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Apple's Leopard Will Exclude 800MHz G4 Processors
goombah99 writes "According to AppleInsider, Apple is about to announce that Leopard will not support 800 MHz G4 PowerPC processors. Previously developers had been told that it would require at least an 800 MHz G4. But AppleInsider alleges only 867 MHz G4s and higher will now be supported because of speed issues, and testers have been told that the new OS 'cannot be installed' on lesser machines. This cutoff in minimum requirements means that all those original iMac flat screens and Titanium PowerBooks are now forked to the Tiger (10.4) Update Path."
As far as I'm concerned, it's no real loss, to be honest.
Leopard looks to me to be quite a disappointing update. Not only did Apple completely cast out the refined Aqua look and feel in favour of something that looks like Windows Vista beat Front Row over the head, but there's nothing much I'm excited about (a backup utility? whoopee-fuck. multiple desktops? excuse me while i soil myself...) and indeed a lot I'm more apprehensive about (the iTunes finder with Cover Flow...jesus wept). I think I'll be sticking with Tiger a bit longer; it's a shame Apple diverted attention from what could have been a fantastic new release of OS X onto the glitzy, crippled fashion accessory that is the iPhone.
I'll probably get modded to hell and back, but Leopard is rapidly becoming Apple's version of Vista. Just like Vista, Leopard will be mostly under the hood changes and a few piffling new features, and a whole new look which goes for all out eye candy but simply doesn't match the elegance of what went before. I'm sure the XPostFacto guys will whip something up for all those G4/3 users in the mean time though...
I write bullshit
The article is specifically about 800MHz and slower G4s being excluded:
Nowhere does the article claim that Leopard will be G5 & Intel only.
Up until Panther, each version of OSX ran faster than the previous one. But Tiger is definitely slower than Panther. Looks like Leopard will continue the trend.
Time to retire those "feels snappier" jokes.
Actually, AppleInsider said that 800 MHz G4 processors may not be supported. 867 MHz or greater G4 processors would still be usable. From TFA:
OS 10.6, it is speculated, may not support PPC processors (so, we're talking 2009 here?)I'd be very surprised if they dropped support for G4s-G3 processors I expected to be dropped from this upgrade but machines less than 2 years old would be locked out of the upgrade. I remain faithful that my G4 12in Powerbook will be running Leopard in 2 months.
Apple is not dropping all G4's.. FTFA:
Instead, Leopard will now require Macs with "an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 (867 MHz or faster) or G5 processor." Other system requirements include a DVD drive, built-in FireWire, at least 512MB of RAM (additional recommended), and at least 9GB of hard disk space.
So, instead of supporting 800 MHz and up, you now need 867 MHz and up.
If this is true, Leopard is probably the last OS upgrade that will be available for the 1.2-1.5gHz PPC Mac Mini family.
Prepare to buy an Intel CPU Mac for your next major OS upgrade after Leopard.
Chip H.
The game.
800 Mhz Macs should be included on Leopard's compatibility list IMO. We are talking about machines that were released just 4 years ago, and we should not forget that Mac users take pride on their computers and they keep them for a long time. There is not a real technical limitation why QuartzExtreme-compatible, firewire-compatible etc Macs should not be supported, other than Apple wanting more money from you and less money spending on testing with these systems.
There are no G5 laptops. Apple would be snubbing users with laptops purchased as recently as Xmas 2005; such behavior has not been their historical pattern.
The article does not in any way resemble the summary. Do the slashdot editors RTFA!
....
The text in the article reads
Leopard will now require Macs with "an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 (867 MHz or faster) or G5 processor." Other system requirements include a DVD drive, built-in FireWire, at least 512MB of RAM (additional recommended), and at least 9GB of hard disk space.
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And my OS still hasn't even perfected its flux capacitor relay yet. Egads, skunked by apple yet again.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It's not real until Apple says it.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
it's one thing for the summary to add something extra to a story... but damn it was just false. I read the article looking for where they said G5+ only and it's just not there... that's the first time that happened to me. Guess I don't read slashdot enough these days. well I'm glad my G4 powerbook will be upgradeable... I think...
Chaos is Divine *
There better be something good in there eating all those cycles. We will have been waiting for over two years.... The keynote demo's looked more like weekend projects that were a result of someone taking code home to play with. New lipstick on the same pig if you will.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
There's a difference between stated requirements and what you can actually get to work. Users of the open-source XPostFacto have known this for years. Can't run OS 10.3 on that old beige G3 tower? Sure you can! Maybe even 10.4.
Nonetheless, even 10.4.x is supported on the 400mhz PowerBook G3 (the version with a bronze keyboard and FireWire). It is not the speediest thing ever, but for email, Word/PowerPoint, and most web browsing, it's just fine. My main reason to consider replacing it: after seven years of use, the backlighting is starting to fade. But those dual battery bays are hard to give up.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
...was a hallucination.
I feel that most of the features in Leopard are of interest to developers. And that we'll see mainly developers and new mac buyers going for Leopard. If you have a Tiger-based G3/G4 mac right now and you're happy with it, I think you'll stay happy with it for a long time. But we'll see how my prediction holds when there is a 10.6 after Leopard and it doesn't support G3/G4 either.
If it becomes a problem it is possible for Apple to change their mind in the middle of the 10.5 upgrade path and allow G3/G4 installs, like if they came up with some solutions to speed issues. Remeber Tiger 10.4.0 to 10.4.3 didn't support x86, but 10.4.4 and later does.
If Leopard becomes some amazing new must-have I will just have to buy a new Mac Mini, and turn my old G4 Mac Mini into a media player or a Linux-based home router. Not a huge deal to me since my G3's and G4's aren't gaming machines and I don't need to upgrade to a machine capable of gaming. (well I play games, but they would run on just about any system)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I can confirm that an 800MHz G4 is all that is required to install Leopard (the developer preview). A staff member in my department did it with an 800MHz Windtunnel PowerMac - and more interestingly, he used target disk to install Leopard on his unsupported 667MHz TiBook (on which the installer refused to run because it didn't meet the minimum requirements). Here is his entire story. http://forum.oscr.arizona.edu/showthread.php?t=4557
Why don't these Slashdot posts automatically have the word "rumor" in the headline? Seriously. As is, the headline is totally misleading, which leads to arguments that treat the discussion as if it is fact. Sure, Apple may incorporate these requirements into Leopard, but until then we're just putting out hot air about a rumor.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Apple has to kill off support for 32-bit systems, and uni-processors for that matter, sometime. AltVec also must be on the eventual chopping block, given that none of their new systems support it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I thought every new release of OS X runs faster than the previous one?
It did seem a little early to drop the G4 entirely...
I messed up with the versions. The one I was thinking of, and that I had held back upgrading until I had to because of the Nano, was 4.7, not 6.0.4. Apple introduced a 5-connection limit to the music-sharing feature in 4.7.1.
6.0.4 was nice because it was the last stable version before they changed the interface (IMO, for the worse) with version 7, but it had already had the sharing features gutted.
So if you don't have any devices that require a newer version and you don't care about the Apple Store, the version to use is from the pre-4.7.1 days. Unfortunately I think Apple pulled it from its download page; you can get 4.7.1 (the crippled one) but I can't find 4.7.0.
Wikipedia has a good page on iTunes Version History: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_version_history).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Whenever I see a post about running Linux (or any non-OS X os) on Apple hardware I also see a post asking what is the point when OS X is the best UNIX available on the desktop.
Here is the point. When Gnome or KDE copies features from OS X 10.6 or greater, owners of this newly excluded hardware will be able to get in on the fun as well.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
You can sometimes get dramatic speed improvements by disabling the Dashboard entirely. See http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macosxhints/2005/08/disabledashboard/index.php for how to do it.
I have a dual-proc G5 machine and I disable Dashboard, just because I don't use the thing and have never found it really useful.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I had a power mac 7300 way back in the day. It used a 604e motorola chip at 180 Mhz. The 7300 also had an upgrade card slot which allowed me to pop in a G3 card eventually and upgrade my processor. It also had 4 DIMM slots for lots of extra memory capacity.
When the 7300 came out, it cost around $1200. I bought it used for $500. The card cost me $300, memory was $50-$100, plus a $150 upgraded video card when it became available. I got about 7 years use out of that machine for the money invested.
A midrange iMac now costs twice as much, and has fewer upgrade paths than previous Macs. The white iMacs had options for 128 and 256 mb video cards but you could only buy them in that flavor, you could not upgrade them later.
To get a mac with upgrade options, you have to go with the $2500+ Mac pros. I bought a G4 1ghz about 4 years ago. I have no option to upgrade to a G5, and obviously can't upgrade to an intel. I can do surfing and wordprocessing on it just fine, but I can't play any new games on it, and the latest graphics programs and compression codecs for movies will drag to a crawl unless all other programs are shut down.
Now, the summary is utter crap. In fact, they are upping the requirement from 800 mhz to 867 mhz G4, and not ending it all together. However, this chops off 6 popular lines of Macs from being upgraded. My point is, however, upgrade paths are slowly getting shorter and shorter, and small changes like this are exposing that problem. The problem isn't the fact that Apple is upping the minimum requirements, it's the fact that without shelling out money for an entirely new computer, it's getting harder and harder to meet the minimum requirements. These 800 mhz machines were new just 4 years ago, and you can't pop in a $200 upgrade to get more life out of them.
I love Apple's products, and I'm still not considering a PC, but as a consumer, I want to be clear that keeping up with Apple is becoming more and more expensive, and there are no signs that Steve really cares (why should he, he's a CEO and his company is making gobs of money). I'm not comparing Macs to PCs, I'm comparing Macs to history costs of other Macs. The inflationary curve is out of control. At this rate will be back to the $10,000 price tag the Mac 2 had back in 1986 somewhere in 2015.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Several months ago, I posted the idea of setting an "R2 standard" where a computer can be connected to and useful from now until... Much like the R2 unit that both Obi-Wan and Luke used in their fighters.
This is a perfect example... an 800MHz G4 on Tiger could be one of those "droids". I was quoted as saying recently that "If this G4 Titanium with Tiger is all the computer humanity ever got, we'd be doing alright."
Specifically, Spotlight is such a boon to workflow, that it's worth the Panther to Tiger step. I'm not sure that Leopard is.
I know that with ever progressing technology, we can do things we never dreamed. But is that really a good thing? Last night I watched a YouTube video on my G3-400. I saw what I wanted. When YouTube-Holograhic edition is out, have we gained? I will have a Tiger machine, to quote the old Obi-Wan "for a long time... a long time."
Flamebait? How do you know he didn't mean it as a compliment? Sleek, fast & graceful sound like positive things to me.
Sweet, so I guess there'll be a lot more G4's for sale on craigslist that I can experiment w/Linux on =D.
The article doesn't say, but maybe someone here with a developer build can shed some light. I have an old Sawtooth G4 that's been upgraded a number of times. It now has a 1.2GHz G4, Radeon 9600 (supports CoreWhatever), a Sonnet RAID card, and 1.5 GB of RAM. I still use the machine daily as my main home machine because, even though it's nearly 7 years old, it still works great! It would be nice to know that I could run Leopard on this, although, as I mentioned, I am quite happy running Tiger. I guess I just want to play with the new toy like all the other kids...
As far as there is support for any G4 processor, enabling Leopard to install on lesser Macs should not be much harder than edit the OSInstall.dist file on the installation DVD (as some people do to install Tiger on non firewire iMacs).
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Not this $#!+ again...
While they're not as dramatic as new Windows versions (and not as expensive), OS X releases are not comparable to service packs.
Service packs don't add new features. On the rare occasions when they do, the features tend to be related only to stability or security. That is comparable to OS X 10.x.x releases, not the major "big cat" releases. Those minor releases occur far more frequently than Windows service packs (which has its pluses and minuses).
"Big cat" releases add many, many features, both visible and under the hood. Assuming you accept the model of paying for an OS in the first place, they should be paid upgrades, because they fundamentally change the product you're buying.
And the last paragraph of your reply shows your only experience of Apple is through its Windows software (which could be better). Try actually using a Mac before pontificating about it.
No not the bs they include (I'm sorry when I can type faster than the fucking shell that's a problem, and one problem I haven't had since like 91-92 on dialup :P
And these other bolt in shells suck just as horrible.
Yes I could run X11, but why would I run X11, ontop of Aqua just for a decent shell. I still can't believe in all the improvments, they still ship that shitty ass terminal app.
oogly boogly!
There are G4 CPU upgrades for the slower then 800Mhz systems you even use G4's form Quick Silver Power Mac G4s macs with a 12 V power mod to the 4th pin on the cpu.
You can find g4 cpu's on ebay from time to time.
My previous OS upgrade solved that problem once and for all.
Actually the article summary has been misled/mistaken.. since the Titanium Powerbooks actually went to 1GHz before being discontinued.
Homophobes are usually closet bisexuals.
I have a G4 with dual 800mhz CPUs. I wonder if the leopard install engine is smart enough to allow me to proceed with the install?
I feel that most of the features in Leopard are of interest to developers.
Yes, who will then go on to build newer and more interesting applications based on these features, which Consumers will enjoy.
Not that there aren't some consumer things of interest in the release as well...
Apple traditionally also quickly has their own applications take advantage of new OS features so consumers could see new applications fairly quickly that would be compelling on Leopard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple didn't "snub" iPhone users at all (I have one and didn't feel snubbed - can you say the same?).
But regardless of terminology, dropping updated software for a product is a huge difference from just dropping the price of the same product.
Also, support for Tiger will continue for some time in the form of patches...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He kind of has a point in the last paragraph. Apple releases software on Windows to entice people with the Aqua look and feel, but all the Apple software on Windows really is kludgy, slow, and poorly-written. They really do put aesthetics ahead of performance and efficiency. On Apple it's a different story entirely, but on Windows Apple software really does blow. iTunes, for example, eats memory like a starving memory-eater, has all kinds of ridiculously dangerous bugs (ie all your music disappearing, some permanently deleted, tags being rewritten for no apparent reason, etc.). Don't even get me started on QuickTime on Windows :)
The Service Pack analogy is the closest thing Windows users have to these big cat releases, as each "proper" version of Windows has massive differences, more so than OS X, which the user can see straight away. 2000 -> XP was massive, XP -> Vista was even greater. Comparing 10.4 and 10.5 so far doesn't seem to yield the amount of changes Windows users experience with each new version. I'm not defending the analogy, or saying the parent was right, simply providing a reason as to why people might think that way.
Sorry to reply to myself - case in point - my iTunes is using 252.6MB of memory, and peaks at up to 10% of my CPU usage, and it's not even playing any music.
"...software for Windows has a chance of killing the operating system..."
Doesn't that say more about the OS than the software you're running on it?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Homophobes are usually closet bisexuals.
No, no, no. A homophobe is a specific type of homonym - a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning.
Didn't they teach you anything in school?
I'm unsure why this is big news. Apple doesn't care that much about accommodating those who aren't holding themselves to their prescribed upgrade cycle. Part of what gives them the ability to innovate is the fact that they, at some point, will cut off the legacy users. It makes it easier for them to move their products forward and offer innovative new features and products that "just work" - they're targeting a narrow set of systems, and they don't have to deal with layers upon layers of legacy cruft - and to profit off of the forced upgrades.
>Nowhere does the article claim that Leopard will be G5 & Intel only.
Nowhere does the summary (or your quote of it) claim that the article said it was. It' says 867+ or G5
When it was originally posted, the summary said AppleInsider was anticipating that they'd drop all G4 support. That's why there are about 20 comments -- including this quote from the article -- correcting it. (And why it's tagged with "badsummary")
I'm glad the editors fixed the summary, but it would have been nice if they'd made some note to that effect, instead of confusing even more people.
... but it does run on a 6 year old laptop with a 1ghz Pentium III with only 384M of RAM. I can't remember if Aero glass worked, but if you really wanted to run Vista on a P3, would you care?
The problem with locking yourself to an OS vendor that's hardware exclusive is that they get to tell you when to upgrade your hardware. I was an Apple user for most of 20 years, then I ditched the Mac when my two year old Powerbook G3 was no longer supported by a MacOS X upgrade and refused to install.
Old news, really. The Apple retailer near me(not an Apple Store, but an old-fashioned, been in business 20 years store) told me weeks ago about this.
But it's as Kelson stated, It's G3 that's being dropped entirely. G4 will still work, because there are an enormous number of G4 machines out there(and they've only been selling Intel based Macs for a couple of years now)
The FA talks about minimum requirements, not support. Old computer owners don't need "support." They just don't want deliberate incompatibility, and that is what the FA appears to be talking about.
My main workstation is a 7 year old computer. I run Linux on it, and I don't give a damned if anyone supports it or not, because I do my own support. But I sure as hell do care if a new kernel or apps don't work on it. And when I read stuff like this, it makes me glad I don't depend on MacOS. I'll definitely remember rumors like this before I ever buy a Mac. If Jobs wants to sell Macs, he better put out an announcement that this rumor is bullshit and that Apple's customers won't ever be left with unmaintained software.
Fuckin' proprietary software. The threat of this kind of shit is why it's unsafe.
Or...you can stop paying $128 every 2 years, avoid the Apple vendor lock in, and use your old machine by running Debian PPC.
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r1/powerpc/iso-cd/debian-40r1-powerpc-netinst.iso
Before moderating, you mods really ought to read the mod guidelines. The post that started this little thread was clearly a troll, according to the moderator guidelines. So was the parent to this post.
I won't give you a link to the moderator guidelines; it will do you good to look them up for yourself.
Or, if you just can't be bothered, the following is a clear example of flamebait:
"If you're too fscking stupid to tell the difference between a troll and flamebait, don't fscking use your mod points. You probably won't get any of your other mods right either, and we'll all be better off if you take your mod points and stick them up your ass instead of moderating."
The foregoing flamebait has been a public service announcement.
I'd rather have support for old OS versions and a new OS version that has bells and whistles than be plauged by continual support for all things past.
I have a MacBook Pro running Tiger, which I love and will upgrade. I have a G4 Cube (450 Mhz G4) that runs Panther and works more than fine. I regularly get the security updates and keep QuickTime and iTunes updated, and otherwise use it as a server/DVD player/iTunes player, etc. Let old machines keep working without wanting them to play Halo 3 or other unreasonable demands (the Cube is 7 years old).
I know I shouldn't respond to this anonymous troll, but...
With every $150 service pack released for OSX...
There have been eleven releases of OS X 10.4.x over the last couple years. Once you had 10.4 all those releases were free. These releases are roughly equivalent to a service pack, in Microsoft-speak. Service packs don't add features, do they? The major releases all add features. Granted many of them are new capabilities for developers to take advantage of, but there are usually enough immediate benefits for the end user to drive sales.
And by the way, if you're going to troll, at least get your facts straight. Major releases of 10.x are $129 for a single machine, and $199 for a family pack that covers five machines.
I don't have a Mac. So, as an un-cool outsider, I find this topic a bit confusing.
Do Apple users actually keep up to date with OS X revisions? Is "Leopard" more like a service pack or a whole new OS or somewhere in-between? And what's the downside to not upgrading? Applications aren't tied to new OS X versions, are they?
In the Windows world, I would expect very few (non-geek) people to upgrade existing machines to Windows Vista.
... died yesterday of a broken power supply. Don't know if I'll bring it back to life. But it had ran Leo before :-)
As i found out after attempting to install on a 400mhz g4, all you have to do is boot the older system into target disk mode and install from a faster mac, so as long as you have 2 macs you are fine.
I have a blue and white G3 that has a 1Ghz G4 upgrade chip in it. I wonder if the installer will look at the CPU itself or the actual model of the machine. System Profiler shows a 1Ghz CPU and a G3 machine.
I'll have to tell my GF... She still uses my old Powerbook G4 550, and only recently has she said it's getting too slow. :^)
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Vista also has "better" APIs and tools for developers to make better applications. Hell, they even slapped some of it (e.g. .NET 3.0) back into XP.
I don't think we'll be seeing any back-porting for Tiger.
The comparison with Vista is pretty fair. A new finder is, honestly, reason enough to upgrade... That puppy is awful.
News flash, Vista requires a pretty beefy "current" machine. Leopard only supports machines that are made within the last four years. BFD. My God what would be the flak if it it only supported machines made in the last quarter or two and required a video card that wasn't quite on the market yet to get all the benefits? At least be consistent with the bashing. If the specs on Leopard are bad then geeks should be chasing Vista with pitchforks and torches. Leopard is pretty friendly about upgrading and more to the point "you can upgrade it"! Try using an upgrade disk on a Windows machine. Last time I tried that stupid move was ME. It killed the machine. It's a painless operation with Mac. It all just sounds like sour grapes because PCs are such a nightmare. I have four desktop PCs so I know. My Mac works fine where as while I'm writing this I'm still trying to get one of my new PCs to work. Bad drivers and bad updates are killing me. My main machine has been a screwed up mess ever since I upgraded the video driver, thank you nVidia for that little nightmare. Macs may have few options but damnmit they work! You may not earn geek point for fighting your way through a bad driver install but while you're tweaking Windows I'm doing actual work on my Mac. Truth be told is it the OS or the software that's important here? An OS largely sits there it's the software I earn my living with so I want painless and low maintainence. Call me crazy but as Windows gets less and less user freely Macs get more so. Everyone should get behind them even if they don't switch not whine about all the reasons they won't buy one.
signed Troll Bait.
in Microsoft-speak. Service packs don't add features, do they?
Hey, XP SP2 added the feature of 'security'! Oh... wait...
(actually SP2 *did* add features, IIRC. The firewall for one).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
They also announced they won't be supporting the Motorola 68000 line of Macs nor the MOS Technology 6502 that was in the Apple II.
Users of those systems were outraged and the nursing homes they were in had to cut back on their applesauce rations.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Only sensitive pussies who are probably gay anyway last a long time. Real men get in, get what they want, blow a load, and leave.
If they call an 800MHz G4 a 'lesser machine' then they should put a 'lesser mode' in their OS to allow it to run without funny graphics and whatnot. Why alienate old faithful users when you can just put a few more lines of code to disable power-hungry stuff when a 'lesser CPU' is detected? Also, smart users get fast CPUs to do something meaningful with them, not spend all their processing cycles to unnecessary OS graphics and bad programming (people in Commodore days where doing wonders with 64K, and actually much less than that as about half of it was reserved by BASIC, and now we need GBs just to run an OS and a leaky browser??? where are the real programmers? if 64K were enough to do wonders in 1980s then imagine what one could do with 2 or 4G if real programming were used today).
"Previously developers had been told that it would require at least an 800 MHz G4. But AppleInsider alleges only 867 MHz G4s and higher will now be supported..."
;)
Duh... ever heard of overclocking??
(actually SP2 *did* add features, IIRC. The firewall for one)
XP had a firewall from day 1. SP2 just enabled defaulted it to "on".
So it will still support my 5 year old 1GHZ TiBook? Sweet..... not that I really cared, - it's 5 years old and only gets used once in a blue moon - compare that to my 2 year old Toshiba tablet that gets used every day totally shat it's self with Vista (work's Tosh Tecra M9 runs it kinda OK though). Now if it hadn't supported my Dual processor G5 Tower I'd be totally pissed off.
Well ok I Recalled Wrongly.
But I do recall that many applications, including games, didn't work under SP2.
Thats a feature!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I have a dual 450 MHz G4 that still runs 10.4.10 beautifully. Any word on if my ol' girl will run 10.5?
If you take a little liberty with the processor speeds, my system meets all the requirements:
450 MHz x 2 = "900 MHz"
704 MB of RAM
4x DVD burner
120 GB hard drive
FireWire
I bought it back in '00 for about $2200. Over the years I've upgraded the RAM and graphics card and added a DVD burner and wireless card. It still remains responsive, even if I'm doing several things at once, like surfing wirelessly, listening to iTunes and burning a DVD. That's better than I can say for several much newer Windows systems I've used.
I have a Digital Audio G4 - SuperDrive (the very first), Firewire - and you guessed it - 733 MHz performance. It's been on almost constantly since OS X Beta/10.0 roll-out, and it's still running 10.2, waiting, waiting, waiting for the big upgrade. /sigh/ Really wanted to Leopard on it.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
That's high-tech low-life to you, fella.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
No guarantees, but looking at Apple's past, it is unlikely that PPC support drops in 10.6. I would expect them to drop G4 support, but I would expect one more rev for the G5 users. It is possible that they would support dual core G5s or quad G5s for a 10.7, but at a certain point, you want to drop the PPC line.
:)
I have a bunch of PPC Macs doing various things, and would like to see support maintained, but realistically, this is probably the last rev supporting the G4... It is also possible that the G5 sticks around for a while, as there are certain environments that MAY be stuck on them for a while if they have PPC only software that won't run under Rosetta... Dropping the G4 lets them abandon PPC-32 and therefore only support PPC-64, x86, x86-64.
The only problem that they have with "late model" G4s is that the Powerbook was G4 until the switch. My Tibook 1Ghz from 4.5 years ago (don't use it, have a MBP from almost two years ago now, wow, and no itch to upgrade) wasn't that much slower than the late-model G4 Powerbooks, I think that they went up to 1.42 Ghz or something, but ditching them before the 5 year Mark isn't really Apple's style.
I expect my Macbook Pro to have a "short" lifespan, because it was 32-bit when it NEVER made sense for Apple to go to 32-bit Intel. I didn't understand why they didn't push the transition off a few months to go straight 64-bit Intel. On the other hand, my prediction is:
10.6 G5, x86, x86-64
10.7 x86, x86-64
10.8 x86-64 only
However, with the slower OS X release cycles, it's possible that they dump the PPC and x86-32 at once, and make 10.7 x86-64 only. I assume that the 32-bit legacy libraries will stick forever, but who knows. I am concerned because I have some internal Cocoa Apps using a library more or less abandoned and being nervous about losing support. If the library was made Universal I could recompile universal, but that looks unlikely, so Rosetta it is. The last OS/system that supports Rosetta may be something I have to stockpile, or find a good contractor to modernize the code, ditch the library, and use the internal Cocoa libraries that made it irrelevant when 10.3 shipped.
Who knows, if I could somehow actually get ahold of a x800 XT Card for my G5, keep getting back-ordered, I'd probably keep it as my home office computer for a few more years. With two 20" Apple monitors, it's fine for working from home, no heavy crunching, and it's a pleasant environment. If the turbo.264 and iMovie 08 incompatibilities get worked out, that's another reason to push off upgrading the home machine.
Bad Slashdot editors! Follow your established principles.
Honestly, most people couldn't care less about whatever new features Apple decides to add -- they just want their software to work. For some reason, though, Mac software authors feel inclined to require the latest version of OS X, which forces you to upgrade whether you care about those shiny new features or not.
Seriously, I have a friend with an iMac that can't run Gmail because it requires a newer version of Safari, that I can't install because it requires a newer version of OS X. She also has a brand new iPod that she can't use because it also requires a newer version of OS X. And she has an iMac that's so old that she can't even install OS X on it because it refuses to install without a firmware upgrade, but it can't upgrade the firmware because it doesn't have an OS!
Of course she's going to have to shell out for the $150 OS X upgrade when she gets CS3 anyway.
dom
I think for most people who have a 800MHz G4, they probably still have that one classic app that they don't want to get rid of anyway. And because Apple is stupid enough to dump Classic in Leopard, many PPC users may well be in for a painful shock down the line. Personally - I rarely fire up classic any more. But I'm a geek and seek out new software.
Why is Apple doing this anyway? How hard would it be just to leave it in?
Uhmm, no offense, but who here has a 1ghz system that even SUPPORTS 1 gig of ram, hmmmm?
All my Pre-P4 systems supported 768 meg MAX of SDRAM!
Now maybe some of the Athlon systems that existed in the interim between P3 and P4 had chipsets that did, but I don't think the majority of PC users with that old of systems have the mobos to support it.
Furthermore, from what I've heard from professors at my college actually trying to use it, you need 1 gig just for Vista, and another 1 gig just to INSTALL Office '07.
So that kinda knocks out any system older than maybe 5 years (My sister's box supports 1.5 gig max, and even my cheapo current system only supports 2 gigs!)
Goodness! NEW software wont run on OLD hardware! Someone call Oprah!
i run 10.4.10 on a 466mHz g3 ibook (w/ dvd & firewire), a 366(dvd/fw) and a 300 with no dvd or firewire...perfectly usable for email & websurfing:-)
Developers require the latest version of OS X because each successive version of OS X makes their lives easier. The user-level changes from Panther to Leopard have been evolutionary. Under the hood, it's a different story. If Apple didn't include new whiz-bang technologies for developers from time to time, its existing disadvantage in attracting developers (because of OS X's smaller user base) would be severely exacerbated.
Your friend with the iMac can run Firefox to access Gmail. And you should have no problem finding a copy of Mac OS 9.2 so she can upgrade her iMac, if it's even worth running OS X on (hint: if it has less than 512MB RAM, no way.) She's out of luck with the iPod... Apple should have either released those iPods after Leopard or supported 10.3.9; I can't defend their decision there.
And, yet again, it's $130, not $150 (and that's if you can't find a rebate and have no edu discount available).
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
if you have {g}zcat and pax and ditto, you're just fine
/Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ Disc/System/Installation/Packages/BaseSystem.pkg/Contents/Archive.bom /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ Disc/ /Volumes/leopard /Volumes/leopard /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ Disc/System/Installation/Packages/Essentials.pkg/Contents/Archive.pax.gz | pax -r /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ Disc/System/Installation/Packages/BSD.pkg/Contents/Archive.pax.gz | pax -r /System/Library/CoreServices/FixupResourceForks /Volumes/leopard
/Volumes/leopard/var/log/CDIS.custom
ditto -arch ppc -bom
cd
zcat
zcat
echo 'LANGUAGE=English' >
and you're done
(this is what i've done with 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3)
It's feeling like 10.5 should be released as 11.0 so Apple doesn't break compatibility promises to the G3 owners.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Are they still planning on improving bluetooth support (A2DP/AVRCP) or is it true that they're holding it back until they can release some Apple-branded and priced speakers/headphones/remotes?
And just how much does it cost to go from Windows NT 5 to Windows NT 5.1 again? Oh? $200? How about from 5.1 to 5.2? $500?!
I'm not really impressed. It seems like they're just trying to phase out older hardware completely to get people to buy the "latest and greatest" Mactel stuff. The switch has leveled the playing field enough that many PC users can take Macs more seriously. However, I have to admit that I'm a die hard PowerPC proponent, and I wish that Freescale and IBM had more motivation to develop better chips. I find it pretty amusing to see that my MDD G4 with a new dual G4 upgrade card performs on par with the new iMacs and smokes my sister's first gen Intel Mac mini.
Let's wait for release of Leopard before judging it. There are many talks about "useless" underhood changes, but that is what driving all third-party applications and that's what we use everyday. If you don't like that, you can always turn back to stuff like old good terminal applications and write emails, browse web through text based, "uncluttered interface" :-) ;-) I hope my PB G4 will run it or I will need to upgrade to Intel-based portable Mac.
And, after all, topic is 800MHz G4's and Leopard