It's really amazing to me that people have such strong opinions about the computer industry and don't seem to really have a basic grasp of how computers work or what goes into them.
Apple NEVER SUPPORTED the Atom processor, officially, so there's no way they could "drop support" for it.
The REASON Apple does things the way it does is to make sure the product quality is superior to everything out there in the market.
Even though Apple doesn't officially support this processor, its highly likely that they have unofficially made sure the OS runs on it.
You guys have obviously never worked on an operating system. You act as if its trivial for Apple to support or not-support a particular architecture and as if it doesn't support hardware that hasn't ever shipped in a MAc that they must be doing this because they're big meanies. This is the thanks you give to Apple for the unofficial support they've given for non-supported hardware over the years?
It takes effort to make the OS run on so many different random combinations of hardware, and the cost of that is the reason Apple doesn't license the OS to cloners.
Finally, this is a BETA we're talking about. You shouldn't even know about it, or be talking about it unless you're in the developer program and SIGNED AN NDA.
You have NO RIGHT to bitch about a beta and talk about how bad apple is because some beta release doesn't work on some hardware combination.
Of course, when it ships and it does work on the Atom, you'll claim that your outcry caused them to change their mind.
Frankly, to the extent that Apple is not swayed by the opinions of users, this kind of crap is all the justification they need.
If you're running OS X on unsupported hardware and you are mad if Apple releases an OS with bugs or that doesn't run on that hardware--- you're being unreasonable.
You want to hack OSX to run on your hardware, fine, that's YOUR problem. You're breaking the license agreement anyway, violating apple's rights and you thus lose the right to bitch.
Apple makes OS X free as an open source project under Darwin. That's ported and supported by the community. But that's not sufficient, you want the UI layer, and all the software that Apple spends time making special features for.
But you don't want to pay to buy the hardware that is half of the engineering effort for those features. You don't get to complain.
Software and hardware are inextricably related. Apple controls both sides and is able to innovate. The idea that Macs and PCs are the same is asinine. Macs can run windows, but not all PCs can or should be able to run OS X.
To limit OS X like that would be to limit Apple's ability to compete.
IF they break Atom compatibility with this release, tough. You don't get to characterize apple as being mean or even doing this deliberately-- after all, Atom was NEVER SUPPORTED. Thus its impossible for them to "DROP SUPPORT".
And dishonest to characterize it like that.
