Windows 7 polled as the best netbook OS

There are so many operating system choices when you’ve bought your new netbook. You have the usual desktop stalwarts such as Windows, OS X and Ubuntu, but there is a growing number of Linux alternatives catered to the netbook experience such as Jolicloud, Moblin and the upcoming Chrome OS.

Lifehacker has been conducting a poll over the last week, asking its readers what is the best netbook operating system. First of all they asked their readers to flag their favourite, they then rounded up the five most popular OSes and conducted a poll to find a winner. Read more

Apple iPad finally unveiled – official pics, specs and video

Apple has finally revealed the iPad, a 9.7-inch tablet device that will be powered by a custom 1GHz Apple A4 processor and a 10-hour battery life. As expected, the iPad certainly looks gorgeous, measuring half an inch in thickness and will come in various flash storage options from 16GB to 64GB.

It will run the iPhone OS with a new UI. Included is a new e-book reading app called iBooks with a wireless online store. The company has partnered with Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, MacMillan and Hachett Book Group. Read more

XBMC announces Broadcom Crystal HD 1080p support for netbooks

XBMC (formally called Xbox Media Centre) was originally developed for the Xbox but has since moved over to the Desktop. It is an open source media player with support for Windows, Linux and Mac. Whilst it works well on the PC, it’s even better used in a HTPC. It’s so good in fact that I still have two original Xboxes with XBMC connected to two TV’s in our household.

As an XBMC user for many years, I was very excited to hear that the development team has announced support for the Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator across all three major platforms (Windows, Linux and OSX). This means hardware decoding of MPEG-2, H.264 and VC1 1080p video content will be coming to those netbooks with the Broadcom Crystal HD mini PCI-E (BCM970012) installed. Read more

Confirmed: Atom support missing from latest Mac OS X update

After recent reports suggested that Intel Atom support for the latest Mac OS X 10.6.2 update was terminated and then reinstated again, it seems that the official release does not contain Intel Atom support. What this means is that those running Hackintosh netbooks will not be able to install the new update.

At this point, there is no word from Apple on whether this has been intentionally removed or whether support will be written back in a future update. However, as Apple does not manufacture any devices using the Atom CPU, it’s not likely to be in the company’s interests to do this any time soon.

Reports from the MyDellMini forum suggests that users trying to install the update will see an endless reboot cycle. You can see a video of this after the break. However, it can’t be too long before savvy modders will come up with a workaround, but until then it’s best to sit tight. Read more

Hackintosh netbook slaying premature

Well it looks like all the talk of Apple removing Intel Atom support from its upcoming Mac OS X 10.6.2 update has been premature. A blogger named Stell originally discovered the issue but has found that Intel Atom support has returned in the latest build (10C535).

This is, of course, no guarantee that we will definitely see Intel Atom support on final release, but it looks promising. Why the code was removed in the previous release is anyone’s guess. For now, all you Hackintosh netbook owners can rejoice that support is continued (for now).

Via Electronista.

Hackintosh Netbooks RIP? Apple rumoured to disable Intel Atom support

Reports are surfacing that Apple is planning to strike back at the Hackintosh netbook community, by disabling support of Intel Atom processors with the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.6.2 update.

Personally, I’m surprised it has taken the company this long to take action, especially for a company that guards its IP so vociferously. There is a large number of users that use their beloved netbooks with Mac OS X as a genuine alternative to Windows & Linux distros. Read more