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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."
The article is specifically about 800MHz and slower G4s being excluded:
Nowhere does the article claim that Leopard will be G5 & Intel only.
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?)Right, because complete 64-bit support, a *useable* *automatic* backup utility, the new developer tools, Objective-C 2.0, core-animation, a complete new interface & Finder, things like Xray (useable DTrace) mean nothing - and that's just off the top of my head!
You can't please all the people all the time, but to pretend it's "Apple's Vista" when it's not even out yet is the biggest load of tripe I've ever heard.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
I'll probably get modded to hell and back, but Leopard is rapidly becoming Apple's version of Vista.
I haven't used Leopard enough to know whether it's a step backwards for OSX and has no useful new features. However, even if that's the case, at least they only wasted 2 years making it.
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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Or, just keep using a perfectly good computer as-is, instead of "upgrading" just because something new came out.
"Oh boy! Are we going to try something dangerous?"
Excuse me, but what machine are you running your Tiger on? There is a wide spread agreement that Tiger is faster than Panther (but you need 512mb+ of ram)
When I installed Tiger on my 1ghz Titanium PowerBook it feelt like getting a whole new machine. I had 1gig ram. Note that you need a fresh install to gain all the speedbenefits from Tiger, upgrading from Panther will limit the performance a tad.
When in danger, whewn in doubt! Run in circles, scream and shout!
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.
"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."
So why is Photoshop faster on Leopard then on Tiger? As an ADC member I have access to all the seeds and I can tell you without a doubt that Leopard IS faster then Tiger.
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
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
Oh, no! I have a four-year-old iPod and a two-year-old Mac Mini! I no longer fit the stereotype! I'd better go throw some money away right away, so people know how to pigeonhole me.
"Oh boy! Are we going to try something dangerous?"
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
I thought every new release of OS X runs faster than the previous one?
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"
Considering how much end users bitch about the performance of the old finder, a new finder, if it performs well, would be a huge advantage all on its own.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Sweet, so I guess there'll be a lot more G4's for sale on craigslist that I can experiment w/Linux on =D.
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.
Oh, that's not true. You can always run AmigaOS 4.0 on it.
On a 1.2GHz G4 eMac:
I cannot quite type 1.2MB per second for more than a short burst, so I'll defer to your presumably superior typing skills and admit that I may not be as finicky as you deservedly are. Still, I would suppose that even one such as yourself would find Terminal.app to be at least, say, decent?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
Thats's Toonces, you insensitive clod!
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand". -Milton F.
Do Apple users actually keep up to date with OS X revisions?
I'd guess about half of them do. Most of the other half stay up-to-date with the minor revisions (10.4.x) for free using Software Update.
Is "Leopard" more like a service pack or a whole new OS or somewhere in-between?
It's a "whole new OS" like Vista is a whole new OS relative to XP.
And what's the downside to not upgrading? Applications aren't tied to new OS X versions, are they?
Same as with Vista. You get various OS improvements, most are low level. Slowly apps will come out that require those features. Five years from now it'll be the minimum required version, etc...
-pmb
Huh, wha?
Actually Tiger is much faster overall than Panther (excepting several finder actions... previewing images/.movs in column view, for instance), and as a fellow ADC member I can tell you that the new finder smokes. No more 5 minute lockouts if you forget to disconnect the laptop from the server before you leave the office. A NICE, extremely usable network browser.... lots of little polishy-bits. I'm hoping that the stacked dock icons make it back into the GM. I loved having all my office and CS3 icons in a single pile, not taking up huge amounts of real estate.
I'm not exactly buying into Apple's "entirely new finder" party line, but the improvements they've made are nice and snappy in the last several builds I've tested.
No idea why anyone would want to view a folder in cover flow mode, but whatever. It works, it's fast and Quicklook is mega-handy.
Can't really go into more detail for a couple more weeks, but if you follow the builds on the rumor sites you can see that Leopard is quickly approaching a solid release state.
- iBooks: April 2003 until (discontinued) April 2004 (2 revisions)
- eMacs: April 2002 to April 2004 (2 revisions)
- iMac "Luxos": January 2002 to September 2003 (2 revisions)
- PowerBook G4s: October 2001 to November 2002 (2 revisions)
- Power Mac G4s: January 2001 to August 2002 (3 revisions)
4 years is a good run for a PC. And you are not forced to upgrade to the New OS. Software will be available for the old OS for years. That's three and a half years for some iBooks and eMacs, but I agree with your point (it will be a good run). However, although software will be available for years, OS X Tiger will stop receiving security updates when OS X 10.6 is released (if Apple continues its undefined OS lifecycle).TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
They don't have enough RAM. If you do more than one thing at once Tiger will die with 512MB, while Panther has more room for error. If you have enough RAM to avoid swapping Tiger is snappier (once the Spotlight index is done and Dashboard is loaded).