little faster since OS 10.6.2 came out. I cannot see how there is any problem with it.

The OS is only warranted to run on Apple's Macintosh hardware so suck it up. Why should Apple have to do compatibility testing for every computer ever built, including ones they never made/licensed/owned/saw?

If your Dell/HP/Acer PC maker claimed in ads, statements, or online that their product ran Apple's OS X then return your system to the vendor that sold it.

Apple does not do software returns. Nobody does. In fact, if you prove that Windows is defective they will only give you $5 and good luck collecting that.

Part of optimizing code is looking what all the target hardware - and other domain entities - have in common and figuring out how to help it. In graphics, you do viewport clipping. In audio/video, you can do somewhat lossy compression for non-master copies. In hardware, you wring all the performance you can out of the hardware you are running on.

Pirates, you are not in the architecture.