Rumors of Disabled Intel Atom Support in Mac OS X 10.6.2 Unfounded?

Earlier this week, a report surfaced claiming that Apple had apparently disabled support for Intel's Atom processors in the latest developer build of Mac OS X 10.6.2. The revelation set off a firestorm around the Internet, riling many users who have modified their Atom-based netbook models to run OS X and sparking speculation that Apple may have been moving to hamper such "Hackintosh" netbook projects as it prepares to launch its much-rumored tablet computer.

In an update to his original blog post about the discovery, Tumblr user "stellarola" reveals that the latest Mac OS X 10.6.2 developer seed (Build 10C535) is apparently working just fine on his Atom-based netbook hardware.

Anyways, in the latest development build Atom appears to have resurrected itself zombie style in 10C535. The Atom lives another day, but nothing is concrete until the final version of 10.6.2 is out.

The original post describing the lack of Atom support was made on October 27th, one day before Apple seeded Build 10C535 to developers, meaning that the poster was experiencing difficulties on his Atom-based netbook with the then-current Build 10C531. It is unclear at this time whether the lack of Atom support in that build was intentional on Apple's part or if it was simply a bug that the company addressed in the next developer version.

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