New Mac OS X 10.6.2 build restores Atom support
updated 04:25 pm EST, Wed November 4, 2009
Crippled Atom in Snow Leopard was temporary
Word that Apple had disabled Atom support in a Mac OS X 10.6.2 beta seed may have been premature, an update from the same discoverer says. A newer build, 10C535, now appears to have brought the feature back and hints that the lack of Atom support may have been a bug or an otherwise temporary action. Apple's code doesn't have any immediate clues as to whether or not the move was intentional.
Those with access to the developer seeds are cautioned that no guarantee exists of Atom support continuing on to the publicly released version of the Snow Leopard patch.
Apple is known to regularly allow at least basic support of processors outside of those used in Macs but often doesn't provide full feature support or any guarantees that this support will persist. Recognition of Atom processors has been relatively unique but has usually required unofficial hacks to work properly; the Mac creator hasn't signaled any intentions of its own to produce Atom-based systems and routinely criticizes netbooks that use it for being too slow.
Apple Technote TN7734
11/04, 05:21pm reply
"Oops. Our bad."
jpellino
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Oct 1999
Online journalism
11/04, 06:09pm reply
That's the trouble with rumors sites like MacNN. Run with a story, get people all worked up and annoyed, pundits pontificating, techies bloviating, and then oops, it's not true. No apology, no consequences, no editor in chief to chew you out for s******* up. If it's on the internet it has to be true, right?
lkrupp
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: May 2001
Re: Online journalism
11/04, 06:40pm reply
Um, it was true. The headline says "10.6.2 build restores Atom support " and the text reads "...an update from the same discoverer says. A newer build, 10C535, now appears to have brought the feature back .."
Thus the support was lost, but now it has returned. So, no apology necessary and no consequences need be thought of.
You could try to argue that people got worked up over nothing, but even that isn't necessarily true, for it might have been the online furor over the issue that caused them to fix it.
testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
Who cares?
11/04, 07:20pm reply
Does Apple make a product that uses the pitiful Atom processor?
Mr. Strat
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Joined: Jan 2002