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A few days ago I reported that beta builds of the new Mac OS X 10.6.2  could no longer be installed on netbooks running Atom processors, effectively spiking the popular Hackintosh builds. Well, reports came out that a new beta build DID support Atom chips again, so bloggers reported that it must have all been a development error, no worries.

Well, in the newest beta build, Atom support is broken again as the video below using an MSi Wind, that most hackintoshable of netbooks, verifies. It looks like we will be seeing Atom support coming and going from OS X beta builds from now on. Some bloggers are asking, since the Atom situation is beginning to mirror the game Apple has been playing with the iPhone Dev Team and Palm, if Cupertino just enjoys this sort of cat and mouse thing?

Well, they sure don’t hate it….

I would have to say yes, Apple does enjoy these sort of “gotcha” games and they do pursue them intentionally. Why? Well, Steve Jobs has always shown himself to be a master marketer. He has never failed to find ways to get Apple in front of the public eye and to keep the tech community talking about every single move Cupertino has made, will make, and could make.

Consider if you will the latest graphic from Ars Technica illustrating OS market share as of last month…

Shocked?

Ninety-two percent for Windows….five percent for Mac. In fact, just the market share enjoyed by Windows 7, out all of two weeks, is 2.1 percent, nearly half of the total for all versions of Mac OS. If you consider the amount of coverage Apple gets for it’s Mac OS, and the number of fanboiz who continually shriek that Apple is gaining on Microsoft and now it is is only a matter of time before Redmond disappears completely, the picture seems like it is much different. Ask your average consumer what percentage of computers are made by Apple, they would likely answer closer to 20 percent or higher. Apple casts a giant shadow.

Apple and Steve Jobs are highly adept at such shadow games, making sure that they are always front and center in the popular consciousness, far beyond their market share. Is there any other industry where a company with just 5 percent of the market share enjoys such a degree of consumer awareness? Of course, the popularity of the iPhone helps, but for those of us why can remember BIP (Before iPhone) it was not much different back then. Apple made news.

This game of cat and mouse that Apple enjoys playing with rivals serves the same purpose as the world famous secrecy of Steve Jobs and the occasional juicy product leaks from Cupertino. All of us, even if we don’t much care for Apple products, are ALWAYS aware of what they have released, might release in the near future, and what it means to the computer industry. Apple is on our minds. That is just good marketing and it is accomplished by constantly getting in headlines and blog posts…blog posts like this one.

Steve Jobs knows this, He COUNTS on this. Every time Apple breaks or restores Atom support there will be another flurry of headlines and blog posts about it, not only putting their name before the public again, but making clear their product is sought after, popular, and that they are a very important company. Tens of thousands of advertisements each time, all for free.

Brilliant.

Atom support in Mac OS X, just like Palm support in iTunes and the ability to jailbreak iPhones will continue to come and go, and we will continue to report and rant and discuss such matters as if they REALLY mattered.

Why?

It’s just an Apple thing…