New OS X won’t support the Atom
When Mac OS X 10.6.2 comes out, the rumor is that the the new version of the Apple operating system will no longer run on the Atom processor, insuring that it can’t be used on certain netbook computers.
A so-called “Hackintosh” community has grown up around some netbook PC computers that can easily be made to run OS X. Most of those systems are based on Intel’s Atom processor. Since Apple’s change to Intel-based hardware, there is little physical difference between personal computers from Apple and those from other PC manufacturers. Getting some of those Atom-powered netbooks to run Apple’s operating system is fairly simple, though it does violates Apple’s terms of use. Thus, the new version is said to be made to detect the Atom and keep OS X from running on it.
The report comes from users who are currently running OS X on those very same netbooks, via the OS X Daily site, which reported, “You can’t help but suspect this move is Apple’s attempt at shutting down the growing and popular Hackintosh Netbook community, since Apple has no product line that runs the Atom itself. Mac OS X runs absolutely flawlessly on much of the PC Netbook hardware, once it’s configured you wouldn’t know you’re not on a Mac. Maybe it’s in effort to kill the Atom Hackintosh Netbooks in anticipation of the rumored Tablet? Or maybe it’s something totally unrelated?”
It is almost certainly not unrelated. Apple has always been tenacious about defending their intellectual property rights, and this is especially true of OS X, as witness the Psystar series of infringement lawsuits by Apple. This move is surely aimed directly at stopping the unlicensed use of OS X on Atom netbooks. Apple, of course, has a perfect right to protect their patents and copyrights, not to mention their investment, in the OS X operating system.
There are, of course, two sides to that street. Apple has recently been sued by Nokia, who claims that the maker of OS X has been guilty of infringing on a variety of Nokia cell phone patents for the last couple of years. It seems that the Nokia vs. Apple suit my well be worth billions of dollars. The whole combined mess makes one wonder, though, if Apple has much of a reason to pretend they are righteously indignant about people “stealing” OS X when Apple may well be guilty of stealing billions from Nokia. That suit has yet to be settled, of course, and Apple may be completely innocent. Time will tell.
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November 2nd, 2009
Wasn’t the Nokia patent infringement far more to do with the iPhone? In which case its not so much to do with OSX as it is to do with the iPhone more specifically. I could be wrong and have misundestood exactly what patent infringements Nokia were suing for though.
November 3rd, 2009
This is pure futility on Apple’s part. While Apple does more than its fair share of things to piss people off, attempting to circumvent perfectly functioning and legitimately purchased and installed software is going too far. It won’t matter anyway. I have more faith and respect in the OSx86 community than Apple. They are quite capable to come up with in a fix, and in a very short time period. When our courts side with abusive companies, someone has to stick up for the unrepresented others who have been disrespected by both Apple and Psystar.
November 3rd, 2009
If hackintoshers have paid for a OSX licence does that not make them perfectly safe under the terms of copyright? This is just another underhanded attempt by Apple to ringfence their profit margins and stifle any competition.