Apple has finally released Mac OS X 10.6.2, the latest version of its Snow Leopard operating system, and be prepared for a massive update for your Mac: 473MB. There’s a lot of stuff in here, and among other things, it includes a fix for the guest account data loss bug.
The list of fixes applied by the Mac OS X 10.6.2 update is pretty vast. One of the more pressing issuesthat needed to be fixed was the infamous guest account data loss bug. This bug occurred for some users when logging into a Leopard-created guest account in Snow Leopard. The result of this was loss of all data within your regular account. This has now been fixed.
For the rest, the updates focusses on fixing issues with fonts, graphics, Mail.app, MobileMe, network file systems, printing and faxing, and Safari. Since I personally don’t have a Mac capable of running Snow Leopard, I can’t tell which fixes were more pressing than others.
It has also been confirmed that Mac OS X 10.6.2 no longer supports the Intel Atom processor, as had become pretty clear already from reports. This means that if you exercised your rights by installing Mac OS X Snow Leopard on an Atom-based machine (netbooks, mostly), you’ll have to avoid the 10.6.2 update for now, or roll your own kernel from the open source base underlying Mac OS X.
“My sources tell me that everytime a netbook user installs 10.6.2 an Apple employee gets his wings.” You have to admit, that‘s hilarous.
As always, you can install the update via Software Update, or you can download the full update straight from Apple. Report success or fail in the comments!
“This means that if you exercised your rights by installing Mac OS X Snow Leopard on an Atom-based machine (netbooks, mostly), you’ll have to avoid the 10.6.2 update for now”
It’s comments like these that make this site so unbearable.
Edited 2009-11-10 00:09 UTC
Exactly. Not to sound like a fan boy but Apple has the rights to determine what their software will support or not. Apple has never sanctioned hacking OS X to run on non-Apple computers. So if they want to disable support for a platform it is there choice and rights. You have the rights to either use the software if you agree with the terms or not. The same holds true for other systems. If you are not willing to abide by the GNU then you have the rights to not use Linux.
You should probably go read the GPL (which i assume is what you were referring to when you said GNU), specifically the part about not being required to accept the license at all just to use the software.
Absolutely. Everyone on the planet is granted unconditional permission to: obtain a copy of the GPL’d software; to install the software on as many of their own machines as they wish; to run the software without restriction; to study the source code and to modify the software for their own use.
You are even granted permission to run it on a netbook. You don’t even need it to be an Atom netbook, you can run it on an ARM machine if you wish to.
Fill your boots. Enjoy.
Edited 2009-11-10 00:59 UTC
/Absolutely. Everyone on the planet is granted unconditional permission to: obtain a copy of the GPL’d software; to install the software on as many of their own machines as they wish; to run the software without restriction; to study the source code and to modify the software for their own use. //
No doubt. Too bad 99.9% of open source software … sucks royal, and behaves as if it were written by 12-year-olds. Which it mostly is.
You’re talking bullshit man…
But if he don’t accept it how can he then still have the rights given away in the license!?!
The GPL license says everyone has permission to run the software on as many machines as they please, regardless. Unconditionally. Run it as often as you want in as many places as you want.
People aren’t even required to have read the license (let alone accept it) … they still have permission to run the software. Unconditional permission. Irrevocable permission.
Fill your boots. Enjoy.
But if he don’t accept it how can he then still have the rights given away in the license!?!
The General Public License places no restrictions whatsoever on use of the software. The GPL places restrictions on (re)distribution.
You don’t have to agree to anything if you want to run GPL software for any purpose. That permission is already granted to everyone. You can even use it to power your world domination death ray machine.
The only time the GPL kicks in is in the event you (if you are not the original author of the code) distribute/convey/give a copy of GPL-ed compiled binaries or source code to a third party. An act forbidden by standard copyright laws.
The only permission you have to redistribute are the terms set in the GPL. Don’t honor the (re)distribution terms and you’ve just committed copyright infringement under standard copyright law.
Quite untrue. The GPL is nothing more than a statement that the end user of a piece of software has certain rights with regard to the source code. It very explicitly has nothing to say about what the end user does with that software.
Not quite true.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
“All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met. This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program.”
My bold.
BTW, since there are no conditions in the GPL on the permission granted to run the program, then one’s permission to run the program is irrevocable.
Edited 2009-11-10 01:39 UTC
Wrong.
I won’t comment on the EULAs but in the case of GPL software you get additional rights, not less rights.
If you don’t agree to the GPL (rather just ignore the rights given) then the software would still be protected by copyright laws and you’d lose the right to get your copy at all.
The GPL gives you more benefits, access to the source code and so on, but if you don’t accept it then well, they would be protected and you can’t use them so … Your choice.
While it is definitely true that Apple has no obligation to support the atom platform, there also is no real reason for them to actively disable it, other than spite. Since the OS is based largely on open source software, it seems odd for them to slap hobbiests like this.
For who Apple? I don’t use apple products and could care less about such comments … and to some extent I agree they [Apple] should be able to say what the OS supports on but not restrict you from installing on unsupported hardware that is in fact capable of running it
Edited 2009-11-10 00:35 UTC
And pray tell why not? They don’t actually sell any netbooks, what incentive do they have to let people install it on a netbook? Good will? Its all fairy dust, and magic with you guy. Apple is a BUSINESS, not a charity. I just don’t get why people don’t understand that
Perfectly correct. As the authors of OSX, Apple have full rights to dictate how people may, or may not, use Apple software.
Absolutely.
Of course, having that right doesn’t help Apple one tiny bit towards gaining a customer who wants the capability at low price offered by netbooks.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, you’ll never figure this truth out: Apple wants no part of selling you a low-margin netbook, because…. it’s low-margin stuff. Cheapo netbook buyers are NOT who Apple wants to even bother catering to, no matter what: it’s not their business model to compete with everyone else on cheap hardware prices, but rather, a different model where the software is a big part of the total package, as well as the packaging of the hardware, because, let’s face it, the chips are (for the Macs) basically all the same underlying hardware as a generic PC.
If Apple comes out with something they’d consider as competing with the netbooks, it likely won’t be competing on price, and they’ll probably be differentiating it in hardware features as well, to make it harder to compare against, and they’d likely resist calling it a netbook. Of course, this is all speculation, based on observation of their pattern of products over a rather lengthy period of time: I don’t claim to know with certainty that they will/won’t come out with something along those lines! Who ever thought Apple would sell cellphones 5 years ago???
This is exactly the case, and for two very good reasons.
1) Those who buy low cost, low margin netbooks will (as a general rule) expect that all support and upgrades will be free or very low cost for the life of the machine because of the initial price of the system, ergo little to no additional income after the initial (low margin) purchase.
2) By not fighting the installation of their OS on other systems, they by default sanction it and therefore leave themselves open to every clown out there who wants to throw together some Frankentosh to start making negative noises about Apple’s support.
Now we know Thom and Co love to carry on about their negative experiences with Apple hardware, but the reality is that the majority of the world doesn’t experience those problems – which is why Apple continue to top satisfaction surveys year after year – and also makes you ask some questions about those users who do supposedly consistently experience problems. But even unofficially supporting the installation of OSX on non-Apple hardware – by not trying to prevent it – would negatively impact their overall model on many levels.
Sadly there are people who believe it is their right to dictate Apple’s business model to them…
My experience is that Apple hardware has over the years been less reliable than generic PC hardware, mainly because of heating and ventilation. You cram all that stuff into tiny spaces with poor ventilation, and you end up with reliability problems. Yes, it looks nice, yes it sounds quiet, but just put your hand on it. This is one reason people want Hackintoshes.
As to the second point, they don’t just have to try to prevent it, if this is true. They have to stop it.
The problem most people have is not that they do not permit installation on non-Apple hardware. The problem is they do permit it – they sell you packages which will install perfectly well. But then they try to stop you installing them by refusing permission.
If they sell stuff which will not install on non-Apple hardware, I don’t think anyone would care. Its the combination of selling you stuff that will install anywhere, and then trying to limit what you can do with it by giving or not giving permission, that is the problem.
We’d have exactly the same problem if MS were to start selling Windows in a form which can perfectly well be installed on Macs, but stipulating in the EULA that installation on a MacIntel was forbidden.
Who are you to tell me what to do with what I have bought? That is what we would say. It is just like buying a chisel and being told this means you can only use wood from a given lumber yard. But the wood is no different from the same wood bought someplace else. WTF?
Precisely. Spot on.
Apple are also saying that if you ARE in the market for a netbook, with its value-for-money combination of low hardware expense, ultra-portability and modest-but-useable performance, then OSX is not for you. Apple don’t cater to you.
Happily, when it comes to an extensive range of entirely capable desktop software for netbooks, you are very well served by some other software suppliers who aren’t seeking to rip you off, to the remarkable extent that some are asking for no money at all, even though they offer POSIX compliance as Apple does.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the people who install the OS on different computers are freeloading.
Apple will quite happily sell anyone a copy of the Operating system.
Its a nail and a hammer argument – if you sell the hammer, you have (morally atleast, even if not legally – the latter should be decided by the psystar case) lost the right to dictate that it can only be used on nails from the same company.
If the users were however freeloading, that would be a different matter.
Apple can build a hammer that will only work with certain nails, and I guess they are well in their rights to do that.
Now here’s the thing, do we as consumers continue to buy a hammer from Apple, or go somewhere else. That is the only argument. I can’t dictate to Apple or MS or pretty much anyone else how they should go about their business. At least in the Linux world, I have the opportunity (if I can code or encourage someone else) to make the OS the way I prefer it.
Anyway, I’m not sure why people are so upset by this. If Win or Linux is so good, why do people want OS X on their PC’s? I put OS X on an old laptop I have here, then about 2 days later put Ubuntu on it instead which had drivers for a lot more of the h/w than OS X did (the laptop is an old Athlon 2700+ 64bit thing). Ubuntu worked out the ethernet card, gfx, sound etc… Suite!!!
I prefer OS X to Linux, but Ubuntu has closed the gap, that’s for sure.
If Apple ever do decide to add support for 3rd party PC’s, then I guess all of this will be a different story, but right now that’s not where they want to be…
// I put OS X on an old laptop I have here, then about 2 days later put Ubuntu on it instead which had drivers for a lot more of the h/w than OS X did (the laptop is an old Athlon 2700+ 64bit thing). Ubuntu worked out the ethernet card, gfx, sound etc… Suite!!//
Typical freetard. Have you tried OS X Snow Leopard … on an actual computer built to use it, instead of your crap-ass old shit?
This is why Apple doesn’t want your freeloading ass.
We’re talking about OS X 10.6.2, which is bound (like or not, that’s the truth) to Apple hardware.
This post isn’t about Linux… If you try using Apple software with Apple hardware you’ll be surprised how it “just works” – I also love Ubuntu, but Apple kicks ass in that respect…
Apple can build a hammer that will only work with certain nails, and I guess they are well in their rights to do that.
Apple has a *right* to build a hammer to work only with certain nails, but they *don’t* have a right to force users to only use certain nails with their hammers. Unfortunately, due to the DMCA they’re effectively given the right to do just that.
Remember, EULA’s in this country almost never give you (the end consumer) any additional rights. They’re just used to limit the rights that you are supposed to have. The right to dictate which hardware you attempt to use their software on is not a right they inherently have.
That is not true actually. Apple only sells OS ‘upgrades’ where the terms are that you already own a full OS X licence, something which only comes with Macs and is not sold separately.
Microsoft also sells upgrades which requires you to already own Windows of some form.
Whether this is enforceable or not, I don’t know.
Except… This is a lie.
Get out your copy of Snow Leopard. Nowhere on the box does it state that it is an upgrade. Heck, it doesn’t even list Leopard as a requirement! How am I supposed to know it is an upgrade if that is not mentioned anywhere on the box?
When I bought my copy of Snow Leopard on the day of release, the Apple employee in the Apple store told me three things –
1) This is an upgrade, you can only use it if you already have Leopard installed
2) This item is licensed only for a single machine
3) This item is non returnable if the seal is broken.
Was that not clear enough? That is a contract by British law.
They don’t do so either here or in Germany. Lucky you.
Well, it does say this on the German Online Apple store:
Snow Leopard ist ein Upgrade für Leopard Benutzer und erfordert einen Mac mit Intel-Prozessor.
And this on the Dutch:
Snow Leopard is een nieuwe versie voor Leopard-gebruikers en vereist een Mac met een Intel-processor.
So pleading ignorance of the disc being “upgrade” is a poor excuse.
There’s a catch though in that phrase in Dutch. It doesn’t quite says is an upgrade. It says that :
“SL is a new version for Leopard users”. Word upgrade is not in there,nor one of their Dutch synonyms.
LE : I take that back . Nieuwe versie can be seen as an upgrade.
Edited 2009-11-10 13:13 UTC
I guess it’s all down to the skills of the translator, but the spirit of the phrase stands. 😉
They don’t even care. I simply took the boxed (29 EUR) Snow Leopard from Mediamarkt in Hoog Catharijne,went to kassa and that was it. Is true that I didn’t read all what’s on the box. But if it’s says on the box (or the notes in the box) that you can’t use SL without having Leopard then I’m not sure how’s this not a contract in Nederland too.
Yeah, if you buy from a third party you’ll get the disc with little or no explanation. It doesn’t change the status of the software though. If Apple tells you it’s an upgrade in the media, on their localised store website and it is a well known fact that is the case (as it was – Thom even reported on this, so it can’t be denied), where is the defence as to saying “well it doesn’t say it is an upgrade”. It wasn’t some kind of secret.
Oh, and if we look at:
http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MAC_OS_X_SNGL?mco=MTM3NTI5OTA
Did you note the word “upgrade”? Yes?
And Apple’s online store is relevant to me how, exactly? I said I bought it from the biggest Apple retailers in The Netherlands – and nor the box, nor the employee, mentions anything about it being an upgrade, or about it requiring Leopard.
Lame excuse. If you didn’t buy it *directly* from Apple, how can you expect to get the correct information? That would be like me buying SL from a “PC World” Store in the UK. They would sell me it with little or no explanation. That wouldn’t mean that it was not an upgrade though.
This is the BIGGEST OFFICIAL Apple retailer in the country. Comparing them to PC World is the biggest nonsense I’ve ever heard. They are the equivalent of an Apple Store, complete with all the usual attributes. They have like 10 stores throughout my area, and sell exclusively for Apple, and have been doing so since the ’80s. The founder of the chain was the first person in The Netherlands to own a Mac (I interviewed him once, great guy). They are well-respected, and offer services way beyond what any Apple Store currently offers.
Your excuse is nonsensical, as it is Apple’s duty to inform its customers that Snow Leopard is an upgrade, whether it is sold on Apple’s own online store, or in an official Apple-exclusive retailer (we don’t have actual Apple Stores in NL).
Edited 2009-11-10 13:16 UTC
I purposely used PC World… they are an official Apple retail partner – they have Apple branded sections in their stores – I mean, they even call the section the “Apple Shop” and have specific staff dressed in Apple logo’d shirts. So, no, I wouldn’t expect them to give me the correct info. All they care about is selling products. That is the difference between an Apple store and an Apple approved retailer.
You clearly have no idea what the difference is between a store-in-store concept and an official dedicated retailer. There’s no Apple-trained personnel at PC World, whereas an official dedicated retailer has nothing but Apple-trained personnel. They look, act, and function exactly like an Apple Store, with the only difference being they are not actually owned by Apple.
And, of course, they offer better service, and have the ability to criticise Apple when necessary, leading to more honest and open service.
Thom – they require special training to work in that section.
Plus, sure I know the difference. We have plenty of Apple approved retailers in the UK.. heck, there’s one closer to where I sit now than the actual Apple store I went to buy SL from. I also know that “not employed by” equals “not governed by the same ethos.” Argue all you want, but without Apple paying their paycheck, their actual boss dictates their professional conduct. That is all I have to say on this subject as this is becoming a circular argument.
Yes, they are under no obligation to sell anything they do not want to sell. There is no reason why they should make OSX support Atom or anything else.
That is not the issue. The issue is, once they have sold it to you, do they have the right to tell you how to use it?
Lets ask a simple question. Do you think MS has the right to sell you a retail copy of Windows, and stipulate that, though it is perfectly technically possible to do it, you are not permitted to install it on a Mac?
You need to be real careful about them apples. Some of them are actually pears…
Apple is a BUSINESS, not a charity.
Which is why it is strange that Apple wastes time and resources on writing specific code to disable Atom. Atom is after all a (low power) x86 CPU, not quite unlike the Core CPU’s Apple uses. It is only a matter of time before the Hackintosh scene puts support back in.
These are halfhearted measures to keep OS X exclusive to Apple manufactured hardware. If Apple really wants to end the efforts of the OSX86 group, they should just use the TPM and lock OS X cryptographically to their own motherboards. Make it clear to everybody that OS X is an updatable firmware OS.
This dilly-dallying with semi-DRM is just wasting money.
Well, there’s a question – *is* Atom capable of running this version of MacOS? More specifically, is it broken because Apple have deliberately blacklisted Atom?
Or is it for legitimate technical reasons, such as being compiled with CPU optimisations which don’t work on Atom? In which case Apple are being entirely reasonable, making sure it works as well as possible on their supported platforms, even if it upsets people trying to do things that Apple have no obligation to help them with?
Stop being reasonable, this is an outrage! OUTRAGE I TELL YOU!
I find it silly all the sites claiming “apple drops support for atom!”, it never supported atom, what apple supports is an apple branded machine made my apple computers.
It should read, hacked os x will need to be hacked some more to work with this update, apple machines continue to work as advertised.
Only in the Mac world is adding drivers considered hacking.
Priceless.
Or – It could mean making a piece of software do something it was not designed to do..
I’d say it qualifies. Granted, I’m a hardware hacker myself, so my idea of hacking may not be the same as your average coder. But to me, changing something from its intended purpose to suit your own needs regardless of the manufacturer’s intentions, is exactly what the hackintosh community (which, like it or not Thom, you are now a part of) is all about.
To suggest that a hacker can be nothing other than a coder or a security expert is a bit insulting, truth be told.
Obviously it’s not any longer.
Regardless of whatever EULAs would be legal or not I still think the developer/creator should have the right to decide over how their work is allowed to be used.
If you don’t like “the artists” (depending on the product) wish then don’t use the product.
People know how Apple want OS X to run. Also even if people bought the OS which I doubt many people installing it on regular PCs do I see the price more like an upgrade price set by Apple rather than a retail first install price since all macs ships with OS X and there are no “upgrade”-branded boxes. That part is Apples own fault though.
You’re free to stick to MDN. You’d be doing us all a favour.
You are free to alienate your readership too, but apparently you don;t give a shit about that.
Jesus Holwerda. You already come across as a frothing at the mouth anti-Apple zealot, then you take the low road with a reader in the comments.
You just proved yourself to be a troll. Your Apple articles are trolling in nature, and have no intrinsic value.
I would suggest leaving Apple alone before you completely destroy whatever credibility you may have left.
I hate playing devil’s advocate, but I have to give Thom some credit here. He has been personally affected by Apple locking out the Atom processor, as his own hackintosh is Atom based. I can understand his bitterness.
Should he have let his feelings inject themselves into the story? Well, this is OSNews after all…longtime readers understand and either ignore or vent.
I once left the site for over a year because Thom pissed me off with his arrogant censorship of a few of us who didn’t agree with him. I felt he acted childishly by first flaming then wiping an entire thread when it didn’t go his way. But, I got over it and have learned to accept that it’s still his site after all. If I disagree with him I just ignore that story and go on with my life. It’s not worth the energy to get into petty dick-measuring contests online.
Thom, this is my first, and will be my last, post on the OSNews forum.
Your behaviour has become increasingly petulant and boorish over the last few months, quite unbecoming of an editor of a serious IT site.
You do not seem to realise that as editor, it is up to you to take the high-ground, and not to reduce yourself to rude behaviour, however disgruntled you may feel due to the comments of others. I believe that the position you are in here is one you are very much unsuited to.
You may tell me to go and frequent other technical sites – that is your right, although your way of going about it is very unpleasant. I do indeed visit several such sites daily. OSNews will now not be one of them.
Yours, a long-time, but sadly now no longer, OSNews reader.
Edited 2009-11-11 16:11 UTC
Agreed… (just editing this as “Agreed” doesn’t really say who I agree with – lol)…
I agree with the original poster, not Thom…
I just hope OpenGL is back on track again…
OK, the update is there, time to reboot…
Edited 2009-11-10 00:50 UTC
Agreed. I don’t think the fact that “10.6.2 does not support Atom” is the most important feature of this update. For the most users it is completely irrelevant, and here it is, right there in the article title. It is getting really old…
I have 10.6.2 running on my Atom Mini 10V Netbook. The fix to get it working is trivial. Just use Google and find the various solutions out there.
It is getting a bit tired, isn’t it? Though I do generally agree with Thom on OSX86 issues, the Atom situation is a bit different. As so many others have said, Apple never “supported” that processor, we were simply lucky that it worked with vanilla retail installs. I don’t look down on Apple for narrowing the line of hardware that OS X can be run on, especially if it was for the purpose of making their own hardware work better. Given the huge list of improvements and tweaks in this update, that’s probably what happened.
When you consider that the hackintosh community has already come up with a few workarounds for the Atom issue, I’d say it’s no longer a newsworthy item. I’d love to never see another news article about it again, as it has been relegated to the archives of the various hackintosh support forums. I mean, honestly, when was the last time this or any other news site discussed and debated other hackintosh harware issues like certain video cards and AMD processors?
Uhm, what are you all on about? did you guys ALREADY forget the previous article in which I CLEARLY stated that Apple has zero blame here?
Let me copy it for you all:
On top of that – where in this article am I putting blame on Apple? This is getting ridiculous – you’re all seeing stuff that isn’t there.
Should read:
This means that if you clicked agree when you really didn’t agree and subsequently installed Mac OS X Snow Leopard on an Atom-based machine (netbooks, mostly), you’ll have to avoid the 10.6.2 update for now
Or it could read: If you installed an earlier version of Mac OSX on your netbook, you should just give up now and get another OS which is actually intended to support running on a netbook.
Well, the various netbook manufacturers don’t care what you run on it, so if someone wants to either stick with 10.6.1 or try one of the workarounds for 10.6.2, that is their prerogative.
And, other than Ubuntu Netbook Remix, can you please cite an example of an OS “intended to support” netbooks specifically? Windows XP came out over six years before the first netbook, Vista over a year before. Windows 7, while a great choice for netbooks, is intended to run on the widest possible range of x86/x64 hardware; no specific netbook support there.
If you really did mean to suggest Ubuntu NR, why not just name it outright? Save the reader a step, and all. You would still have been as snarky as you intended.
Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard never ever supported Atom, it just accidentally worked because it’s an X86 CPU.
Apple has never shipped an Atom CPU.
I’ve updated my Macbook with a GMA X3100 GPU and the performance has improved out of sight – there is a new driver for the GMA X3100 which is based on the new I/O Kit introduced with Snow Leopard which means it is now 64bit. If you have a MacBook with a X3100 you can force Snow Leopard into 64bit mode if you want and everything works well. So if you’re wanting performance – you’ll see it.
Regarding the size of it, I have had a quick look through and a lot of components have been updated; CUPS has been updated from 1.4.1 to 1.4.2, more drivers are now 64bit (GMA 950 and GMA X3100 are both 64bit), lots of bugs regarding Safari have been fixed – haven’t had a single Flash related crash – I’d sooner find my flash applet die on me than the whole browser collapse in a big screaming heap.
Funny enough I’ve also seen an improvement in load times for Office 2008 and iTunes. Quicktime X has been updated, alot of the extensions have been updated along with 90% of the frameworks have been touched in some way by the update. It would be fair to say that 10.6.2 is Apple’s own ‘Windows XP Service Pack 2’ – alot of big improvements from the user perspective. It will be interesting to see from the developer perspective whether things are looking a lot better when it comes to application development.
Do you need to do anything to active the new driver or is it used by default?
I.e. Do we need to manually enable the 64bit kernel in order to see graphics improvements on an X3100?
Thanks
You automatically use the new driver by default when you run the update – I’ve just had a look through the extensions and the OpenGL portion of driver has also been update which explains the huge performance improvement over the default driver and OpenGL library included with 10.6.
Maybe I was exaggerating a little on the performance improvements but the improvements are noticeable to the average end user – it is great to see that they’ve finally done something to improve the driver quality for the GMA X3100 GPU so that it is comparable to Windows. From what I understand it is Intel, not Apple, who write the drivers thus I guess there was no 64bit driver ready in time for shipping.
So what you are saying is that the histeria over Apple arbitrarily disallowing Snow Leopard from running in 64-bit mode on consumer machines had more to do with missing driver support for the initial release than with corporate greed? Interesting.
Edited 2009-11-10 14:58 UTC
I’d say so; 10.6 was getting the 64bit ground work laid and 10.7 will mean the kernel will cross over – given how important the kernel is I’d say that Apple didn’t want to risk the situation of a 64bit kernel being blamed when end users find their eyetv application doesn’t work or not all the drivers are mature and up to speed.
Corporate greed? unfortunately conspiracy theorists here love the idea of this moustache twirling monopoly man sitting on the 50th floor swimming in money – devising new and more crafty ways of screwing over the proletariat. The reality is some what more benign than the clueless banter that occurs on this forum.
Thankfully, my download was about 30 % of what I’ve seen reported, for whatever reason. A few others have mentioned it as well, so I’m not too worried.
What worries me is that I’m not seeing a whole lot of fixes to things I use, such as Bluetooth tethering. I haven’t tried to tether my phone using USB since the update but it didn’t work at all since Snow Leopard since they changed the method completely. (I’m connecting through my PowerBook now and yes, it does not run Snow Leopard.)
Apple, since part way through Leopard development, seem hell-bent on visuals rather than making things work in a way that makes a user more efficient and effective. Being a show-off often gets the 15 minutes of fame but in the end, it’s the one in the background that gets true success.
Well, I guess I’ll keep waiting for 10.6.4, hoping that the answers will make it to my machine by then.
How many people would support Microsoft if they suddenly released SP4 for XP (and SP1 for Vista), and announced that you could no longer run the operating system on non-Microsoft approved hardware? And what if that hardware was only available from companies that paid a license fee to Microsoft?
After all, this was the doomsday scenario when TPM was introduced that had everyone in a panic.
Or, what if GPLv4 declared that you couldn’t use GPL software on any hardware not deemed “open” by the FSF?
Would people support Microsoft, or the Free Software Foundation in this case?
Why are shrinkwrap licenses and EULA’s evil (and worth lawsuits) when they’re written in Redmond, but not in Cupertino?
Were Microsoft to do that, there would be an outcry, and it would be justified. That would be a change in business practices. It is very reasonable to expect Microsoft to support updates to their OS on all previously supported hardware. They have always done this. This is why Windows was successful.
As with every doomsday scenario, TPM never happened. I don’t think there ever was even the slightest danger.
Same with such a GPL change. It is so fundamentally different from the GPL’s philosophy that it would rightfully receive criticism. GPL doesn’t govern use; it governs distribution. This is why the GPL was successful as a license.
Apple is in a completely different situation. Nobody expects such openness. Nobody expects unsupported hardware to work. Apple did not disable previously supported hardware. The fact that Snow Leopard previously worked is inconsequential. Merely working on hardware is not the same as being supported.
Gotta stop you there. You seem to be implying that Apple “suddenly” dropped support when, in fact, SUPPORT NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE. That is a very, VERY, important thing to realise. Without understanding that point, any argument put forward is pointless. That is all.
No shit. These posters are clueless idiots. The Atom processor was NEVER supported, and won’t be, unless Apple says so.
Unbelievable, the idiocy on these boards.
Your problem is you’re comparing a company whose primary business is selling commodity operating systems to a company whose primary business is selling hardware with their own custom OS as a value add. What you should really ask is whether say, Dell users for example, would care if Dell released an update for their machines that removed unofficial support for some piece of hardware Dell never actually sold in the first place.
GPL software can be forked
Mac OS X 10.6.2 Released
posted by Moe Howard on Mon 9th Nov 2009 23:55 MST
Apple has released Mac OS X 10.6.2, the latest version of its Snow Leopard operating system, and be prepared for a massive update for your Mac: 473MB. There’s a lot of stuff in here, and among other things, it includes a fix for the guest account data loss bug.
The list of fixes applied by the Mac OS X 10.6.2 update is pretty vast. One of the more pressing issues that needed to be fixed was the infamous guest account data loss bug. This bug occurred for some users when logging into a Leopard-created guest account in Snow Leopard. The result of this was loss of all data within your regular account. This has now been fixed.
For the rest, the updates focusses on fixing issues with fonts, graphics, Mail.app, MobileMe, network file systems, printing and faxing, and Safari.
As always, you can install the update via Software Update, or you can download the full update straight from Apple. Report success or fail in the comments!
I really wish MS would put a clause in their EULA forbidding Windows to be installed on Macs. You just wonder how quickly all the apple fanboys would start crying foul. And I’m quite certain Apple and Jobs would try some way or the other to try to force MS to allow it again (anti-trust lawsuit or something). IMO bootcamp and being able to parallel install Windows has helped Apple to gain quite a significant market share. Even better would be if MS prevented Windows to run within bootcamp.
I’d love to get my popcorn out for that.
And how do you suppose to stop using Windows via VM? Fact that Mac can boot on Windows is just a bonus. I am not sure how many (percentage wise) mac users have Windows installed. I prefer two machines myself,one with W7 and one OSX.
That would imply that “Mac Fanboys” would want to install Windows on their Macs. Nice try though.
Well, when Vista came out and Microsoft had restrictions limited virtualization of the OS to only Business and Ultimate versions, many Mac users complained, despite it only hitting you if you ran Vista in VMWare or Parallels.
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/11326/
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67744
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/45000…
I don’t think the Apple fanbois would cry foul. They believe a pretty UNIX and ultra-expensive x86 kit made by Apple is a guarantee for computing nirvana.
It would quickly reduce the numbers of Windows people who take a chance with Mac. Now you can buy a Mac and OS X and if it doesn’t work out, you can always run Windows on your Mac. If the only thing that runs on a Mac is OS X, the prospective pool of buyers would reduce significantly.
Actually, the computing nirvana comes from OS X, not its UNIX root, nor the real hardware (which happens not to be ultra-expensive compared to the market). If OS X were based upon the NT Kernel, but the user experience were the same, I’m pretty sure no Mac user would complain.
If you don’t understand why, simply move forwards and don’t waste time commenting nonsense.
And if you don’t think that Mac hardware + software brings any benefit, why are you reading all these comments and taking the time to comment?
On a side note, this article is bull*hit, who cares about Atom. It’s like crying that Win7 doesn’t work on PPC…
Give it time. They ran Be Inc. into the ground by means of a protection racket (“If you install BeOS on a single desktop computer we’ll stop selling Windows to you altogether”); I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they started limiting certain hardware configurations and then turned it around on Apple. Imagine the advertisement:
**Megan goes into a store to buy a computer, starts looking at a Mac.**
Megan: “I can get one of these and have the best of both worlds!”
Salesman: “Haven’t you heard? Windows doesn’t work on a Mac anymore, something about incompatible hardware.” (notice it’s NEVER the software’s fault…)
Megan: “How awful of those Apple engineers to lock out software! You know, I heard they started it with that nifty Atom processor.”
**Megan walks out with an HP laptop that barely qualifies to run Windows 7 Premium**
Since it’s in the vein of the previous “unscripted” Microsoft commercials, it could have a huge impact on Apple’s sales and stock price before Apple could refute the claims.
Granted, even Microsoft wouldn’t dare make a commercial as bad as my pathetic excuse for writing (and “Megan” never seemed smart enough to even know what an Atom is). Then again, they’ve made much worse–Seinfeld anyone?
Using the Software Update, the update size is 157.7MB
Guess I’ll just have to stick with Mac OS X 10.6.1.
SUCK IT, APPLE!
MUH HAHAHA, MUHAHAHAHAHAH MUHAHAHAHAHAHA, HA… HA