Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
I saw this on Google News yesterday, and I figured, "Huh, must have missed that on /."
Ah well, let the shitstorm begin.
Facebook is the new AOL
I don't think that you can blame them for dropping support.
Any other company and yes, they would be blamed.
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 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.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
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?
My work here is dung.
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
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
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.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
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.
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!"
Time for another thousand posts on how Evil Apple should leave in support for hardware that they don't sell. Fantastic.
--saint
>> "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?
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, ...
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.
Well, in this exact case they make the software malfunction on a certain chipset and the only one to blame is Apple.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
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.
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.
Ah, there's nothing to support an argument like a blog post from 2006.
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.
Unless it's based on the presence of some other capabilities like SSE4.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
One of the more uninformed posts I've read today.
Apple owns or participates in a HUGE number of open-source projects.
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.
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.
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?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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.
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)?
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.
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?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
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.
DATABASE WOW WOW
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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
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.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
"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.
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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.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
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.
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.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Yes, and see what happened when BE attempted this. M$ knifed them. Apple appears to be that stupid.
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.
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.
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?
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
what USB device has Palm broken?
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".
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.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
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.
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.
This ain't rocket surgery.
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.
DATABASE WOW WOW
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
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."
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.
Why bother
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.
un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
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?
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.
.....You can buy MacOS at apple.com....
only for computers built by Apple.
All theory is gray
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.
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...