Mac OS X 10.6.2 Confirmed to Drop Support for Intel Atom Processors


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OS X Daily confirms widespread reports of the loss of support for Intel's Atom processors in the Mac OS X 10.6.2 update released yesterday, confirming on-again, off-again claims of the change in developer seeds of the update. Given that the final public release of 10.6.2 is labeled Build 10C540, the same as the most recent developer seed that reportedly lacked Atom support, it comes as no surprise that the public release carries the same change.

If you have an official Apple Mac then go right ahead and update to Mac OS X 10.6.2, but if you have a Hackintosh Mac Netbook... well you will want to hold off. It has been confirmed that the final release of 10.6.2 kills Intel Atom support officially. Hackintosh Guru StellaRolla reports:

"The netbook forums are now blowing up with problems of 10.6.2 instant rebooting their Atom based netbooks."

Intel's low-power Atom processors are widely used in netbook computers, a market segment in which Apple does not currently compete. Netbooks have been popular targets for users to modify into "Hackintoshes" to run Mac OS X, providing users with a low-cost Mac solution in a small form factor machine.

It is unclear why Apple has chosen to remove Atom support from OS X at this time, although speculation has centered around the possibility that the company is attempting to make it more difficult for users to build their own netbook Macs ahead of a launch of the company's much-rumored tablet device. Apple had been rumored to be looking to adopt the Atom platform for its tablet, but the company's April 2008 acquisition of low-power ARM chip design firm P.A. Semi signaled a shift toward a possible future in-house chip design for the device.

souricon.gif News source: Mac Rumors

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Here's a quote from BertP on appleinsider

I took a look at the System Profiler and it lists Darwin 10.2.0 rather than 10.0.0. So, it is more than the kernel extensions upgraded. Still, I don't buy into the conspiracy theories about disabling hackers; it is more like that the hackers moved outside of Apple's zone of support.

He might be right, that would make more sense

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Apple never supported the ATOM, even if it did work with previous release. Apple don't need to support the ATOM as they don't sell any hardware with it.

So, in the end, Apple did not "remove" a feature, it was never there before and never used by Apple.

It just stopped working. That's all.

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yes, it should be fairly easy to put it back in since there was some builds of 10.6.2 with Atom support....

If hackers can get AMD support.. They'll get Atom support.

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I wonder what exactly changed... was a driver removed? or did Apple in purpose added some code that makes OSX work bad or not work at all on Atoms... the first is dodgy but legit, the second is illegal.

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I wonder what exactly changed... was a driver removed? or did Apple in purpose added some code that makes OSX work bad or not work at all on Atoms... the first is dodgy but legit, the second is illegal.

I don't think it's illegal ;) They can do what they want since the OS is meant to run on their hardware only. And there's nothing illegal about setting minimum requirements (in this case it would be a core solo cpu or better and the atom can be classified as not meeting the requirements)

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I wonder what exactly changed... was a driver removed? or did Apple in purpose added some code that makes OSX work bad or not work at all on Atoms... the first is dodgy but legit, the second is illegal.

A driver wasn't updated when the Darwin kernel was updated, so they just removed it.

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Apple never supported the ATOM, even if it did work with previous release. Apple don't need to support the ATOM as they don't sell any hardware with it.

So, in the end, Apple did not "remove" a feature, it was never there before and never used by Apple.

It just stopped working. That's all.

Features, and hardware support don't just magically disappear :/

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Features, and hardware support don't just magically disappear :/

They were never used. Show me a hardware made by Apple that use the ATOM CPU? No? Well, no need to keep supporting it. Who will it harm? Hackers? Who cares!

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Never really understood why people would want to install OS X on a netbook, personally. I mean, Windows 7 works just fine. It'd be like installing Windows 7 on a Mac (and not dual booting) -- why? You have a perfectly capable operating system. Unless you're dual booting for some reason (and why would you really need to on a netbook), why bother? I just fail to see the point unless you've absolutely got a hard-on for one OS.

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Never really understood why people would want to install OS X on a netbook, personally. I mean, Windows 7 works just fine. It'd be like installing Windows 7 on a Mac (and not dual booting) -- why? You have a perfectly capable operating system. Unless you're dual booting for some reason (and why would you really need to on a netbook), why bother? I just fail to see the point unless you've absolutely got a hard-on for one OS.

I just finished installing Mac OS X onto my netbook, and I did it because its different and a bit of a (challenging) learning experience.

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Some people like to try new things. They do it because they can and they want to. It's like putting Linux on a console.

I've never really understood that one ether.

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Apple never supported Atom processors, all they've done is block the ability to run on that processor. Just like AMD, but people can get round that so they can get round the Atom block too.

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Processor is one thing, what about support for the other hardware?

If it is supported it is supported, if it ain't then it ain't.... ??? I'm not sure what your question is concerning. Can you possibly be less specific?

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Processor is one thing, what about support for the other hardware?

How hard it is to understand that Apple only needs to support (in OSX) what Apple sells? No need to support a Matrox videocard if Apple never sold a Mac with a Matrox card, same goes for CPU, Chipset, audio, video, ....

Apple is not "required" to facilitate the job of hackers using their OS on plain PC.

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How hard it is to understand that Apple only needs to support (in OSX) what Apple sells? No need to support a Matrox videocard if Apple never sold a Mac with a Matrox card, same goes for CPU, Chipset, audio, video, ....

Apple is not "required" to facilitate the job of hackers using their OS on plain PC.

Last time I checked my Mac also works out-of-the-box with a wide variety of optical drives, memory (RAM) cards, hard disk drives, printers, scanners, (video) cameras, mouses, keyboards, mp3-players, monitors etc. Which is probably what he/she means.

However, you're completely right when it comes to processors, chipsets and video cards (etc.).

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the second is illegal.

What?! LOL! No it's not. Apple can disable the OS working on Atom if they like. Saying they HAVE to LEGALLY support Atom is like saying they have to support ARM or MIPS processors! They don't support because the Apple hardware doesn't use it. There's nothing sinister here ... they simply don't want people using the OS on hardware they're not supposed to. Fair enough!

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It's a good thing apple doesnt sell atom computers. Can you imagine the apple tax on that? lol

i can get a normal netbook with atom processor for $298 or cheaper. Apple version would be at least $800 for the same thing.

well apple can't make a computer for less than 500 $ which isn't crap, they said so themself :p

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Apple never supported Atom processors, all they've done is block the ability to run on that processor. Just like AMD, but people can get round that so they can get round the Atom block too.

The difference here is that OS X never ran on AMD chips. It did run unmodified on Atoms. What they've done here is deliberately block support for the chip.

The only logical assumption is that Atom-based netbooks threaten a future new Apple product and the rumoured tablet seems the likeliest candidate. Therefore we can also assume that whatever this new fantastical Apple device will be, it won't be Atom-powered.

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