But this bring me more question :
"const" make the string been stay in IROM (Flash) without been cached in RAM, a bit like the PROGMEM macro.
So, maybe the bug you faced is related to Flash address alignment problem, which is done with 32bits words.
But what still confuse me is that you said that "Windows compiled version" was working while "Mac compiled version" wasn't ...
Although you got workaround and been unblock, I think this issue still need to be investigated.
But my own knowledge is maybe limited, some gurus like @IGGR or @Link2004 need to be involved.
(For your next issue, I will answer in the other thread)
I suffer from a bad case of random misfiring synapses!