Mac OS X 10.6.2 arrived recently, and it doesn’t support the Atom processor. This has led to people crying foul, saying Apple’s out to kill the hackintosh community. One blog claims, commenting on the system causing instant reboots for affected hardware, “My sources tell me that everytime a netbook user installs 10.6.2 an Apple employee gets their wings”. Shane Spiess is then quoted in an article by Kevin McLaughlin for ChannelWeb: “There is no other logical reason why Apple would do this unless they’re going to enter this space with some sort of tablet-type device” (hat-tip: Daring Fireball).

I suspect the reason is simpler. If you count the number of products Apple has in its line that use the Atom processor, you’ll come up with the figure of zero. Nada. Zip. Why should Apple spend time supporting a processor that’s not used in its products? Chances are Apple’s been optimising and bug-cleaning, and broke something that it can’t be bothered to fix—because it doesn’t need to. And even if the action was ‘malicious’ as the earlier linked blog claims, it’s worth noting that Apple is a hardware company and makes a huge chunk of its profits from Macs. If Apple doubled its marketshare but in doing so lost most of its sales to Atom-based netbooks, it’d be screwed. But as Apple’s Q4 results show, the company’s in fine form and doesn’t have anything to fear from hackintoshes, which more points to the likelihood that it just doesn’t care.

“Oh noes!” shrieked the internet, “The Apple iPhone finally has a virus!” Well, a worm, according to the BBC. Well, a worm if you’ve jailbroken your device (against Apple’s recommendation). Oh, and if you’ve also installed SSH.

Clearly, Apple should immediately leap to support people who’ve installed unsupported software on a device that they’ve jailbroken, thereby making it unsupported twice over! Alternatively, it’d be nice if journos would make it clearer that this exploit isn’t down to inherent failures in Apple’s device, but down to people doing stuff with it that the built-in software’s not designed to deal with.

Doing the rounds on Twitter today is a fantastic review posted by Larry Magid. It’s a review of a Mac, but with a difference—it’s a transcription of his take on the original Mac, which appeared in the LA Times on January 29, 1984.

It’s easy to forget just how revolutionary the original Mac was compared to competition at the time, but this review brings it home. The mouse was so uncommon that it’s scare-quoted in the article, and Magid explains how to use it. He also talks about the ‘desk top’, and appears to have been converted to Apple’s WIMP UI model, despite stating: “When this process was described to me, it sounded cumbersome, especially since I’m already comfortable with using a keyboard”.

Today, touchscreens are gaining ground. We’re moving from abstraction on a virtual desktop to direct integration with content via gestural controls. How long will it be before someone looks back at early reviews of iPhone and Microsoft Surface, finding it hard to remember a time when such interface conventions weren’t ubiquitous?

Pocket Gamer reports analyst Michael Pachter has been at the scaremongering juice, topping it off with a stupid olive. He says: “I think the iPod touch is the most dangerous thing that ever happened to the publishers, ever,” and this is because when the price of Apple’s device drops, kids will want one instead of a DS or PSP. “Why would you pay $20 for Tetris when you can get it for $6.99 or $3.99 on iPod touch?” he says.

Indeed. But I can’t for the life of me see how this is the “most dangerous thing that ever happened to the publishers, ever”. Lower price-points generally mean people just buy games instead of ripping them off (*cough*R4 on DS*cough*), and with the App Store being digital-only, overheads are much lower for publishers. Therefore, decent publishers that aren’t complete idiots should rapidly be able to find a way to make decent money from iPod gaming, more so as the device’s market share increases.

What the App Store and Apple handhelds could finally put paid to, though, is stupid publishers selling games for way more than they’re worth—across the board. To that end, the only thing that has reason to be scared of iPod gaming is greed—and by extension greedy and clueless publishers.

Last night I finally got round to watching the South Bank show on Pixar. Brad Bird was talking about how Disney during the 1980s and 1990s was petrified of having anything scary or exciting or racy in its animated movies. Over time, the highs and lows were removed, omitting emotive content and, in Bird’s words, ‘flatlining’ the movies.

SFGate now has an article with the headline Maurice Sendak tells parents to go to hell. In it, Sendak, creator of  Where the Wild Things Are, has a to-and-fro with a reporter about the movie adaptation of his 1963 picture book:

Reporter: “What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?”

Sendak: “I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.”

Reporter: “Because kids can handle it?”

Sendak: “If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.”

If only more people responded in this way. I’m not suggesting kids should be presented with the likes of Saw or Friday the 13th on entering a cinema, but it’s insane how do-gooders constantly try to revert children’s media to something that Mary Whitehouse would have been satisfied with. Surely, creating children’s movies with a full gamut of emotions is better for them and their parents than more grey mush?