17 ms·

Snow Leopard Update Blocks Intel Atom, Kills Hackintosh

42 points by Freebytes 17y ago

xal 17y ago
It's really quite straight forward: Buy a Mac if you want OSX. It's great to spend money on something that you enjoy!
- smithjchris 17y ago
  Which is why i spent $100 on my PC and run XP using the PID that came stuck to it :) More money to spend on my family.
- jrockway 17y ago
  There are no 9" or 10" Macs. It's not so great to carry around a 13" laptop when you want a 9" one. (Fortunately, Linux doesn't have this problem. It supports Atom out of the box.)
  - axod 17y ago
    That's what an iPhone is for. ok,ok there's a gap for a 9-10" macbook. They should make one.
    - SwellJoe 17y ago
      How is an iPhone a 9" laptop?
      - unalone 17y ago
        What axod was suggesting was that the people who need a laptop that small might be well off with what the iPhone's capable of. Certainly my iPod touch is what I use when I'm on the move, and it's capable of everything up to responding to people on Hacker News.
        jrockway 17y ago
        Capable but not pleasant. Using my netbook is like using a slightly-slower version of my desktop machine. No compromises. (I carry around my HHKB with it, so the input experience is the same.)
      - axod 17y ago
        It kinda fits the gap for me. In terms of functionality, it's a netbook pretty much. The only difference is it's got a smaller screen, and a touchscreen instead of keyboard. Sure, it takes a little more fiddling, but I can easily ssh to servers, and fix things from my iphone, as well as any webapp/website things I need to do.
        SwellJoe 17y ago
        The only difference is it's got a smaller screen, and a touchscreen instead of keyboard. Which are huge differences. Sure, I've had an ssh client on my phone for about six years now (Sidekick II first, and now a G1), but I can't do work on my phone, even though it has a reasonable keyboard for such a small device. But, my Mini 9 is actually a pretty reasonable device for most of the work I do, up to and including development (though its obvious sweet spot is email and forums and such, which I do a lot of since support is a huge part of my business; and using the phone would be way too slow). I wouldn't consider it a replacement for the big 15" lappy or my desktop machine for serious development or graphics work or whatever, but when I am travelling light, it's exactly the right size and form-factor.
- rsheridan6 17y ago
  corollary: if you don't want to spend money, there's always Linux and BSD.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    Don't forget OpenSolaris. Unlike OSX, it has ZFS.
- unalone 17y ago
  Jesus, you got downvoted hard. Damn shame. Guys, it's really, really not that difficult. Apple offers you a combination hardware/software package. They design the software to work brilliantly with the hardware they design, and they work very hard to make sure your experience is the best imaginable. That's why they pair the two together. And Apple doesn't want you using their software on hardware it wasn't designed for, because they want to make sure you get their full experience. They're designers. They win international awards for their computers. They want you to get their product, not a hybrid of half of their idea with half of somebody else's cheap refuse. If you don't use OS X, you don't miss out on that much. It's not like you need OS X to live, and Apple's depriving you of something by asking you use their computer. If you don't want a Mac, then use Linux or Windows. If you want Apple's product, buy Apple's product, not a cheap third-rate knockoff. In return, when you buy a high-end Mac, you get a superb, pleasurable experience. For as low as, what, six hundred dollars now?, you get a beautiful piece of hardware that does what you want it to splendidly, has the best third-party ecosystem I've ever come across, and doesn't lose you cred among any fashionistas you might know, plus it runs on Unix so you can tinker away with it however you see it. It's a very nice machine and millions of man-hours were spent making it, so perhaps it's worth your saving up a little money to purchase the full package. I and many other Mac owners can testify that we are very happy with our buy and may buy another one in the distant future. I know the line of thought is that computers are just tools to get a job done, but that's like saying all a chair has to be is a plank of wood to get your ass on. There are planks of wood, and then there are chairs that lots of thought has gone into to make you as happy as you can be. We pay more for those chairs because while we don't need it to live, it makes our lives a little better. That's how Mac OS X's been made, and I don't think it's ridiculous to ask that we honor its maker's wishes, or at the very least, not bitch when the maker puts a little effort into ensuring you do it their way.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    I have to disagree Apple wants to make the experience the best possible. For instance, I spent a couple hours trying to make Munin work on a Mac and all I could monitor from the main computer was disk space and a couple other things I don't use. The lack of up-to-date versions (they don't update stuff between major OS releases) and the lack of proper package management (ports is subminimal) drive me crazy. And that's precisely why my Mac ended up being my "play" computer. It runs iTunes and syncs my iPod like nothing else can. And, BTW, when I updated my iPod, one of my _cables_ (yes - a cable) stopped working because it's "not supported". What evil mind besides Apple's would consider DRM-cripple cables? No... Macs are pleasing, but Apple doesn't aim to please it's clients above anything else. It strikes a balance between profit and an as-abusive-as-possible relationship with its customers.
- drewcrawford 17y ago
  It's interesting to see how many people support Pre syncing but not hackintoshing (not an observation about you, just an observation about hackers in general). I can't figure out why hackintoshing has such a bad name in the hacking community. I would imagine that hacking, the art of using things in clever and unintended ways, would be a great fit with osx86. Plus the osx86 guys are some of the smartest I know. The good people contribute to Darwin and the other core Apple projects and their code ends up in mainline os x. Hackintosh users are some of the most prolific driver writers and help get tons of USB drivers written that are useful to macs and osx86 machines alike. There's something really satisfying about building a mac, the same way there's something satisfying about building a linux or a windows box. Apple's DRM just makes it more fun. I really don't understand the hate.
  - Zev 17y ago
    The good people contribute to Darwin and the other core Apple projects and their code ends up in mainline os x. Could you link to some commits on Macosforge that were based on patches by people from osx86? This is the first I'm hearing of this. Hackintosh users are some of the most prolific driver writers and help get tons of USB drivers written that are useful to macs and osx86 machines alike. Last time I looked at osx86 (admittedly, years ago, long before Leopard was released), there weren't any custom kexts written by the community, just plists from Apple that were edited. Can you link to some custom kext's that have risen from osx86?
    - drewcrawford 17y ago
      > Could you link to some commits on Macosforge that were based on patches by people from osx86? There are cases that I'm aware of, but I think several Apple employees would fear retaliation if I outed them here :-) It's too bad that the XNU development process is totally closed (even if the code is OSS), as that's where you see so much of the osx86 activity. In particular, go look at voodooxnu, xnu-dev, etc. These are all drop-in replacement kernels for mach_kernel, run by hackintoshers, that accept patches from contributors. I believe voodoo will be the default kernel for the next PureDarwin (the new OpenDarwin) release. > Can you link to some custom kext's that have risen from osx86? http://code.google.com/p/voodoohda/ http://code.google.com/p/voodoohda/ http://code.google.com/p/voodoo-power/ http://code.google.com/p/voodoo-power/
mpk 17y ago
This is going to make a lot of people very upset. But really, news like this becomes a lot easier to swallow once you simply accept that Apple is a proprietary platform that works really hard at vendor lock-in.
- tvon 17y ago
  This is not vendor lock-in (if anything it's vendor lock-out, if anyone were to coin such a silly term). It is difficult to switch to Apple hardware, but switching away is as easy as installing Windows on a Mac.
  - pyre 17y ago
    > It is difficult to switch to Apple hardware No it isn't. It's no different than getting a new computer, and then putting Windows on it. I think you meant OSX, not 'Apple hardware.'
    - tvon 17y ago
      Ah yes, I'm treating them as one in the same but I did mean OSX specifically and not just the hardware.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  I am not sure how can anyone in his right mind claim this is unexpected. Apple has always been one of the more closed companies in this market. It's is the only remaining computer maker from the 70s/80s that makes its own exclusive platform. The fact it uses a somewhat open Unix is a historical accident: Steve Jobs wanted to enter the Unix workstation market with NeXT and it had to be Unix-based.
  - axod 17y ago
    >> "The fact it uses a somewhat open Unix is a historical accident" I don't think macs would be anywhere near as popular as they are today if this wasn't the case. I would not be using one now if it wasn't 'unixy'.
jsz0 17y ago
Intentional or not Apple doesn't sell any system with an ATOM CPU. There are any number of reasons they could have made completely unrelated changes that would break them. Perhaps due to security, or the 64Bit transition, or a simple oversight. Installing OSX on CPU models Apple doesn't sell has always resulted in your CPU being declared as "unknown CPU" so that suggests Apple doesn't simply copy & paste all Intel CPU identifiers. I tend to doubt it was intentional because the Hackintosh community will find a simple work around that will add maybe 1 step to the process. Won't stop anyone who really wants to do it. Seems more likely it was a case of Apple not going out of their way to support hardware they don't sell.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  OTOH, they can always return an "unknown CPU" when the CPU identifiers are something they don't like. Is there a trick an original Intel Core Duo will do that an Atom won't? Snow Leopard can't be 64-bit only because that would make it incompatible with the first x86 Macs.
  - jsz0 17y ago
    The only thing I can think of is Vanderpool/Intel VT.
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      IIRC, it wasn't present in the original Core Duo and Solo.
      - tptacek 17y ago
        Yes it was.
        rbanffy 17y ago
        Sorry. Too late to edit or delete. I thought they were only present on 64-bit processors.
tvon 17y ago
I can't find anything that says non-Atom Hackintosh machines are affected.
tomjen2 17y ago
Too bad, I had considered emulating OSX to see if it was worth something but I guess I will just continue using a real computer.
mhunter 17y ago
Do they not realize that this will cause more people to use Windows 7? What if people actually like it?
cubtastic71 17y ago
Sad, because it was my little Mini9 OSX that really made it fun to hack on the go. It was also a nice cheap way to test on OSX for doing web dev at work, much easier to keep a little 9 inch netbook for browser testing!
JeremyChase 17y ago
Everytime a Hackintosh thread comes up I wonder why no-one ever mentions that they don't have a software license to run OS X on that hardware. Excerpt from Snow Leopard license: ... you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to install, use and run (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer at a time. You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to enable others to do so. This license does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, ...
- eli 17y ago
  And every time a EULA comes up, someone should mention that nobody really knows if that's an enforceable contract.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Fuck the license terms. If people pay for the copy of the OS and are willing to accept that Apple will only offer support for OS X on Apple hardware, it's not really any of Apple's business what they run it on. For end users who don't have contractual relationships wth software publishers (eg special pricing deals, technology sharing agreements or whatever), those EULAs are basically meaningless; the moral rights of the software publisher are adequately protected by existing laws on copyright and so forth.
  - Zev 17y ago
    How many people that install osx86 actually buy a copy of OS X and then modify everything as necessary themselves? It seems like its far more common to find it online and then complain when it breaks.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      I have no sympathy for such complaints, or even for expectations that Apple should support it on non-Apple hardware. I'm just saying that there is no reason for legitimate purchasers to lose any sleep about the morality of otherwise violating the EULA.
tptacek 17y ago
Whether or not this move is an intentional swipe at the Hackintosh trend, I'm rooting for Apple here: (1) Just from a pure CS perspective, the Hackintoshers seem awfully smug, and I'd like to see them get knocked around by Apple for awhile. In a theoretic sense, it's far from established that Apple can't lock clones out. We have no idea what tricks they might come up with to reject non-Apple gear, and I for one really want to see what they are. When Microsoft did this to the Xbox and X360, we got some incredible systems research out of people like Bunny Huang and the MIT hackers. (2) Just on general principles, if you don't have a monopoly and you aren't specially regulated, you clearly should be able to sell whatever combination of hardware and software you want to. Other people don't have the right to force you to sell some random configuration of your stuff. It's a really skeevy kind of Geek Exceptionalism that says "there's no GOOD reason why OS X shouldn't run on my Netbook, so you can't stop me".
- elblanco 17y ago
  1) There is no such thing as "non-Apple gear". The entire hardware platform is the same as any Intel box running Windows or Linux. They use the same CPUs, chipsets, graphics cards, memory, hard drives, form factors, etc. etc. etc. as the rest of the industry with some minor changes to the boot system and system startup entry points (nothing that hurts running Windows or Linux on the same hardware for example). 2) true. But I think the exception to Apple's behavior is that there are large numbers of customers who would be more than happy to fork over another wad of cash for an Apple branded netbook (in addition to their existing systems) and Apple has (yet again) failed to listen to their consumer. That's fine, Apple probably can't make the numbers work to preserve some margin figure they want to maintain. All Apple demonstrates by this is that consumer feedback is not as much a part of their development process as most people seem to think (or hope) it is. The problem is that not only is Apple saying "we can't be bothered with this netbook thing right now" but they are saying it with a middle finger, fully extended, at their customers. They've gone and put themselves out, expended effort, to ensure their users can't operate as they want to. So really it's "give us your money for our overpriced commodity hardware and we don't care what you think or actually want, you'll think and want what we tell you to, how dare you try and step outside of our carefully crafted ecosystem"
watmough 17y ago
You know, I wonder if this is a way to keep OS X off of some ATOM-based forthcoming hardware? Is the tablet definitely ARM-based?

42 points by Freebytes 17y ago

xal 17y ago

It's really quite straight forward: Buy a Mac if you want OSX. It's great to spend money on something that you enjoy!

smithjchris 17y ago
Which is why i spent $100 on my PC and run XP using the PID that came stuck to it :) More money to spend on my family.
jrockway 17y ago
There are no 9" or 10" Macs. It's not so great to carry around a 13" laptop when you want a 9" one. (Fortunately, Linux doesn't have this problem. It supports Atom out of the box.)
- axod 17y ago
  That's what an iPhone is for. ok,ok there's a gap for a 9-10" macbook. They should make one.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    How is an iPhone a 9" laptop?
    - unalone 17y ago
      What axod was suggesting was that the people who need a laptop that small might be well off with what the iPhone's capable of. Certainly my iPod touch is what I use when I'm on the move, and it's capable of everything up to responding to people on Hacker News.
      - jrockway 17y ago
        Capable but not pleasant. Using my netbook is like using a slightly-slower version of my desktop machine. No compromises. (I carry around my HHKB with it, so the input experience is the same.)
    - axod 17y ago
      It kinda fits the gap for me. In terms of functionality, it's a netbook pretty much. The only difference is it's got a smaller screen, and a touchscreen instead of keyboard. Sure, it takes a little more fiddling, but I can easily ssh to servers, and fix things from my iphone, as well as any webapp/website things I need to do.
      - SwellJoe 17y ago
        The only difference is it's got a smaller screen, and a touchscreen instead of keyboard. Which are huge differences. Sure, I've had an ssh client on my phone for about six years now (Sidekick II first, and now a G1), but I can't do work on my phone, even though it has a reasonable keyboard for such a small device. But, my Mini 9 is actually a pretty reasonable device for most of the work I do, up to and including development (though its obvious sweet spot is email and forums and such, which I do a lot of since support is a huge part of my business; and using the phone would be way too slow). I wouldn't consider it a replacement for the big 15" lappy or my desktop machine for serious development or graphics work or whatever, but when I am travelling light, it's exactly the right size and form-factor.
rsheridan6 17y ago
corollary: if you don't want to spend money, there's always Linux and BSD.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  Don't forget OpenSolaris. Unlike OSX, it has ZFS.
unalone 17y ago
Jesus, you got downvoted hard. Damn shame. Guys, it's really, really not that difficult. Apple offers you a combination hardware/software package. They design the software to work brilliantly with the hardware they design, and they work very hard to make sure your experience is the best imaginable. That's why they pair the two together. And Apple doesn't want you using their software on hardware it wasn't designed for, because they want to make sure you get their full experience. They're designers. They win international awards for their computers. They want you to get their product, not a hybrid of half of their idea with half of somebody else's cheap refuse. If you don't use OS X, you don't miss out on that much. It's not like you need OS X to live, and Apple's depriving you of something by asking you use their computer. If you don't want a Mac, then use Linux or Windows. If you want Apple's product, buy Apple's product, not a cheap third-rate knockoff. In return, when you buy a high-end Mac, you get a superb, pleasurable experience. For as low as, what, six hundred dollars now?, you get a beautiful piece of hardware that does what you want it to splendidly, has the best third-party ecosystem I've ever come across, and doesn't lose you cred among any fashionistas you might know, plus it runs on Unix so you can tinker away with it however you see it. It's a very nice machine and millions of man-hours were spent making it, so perhaps it's worth your saving up a little money to purchase the full package. I and many other Mac owners can testify that we are very happy with our buy and may buy another one in the distant future. I know the line of thought is that computers are just tools to get a job done, but that's like saying all a chair has to be is a plank of wood to get your ass on. There are planks of wood, and then there are chairs that lots of thought has gone into to make you as happy as you can be. We pay more for those chairs because while we don't need it to live, it makes our lives a little better. That's how Mac OS X's been made, and I don't think it's ridiculous to ask that we honor its maker's wishes, or at the very least, not bitch when the maker puts a little effort into ensuring you do it their way.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  I have to disagree Apple wants to make the experience the best possible. For instance, I spent a couple hours trying to make Munin work on a Mac and all I could monitor from the main computer was disk space and a couple other things I don't use. The lack of up-to-date versions (they don't update stuff between major OS releases) and the lack of proper package management (ports is subminimal) drive me crazy. And that's precisely why my Mac ended up being my "play" computer. It runs iTunes and syncs my iPod like nothing else can. And, BTW, when I updated my iPod, one of my _cables_ (yes - a cable) stopped working because it's "not supported". What evil mind besides Apple's would consider DRM-cripple cables? No... Macs are pleasing, but Apple doesn't aim to please it's clients above anything else. It strikes a balance between profit and an as-abusive-as-possible relationship with its customers.
drewcrawford 17y ago
It's interesting to see how many people support Pre syncing but not hackintoshing (not an observation about you, just an observation about hackers in general). I can't figure out why hackintoshing has such a bad name in the hacking community. I would imagine that hacking, the art of using things in clever and unintended ways, would be a great fit with osx86. Plus the osx86 guys are some of the smartest I know. The good people contribute to Darwin and the other core Apple projects and their code ends up in mainline os x. Hackintosh users are some of the most prolific driver writers and help get tons of USB drivers written that are useful to macs and osx86 machines alike. There's something really satisfying about building a mac, the same way there's something satisfying about building a linux or a windows box. Apple's DRM just makes it more fun. I really don't understand the hate.
- Zev 17y ago
  The good people contribute to Darwin and the other core Apple projects and their code ends up in mainline os x. Could you link to some commits on Macosforge that were based on patches by people from osx86? This is the first I'm hearing of this. Hackintosh users are some of the most prolific driver writers and help get tons of USB drivers written that are useful to macs and osx86 machines alike. Last time I looked at osx86 (admittedly, years ago, long before Leopard was released), there weren't any custom kexts written by the community, just plists from Apple that were edited. Can you link to some custom kext's that have risen from osx86?
  - drewcrawford 17y ago
    > Could you link to some commits on Macosforge that were based on patches by people from osx86? There are cases that I'm aware of, but I think several Apple employees would fear retaliation if I outed them here :-) It's too bad that the XNU development process is totally closed (even if the code is OSS), as that's where you see so much of the osx86 activity. In particular, go look at voodooxnu, xnu-dev, etc. These are all drop-in replacement kernels for mach_kernel, run by hackintoshers, that accept patches from contributors. I believe voodoo will be the default kernel for the next PureDarwin (the new OpenDarwin) release. > Can you link to some custom kext's that have risen from osx86? http://code.google.com/p/voodoohda/ http://code.google.com/p/voodoohda/ http://code.google.com/p/voodoo-power/ http://code.google.com/p/voodoo-power/

mpk 17y ago

This is going to make a lot of people very upset. But really, news like this becomes a lot easier to swallow once you simply accept that Apple is a proprietary platform that works really hard at vendor lock-in.

tvon 17y ago
This is not vendor lock-in (if anything it's vendor lock-out, if anyone were to coin such a silly term). It is difficult to switch to Apple hardware, but switching away is as easy as installing Windows on a Mac.
- pyre 17y ago
  > It is difficult to switch to Apple hardware No it isn't. It's no different than getting a new computer, and then putting Windows on it. I think you meant OSX, not 'Apple hardware.'
  - tvon 17y ago
    Ah yes, I'm treating them as one in the same but I did mean OSX specifically and not just the hardware.
rbanffy 17y ago
I am not sure how can anyone in his right mind claim this is unexpected. Apple has always been one of the more closed companies in this market. It's is the only remaining computer maker from the 70s/80s that makes its own exclusive platform. The fact it uses a somewhat open Unix is a historical accident: Steve Jobs wanted to enter the Unix workstation market with NeXT and it had to be Unix-based.
- axod 17y ago
  >> "The fact it uses a somewhat open Unix is a historical accident" I don't think macs would be anywhere near as popular as they are today if this wasn't the case. I would not be using one now if it wasn't 'unixy'.

jsz0 17y ago

Intentional or not Apple doesn't sell any system with an ATOM CPU. There are any number of reasons they could have made completely unrelated changes that would break them. Perhaps due to security, or the 64Bit transition, or a simple oversight. Installing OSX on CPU models Apple doesn't sell has always resulted in your CPU being declared as "unknown CPU" so that suggests Apple doesn't simply copy & paste all Intel CPU identifiers. I tend to doubt it was intentional because the Hackintosh community will find a simple work around that will add maybe 1 step to the process. Won't stop anyone who really wants to do it. Seems more likely it was a case of Apple not going out of their way to support hardware they don't sell.

rbanffy 17y ago
OTOH, they can always return an "unknown CPU" when the CPU identifiers are something they don't like. Is there a trick an original Intel Core Duo will do that an Atom won't? Snow Leopard can't be 64-bit only because that would make it incompatible with the first x86 Macs.
- jsz0 17y ago
  The only thing I can think of is Vanderpool/Intel VT.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    IIRC, it wasn't present in the original Core Duo and Solo.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      Yes it was.
      - rbanffy 17y ago
        Sorry. Too late to edit or delete. I thought they were only present on 64-bit processors.

tvon 17y ago

I can't find anything that says non-Atom Hackintosh machines are affected.

tomjen2 17y ago

Too bad, I had considered emulating OSX to see if it was worth something but I guess I will just continue using a real computer.

mhunter 17y ago

Do they not realize that this will cause more people to use Windows 7? What if people actually like it?

cubtastic71 17y ago

Sad, because it was my little Mini9 OSX that really made it fun to hack on the go. It was also a nice cheap way to test on OSX for doing web dev at work, much easier to keep a little 9 inch netbook for browser testing!

JeremyChase 17y ago

Everytime a Hackintosh thread comes up I wonder why no-one ever mentions that they don't have a software license to run OS X on that hardware. Excerpt from Snow Leopard license: ... you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to install, use and run (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer at a time. You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to enable others to do so. This license does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, ...

eli 17y ago
And every time a EULA comes up, someone should mention that nobody really knows if that's an enforceable contract.
anigbrowl 17y ago
Fuck the license terms. If people pay for the copy of the OS and are willing to accept that Apple will only offer support for OS X on Apple hardware, it's not really any of Apple's business what they run it on. For end users who don't have contractual relationships wth software publishers (eg special pricing deals, technology sharing agreements or whatever), those EULAs are basically meaningless; the moral rights of the software publisher are adequately protected by existing laws on copyright and so forth.
- Zev 17y ago
  How many people that install osx86 actually buy a copy of OS X and then modify everything as necessary themselves? It seems like its far more common to find it online and then complain when it breaks.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    I have no sympathy for such complaints, or even for expectations that Apple should support it on non-Apple hardware. I'm just saying that there is no reason for legitimate purchasers to lose any sleep about the morality of otherwise violating the EULA.

tptacek 17y ago

Whether or not this move is an intentional swipe at the Hackintosh trend, I'm rooting for Apple here: (1) Just from a pure CS perspective, the Hackintoshers seem awfully smug, and I'd like to see them get knocked around by Apple for awhile. In a theoretic sense, it's far from established that Apple can't lock clones out. We have no idea what tricks they might come up with to reject non-Apple gear, and I for one really want to see what they are. When Microsoft did this to the Xbox and X360, we got some incredible systems research out of people like Bunny Huang and the MIT hackers. (2) Just on general principles, if you don't have a monopoly and you aren't specially regulated, you clearly should be able to sell whatever combination of hardware and software you want to. Other people don't have the right to force you to sell some random configuration of your stuff. It's a really skeevy kind of Geek Exceptionalism that says "there's no GOOD reason why OS X shouldn't run on my Netbook, so you can't stop me".

elblanco 17y ago
1) There is no such thing as "non-Apple gear". The entire hardware platform is the same as any Intel box running Windows or Linux. They use the same CPUs, chipsets, graphics cards, memory, hard drives, form factors, etc. etc. etc. as the rest of the industry with some minor changes to the boot system and system startup entry points (nothing that hurts running Windows or Linux on the same hardware for example). 2) true. But I think the exception to Apple's behavior is that there are large numbers of customers who would be more than happy to fork over another wad of cash for an Apple branded netbook (in addition to their existing systems) and Apple has (yet again) failed to listen to their consumer. That's fine, Apple probably can't make the numbers work to preserve some margin figure they want to maintain. All Apple demonstrates by this is that consumer feedback is not as much a part of their development process as most people seem to think (or hope) it is. The problem is that not only is Apple saying "we can't be bothered with this netbook thing right now" but they are saying it with a middle finger, fully extended, at their customers. They've gone and put themselves out, expended effort, to ensure their users can't operate as they want to. So really it's "give us your money for our overpriced commodity hardware and we don't care what you think or actually want, you'll think and want what we tell you to, how dare you try and step outside of our carefully crafted ecosystem"

watmough 17y ago

You know, I wonder if this is a way to keep OS X off of some ATOM-based forthcoming hardware? Is the tablet definitely ARM-based?