Apple Cuts Support For Intel Atom Processor To Stop OS X Spread In Netbooks

November 2, 2009 1:24 p.m. EST

Cupertino, CA (AHN) - Apple Inc. is releasing updates for its Snow Leopard and Leopard operating systems to stop the indiscriminate installation of the program on netbooks.

The 10.6.2 and 10.5.9 updates will kill support for the Intel Atom processor, which powers netbooks, according to the company. The updates were in response to a Psystar software hack that tricks the Apple OS into installing on PCs and netbooks to make them run like Macintoshes.

Users of netbooks running on Apple's OS X version 10.6.1 may opt not to update their operating system to avoid disruptions in using their computer, experts said.