Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update Improves Battery Life on 'Hackintosh' Netbooks?

[MacRumors]

Wired summarizes some surprising experiences of users who have hacked their MSI Wind netbooks to run Mac OS X. These so called "hackintoshes" when updated to Mac OS X 10.5.7 have experienced dramatic boosts in battery effeciency.

Reports from the MSI Wind forums are claiming a boost up to 33%, from 3 hr 45 min to a shade over five hours, using a six-cell 4400 mAh battery.

The writer, Dalton63841, has tested this to make sure it’s not just over-optimistic reporting by the OS. Another poster is also seeing a boost from three and a half to four and a half hours.

The reports suggest that Apple's Mac OS X 10.5.7 contain added optimizations for Intel's Atom processor and associated hardware. This, of course, is prompting speculation that support for such configurations may hint at new Apple notebooks based on similar netbook designs.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a netbook with a possible release this year.

Article Link: Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update Improves Battery Life on 'Hackintosh' Netbooks?

[amac4me]

Bring on the Apple netbook or whatever Apple wants to call it! On a side note, will the improved battery performance add fuel to the MSI Wind Hackintosh efforts?

[stownsend3]

Interesting stuff, but just what we don't need... more pointless rumors about an apple product that just isn't going to happen.

[Scarlet Fever]

A HackBook Nano is looking more and more attractive, but I'm gonna wait to see what WWDC has to offer before I get a Lenovo S10.

[gibbz]

Originally Posted by stownsend3

Interesting stuff, but just what we don't need... more pointless rumors about an apple product that just isn't going to happen.

It is MacRumors.com

I would never say never.

[Airforcekid]

I dont care for Atom it seems like a step backwards for Apple maybe a Dual core Atom processor but single plus OSX seems like it would lag a lot!

[BRLawyer]

Especially when everybody sees that those netbook sales are falling down the drain now...it was just a ridiculous fad to cater to people that feel like working in tiny screens with a tiny keyboard...only Apple is able to reinvent this concept as it did with the iPod and the iPhone; and it's NOT gonna happen now, because they know how ridiculous margins are for these crappy products.

[Eidorian]

I don't think there are going to be any special Atom strings in the 10.5.7 package given the length of time we've had to study it.

Surprise me.

[SeaneyC]

Well that's great, Apple improves battery life on hackbooks, yet my Air now seems to consistently run hotter and hence shorter life. Cheers very much!

*grumble grumble snow leopard better not be like this grumble grumble*

[flopticalcube]

Originally Posted by Eidorian

I don't think there are going to be any special Atom strings in the 10.5.7 package given the length of time we've had to study it.

Surprise me.

More likely an unintended consequence of something else in the power management code.

[Michael73]

Unless a netbook by apple is in the offing in the next couple of months, I doubt the conclusion. Most likely anything of this type that would be released by Apple would be post SL or if the rumors about a 3G connection are true, maybe the device would have the iPhone OS 3.0 as a platform.

[t0mat0]

Do we have more than 2 posters to actually corroborate this?! Front page news?!
Macrumors quoting Wired quoting a forum thread of 10 posts, with 2 people saying they're seeing something.
(Dalton63841, jacobus) I'm not dissing them, but don't we need a few more people to check this?

[Eidorian]

Originally Posted by flopticalcube

More likely an unintended consequence of something else in the power management code.

I haven't noticed any gains in my Macbook's battery life since 10.5.7.

[Beric]

Someone in the Apple computer lab has a hackintosh . . .

They realize there's inefficiencies, and notice a subtle bug in the code affecting those atom processors, and so they submit a bug fix to the OS 10.5.7 release code fixing the bug. It's a minor thing, but does no harm to anything else. And they benefit with better battery life.

[mandoman]

Why optimize Leopard for atom processor unless a netbook were coming sooner rather than later? I would have expected a netbook to arrive with Snow Leopard.

[mandoman]

Slow news day...

Originally Posted by t0mat0

Do we have more than 2 posters to actually corroborate this?! Front page news?!
Macrumors quoting Wired quoting a forum thread of 10 posts, with 2 people saying they're seeing something.
(Dalton63841, jacobus) I'm not dissing them, but don't we need a few more people to check this?

[t0mat0]

Originally Posted by mandoman

Why optimize Leopard for atom processor unless a netbook were coming sooner rather than later? I would have expected a netbook to arrive with Snow Leopard.

So a potential intentional improvement of power efficiency, specifically for Atom chips, or similar ULV chips?

Agree mandoman - but if it's a slow news day, at least you could do something like 9to5mac, and update the story with some backstory, flesh it out a bit and give it some more credibility...

Are there any Ion based Hackintoshes? Might be worth checking out that too.

[Beric]

Originally Posted by mandoman

Slow news day...

This rumor is just as good as any other Apple netbook rumor we've had in the past.

[Ade-iMac-177]

Cool. Let's hope we see an Atom powered Mac. I hope has collected all the chip manufacturers so that it can make a chip for all the new macs they make so that OS X will not boot unless it detects this chip. Hopefully this will stop Hackintoshes.

[VanMac]

Regardless of Apple releasing a netbook, improved power management is always a plus.

[milo]

Originally Posted by BRLawyer

Especially when everybody sees that those netbook sales are falling down the drain now...

Link?

Originally Posted by Ade-iMac-177

Cool. Let's hope we see an Atom powered Mac. I hope has collected all the chip manufacturers so that it can make a chip for all the new macs they make so that OS X will not boot unless it detects this chip. Hopefully this will stop Hackintoshes.

Except that wouldn't work because all the old macs would not have that chip. And it could still probably be hacked around pretty easily. What do you care if somebody runs a hackintosh?

[Santa Rosa]

If this is any indication that Apple is going to release a "netbook" one thing is guaranteed. It will be the most expensive "netbook" on the market.

Might still buy one though! lol

[Eminemdrdre00]

Originally Posted by Airforcekid

I dont care for Atom it seems like a step backwards for Apple maybe a Dual core Atom processor but single plus OSX seems like it would lag a lot!

OS X runs beautifully on an Atom processor with 1 gig of RAM.

[Lesser Evets]

Originally Posted by stownsend3

Interesting stuff, but just what we don't need... more pointless rumors about an apple product that just isn't going to happen.

Words that will be eaten well and whole.

Of course, it could turn out to be a tablet instead of a "book" but this product is most likely coming this year.

[dagamer34]

Extra Atom support would probably be for a hardware update to the AppleTV line than anything else. It's hardware is 1.5 years old and it can't do 1080p.