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

cubedweller said:
Clearly you haven't used OS X running on an Intel Atom processor then. I have no lag on my Dell Mini 9 running 10.5.7 -- in fact, for most of my uses, it is much faster than my 2.4GHz MacBook Pro.
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Then there's something seriously wrong with your MBP. The procesor in it is *at least* 5x faster than the Atom, and that's before accounting for the dramatically faster video hardware.

Atom CPUs are _slow_. They're basically nothing more than a turbocharged Pentium MMX (yes, without even a 'II') on a big fat FSB.
 
BRLawyer said:
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.
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Bummer! I wish I had known sales are "falling down the drain" since I just sold my MBP to pick up an Asus eee 1000HE! 10" is more than enough for simple browsing and note taking (do you have a similar issue with the iPhone's relatively small screen, as well then?). And you can't beat the 9.5 hour battery life it gets! Right now, I love this thing but am glad I have someone like you to tell me how bad these netbooks are and correct my opinion!
 
oooo... amazing news :D - perhaps they released it to see if it would actually work on hackintosh netbooks so that they themselves can confirm that it will be a good choice for their own :apple: Netbook?
 
What about other MacBooks?

With 10.5.7, my CD MBP is reporting 2:44 to 3hours of battery life . It seems to be higher than normal (about 2:30 typical). My battery is a year old. I guess I'm going to use it to see.

As for Hackintoshes, wouldn't my 1.83Ghz CD spank any netbook? I think I'll keep it.
 
Apple doesn't improve on hardware they don't make without reason. I see this as Apple subtly admitting that they don't have a product for that market segment, and helping those who chose to go the hackintosh route by optomizing drivers for them.
 
Exactly what I was thinking.

This is what came to my mind right off the bat. An engineer invoked in OS/X development found a bug that was impacting his hackintosh.

Beric said:
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.
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I do wonder if anybody has bothered to look for ATOM specific code inSnow Leopard. Frankly I'd be very surprised but the chip could find use in Apple TV. That is about the only thing it is good for with respect to Apples lineup.

Dave
 
I don't know about anyone else, but I have an old battery. Lasts for about 45 minutes tops. After the update, Coconutbattery showed that my battery was all of a sudden like new.

However, when the battery percentage in the menubar hit 65% my battery went dead.....

I think its a glitch.

12" PB 867.
 
dagamer34 said:
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.
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I've been holding out for a while now ... I really want to get an AppleTV but want a new model. Hopefully Apple has new ones in the near future.
 
bedifferent said:
I agree, the OS makes the real difference. However, I still love the look and feel of Apple's industrial designing and will gladly pay the premium. On the other hand, the premium for the Mac Pro systems doesn't seem worth it (unless the Intel Neh. processors are relatively on par). As workstations are most often hidden under desks, I would rather build a comparable system and with the extra cash purchase purchase a nice 30" display (or two). Although I know Dell makes nice displays, I still love the aesthetics of the Aluminum Cinema displays.

Hey Dells, I got your PM, I haven't had the chance in writing back yet. I'll shoot you a response later tonight. :)
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Oh I wish I could feel and share the love in those Cinema displays. The price tags just make the Baby Jesus cry, I'm sorry to say. No really - I checked. ;)

Thanks for your PM in advance. /salute
 
This confirms an Apple netbook/tablet

Adding support for the Atom platform can only mean Apple has a netbook/tablet of its own coming. Way cool! Can't wait for the announcement although I'm hoping it will be ARM based that can crush the Kindle. :)
 
code4fun said:
Adding support for the Atom platform can only mean Apple has a netbook/tablet of its own coming. Way cool! Can't wait for the announcement although I'm hoping it will be ARM based that can crush the Kindle. :)
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Unless it has an e-ink display, it would be no where near as good as the Kindle for reading books. And who said anything about adding support for Intel Atom? I think you misinterpreted the article.
 
drsmithy said:
Then there's something seriously wrong with your MBP. The procesor in it is *at least* 5x faster than the Atom, and that's before accounting for the dramatically faster video hardware.

Atom CPUs are _slow_. They're basically nothing more than a turbocharged Pentium MMX (yes, without even a 'II') on a big fat FSB.
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Uh.... no. My MBP runs perfectly fine. The reason why the Mini9 performs so well is due in large part to the SSD. Applications load almost immediately. Much faster than with a standard platter hard drive, as in the MBP. When I had my 32GB RunCore connected to my MBP, it ran amazingly fast, very similar to how it runs in the Mini9.

I was careful with the way I worded my statement: I said "for most of my uses" and I meant that. Yes, if I'm ripping MP3's or converting video I will use my MBP at it definitely has more processing power. But for average use (e.g. web browsing, email, chat, etc.) the Mini9 performs as well, if not better, than my MBP. For these tasks you do not need lots of processing power.

I've used every variety of Mac available -- and my mini9 will hold its own against any of them for everyday usage.
 
Wow very suspicious concerning the optimization for atom processors. Now I'm 100% sure that we'll see an apple netbook.
 
gmcalpin said:
But AppleTV doesn't run OSX, so why might this have anything to do with that?
cubedweller said:
Sure it does. It runs a slimmed down version of Tiger (10.4), if I'm not mistaken.
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Indeed it does. Incidentally, that's why the hacked 'AppleTV for Mac' software only works on Tiger.

Spock said:
Im not sure if the current Atom chip can handle 1080p so well either can it? I wouldn't mind a 12 inch MacBook Air with a dual-core Atom under $899
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An Atom-powered AppleTV would likely get an assist from the graphics chip (just like the current AppleTV). This would work for netbooks as well, provided they use an appropriate platform such as nVidia's Ion chipset, which includes a GPU that can decode HD. GPU-assisted decoding can already be seen in the current MacBook (Pro).

If I were Apple, though, I'd look into the next-gen ARM chips for a future AppleTV (or, as past rumors suggested, just dock the next-gen iPhone).
 
wizard said:
This is what came to my mind right off the bat. An engineer invoked in OS/X development found a bug that was impacting his hackintosh.



I do wonder if anybody has bothered to look for ATOM specific code inSnow Leopard. Frankly I'd be very surprised but the chip could find use in Apple TV. That is about the only thing it is good for with respect to Apples lineup.

Dave
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Yup. I think it's far more likely that someone in Apple was in on this, than that there's actually going to be an Apple netbook. Just a few lines of code and you have better battery life. If I were an Apple engineer, why would I not do it?
 
Beric said:
Yup. I think it's far more likely that someone in Apple was in on this, than that there's actually going to be an Apple netbook. Just a few lines of code and you have better battery life. If I were an Apple engineer, why would I not do it?
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I would imagine that every specific patch of the OS X code is carefully and deliberately considered before being incorporated... I find it hard to believe how something like this would make it through? I would also imagine that there might be consequences of an engineer modifying OS X for the specific purpose of supporting/enhancing an unapproved piece of hardware. Who's to say such a modification wouldn't have other effects, or just add to the general complication/bloat of the software?

All of this is to say I'm not sure that it's so easy to explain away the performance benefits as an engineer's pet project.
 
t0mat0 said:
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?
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Indeed.

btw... are there any new rumors about the PowerPC G6 cpu's?
:p
 
Spock said:
Im not sure if the current Atom chip can handle 1080p so well either can it? I wouldn't mind a 12 inch MacBook Air with a dual-core Atom under $899
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The Z500-series Atoms can handle 1080p, but good drivers would be needed. The Windows drivers are "not ideal" and the linux drivers don't really even exist, as I understand it. The Z500-series is more common in embedded devices and such, rather than netbooks which use the N270 a lot. The N270, with its companion chips, can't decode 1080p fast enough, but it is cheaper.

One nice thing is that if Apple WERE to use the Z500-series in a product, they would probably take care of making their own OS X driver. That chip actually has very impressive video capabilities, but it is completely wasted due to the lack of drivers on the platforms it is currently used.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
Apple doesn't improve on hardware they don't make without reason. I see this as Apple subtly admitting that they don't have a product for that market segment, and helping those who chose to go the hackintosh route by optomizing drivers for them.
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That would be very... unlike them. Not that I'm saying they're evil or anything, that's not for this discussion, but I just can't see then dedicating the low-level programming time (no trivial amount of time either, I wouldn't imagine) for the kind of reason you describe. It just doesn't strike me as an idea that would even register within 100 miles of their radar.

As others have said, I would suspect it is either (1) because there is an Atom-based device in the future (AppleTV does seem possible.) or (2) the optimizations were basically unintentional "gravy" which tagged along with some other optimizations they implemented.
 
Erm, anyone who knows a lot about hardware, any chance u can give a guess on what hardware Apple would probably use? Firstly, it has to be able to run the up and coming Snow Leopard i guess
 
troller said:
After 8 months using my macbook I can't use the 1920x1200 Resolution anymore with my HP w2408h and it seems that more people have this problem. WTF ??????
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are you sure u don't just need to turn off "mirror display"

*i dun't know why i am even replying to a person called troll -__-*
 
Wow, 10.5.7 is snappy!

I just installed 10.5.7 on my MacBook and now everything is working a lot faster and I've been running on the battery for 8 hours straight!

YMMV. :rolleyes:
 
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