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OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) Won't Support Some 64-bit Macs With Older GPUs

MojoKid writes "Apple is pitching Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) as the cat's meow, with over 200 new features 'that add up to an amazing Mac experience' — but that only applies if you're rocking a compatible system. Some older Mac models, including ones that are 64-bit capable, aren't invited to the Mountain Lion party, and it's likely because of the GPU. It's being reported (unofficially) that an updated graphics architecture intended to smooth out performance in OS X's graphics subsystem is the underlying issue. It's no coincidence, then, that the unsupported GPUs happen to be ones that were fairly common back before 64-bit support became mainstream."

417 comments

  1. Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jlv · · Score: 5, Insightful

    10.7 dropped support my 1st gen $2000 MacBook Pro, which otherwise still runs perfectly (but with only 10.6).

    Apple's hardware isn't just pricey, but they like you to buy new hardware on a regular basis.

  2. _PROD_ _VER_ won't support _OLD_HW_ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    _YAWN_

    1. Re:_PROD_ _VER_ won't support _OLD_HW_ by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      ARTIFICIAL_LOCKOUT != FUNCTIONAL_LIMITATION

      why are so many people demanding we throw away perfectly good hardware that can run the software, yet are locked out by the OEM? if a dell pulled this, people here would be bitching, but since it's apple, they get a free pass?

    2. Re:_PROD_ _VER_ won't support _OLD_HW_ by jbolden · · Score: 1

      The equivalent is Microsoft. And yeah people bitched here when Microsoft forced upgrades. They just haven't done it much in the last decade.

    3. Re:_PROD_ _VER_ won't support _OLD_HW_ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ARTIFICIAL_LOCKOUT != FUNCTIONAL_LIMITATION

      why are so many people demanding we throw away perfectly good hardware that can run the software, yet are locked out by the OEM? if a dell pulled this, people here would be bitching, but since it's apple, they get a free pass?

      What's keeping you from running Lion for another year, shit it just came out!

      And... did you conveniently FORGET the whole Vista capable mess?

    4. Re:_PROD_ _VER_ won't support _OLD_HW_ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who says anything about throwing out hardware? You just don't get the new OS. As far as I know 10.6 and 10.7 work just fine.

  3. Fast Retina Display MBP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    First Post because my graphics card is awesome!

    1. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by jo_ham · · Score: 4, Informative

      First Post because my graphics card is awesome!

      Actually, the GPU in the Retina MBP is not all that awesome - the huge pixel density is pushing the Nvidia 650M in the retina Macbook Pro to its limits, causing some performance issues compared to the equivalent desktop on the non-retina version. Examples include rapid scrolling on webpages and so on.

    2. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Incidentally (and not surprisingly) you have the same issue with the retinal iPad displays.

      The next time you see a display at your favorite big box store (or wherever you have iPads on display), walk up to it, go to the Home screen and flick the icons back and worth, and watch the image tear like crazy.

      Assuming it has web access, try opening a webpage and do the same thing - the tearing is probably more noticeable in Mobile Safari.

      If you wondered how on earth they managed to get a graphics processor capable of dealing with a 2048x1536 display into a tablet, the answer is simple: they didn't.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    3. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by Pesticidal · · Score: 0

      In that case I must have a super-powered gen 3 iPad because I have never experienced anything like what you're saying.

    4. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pure FUD.

      No tearing on my iPad 3, none at all.

    5. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by MBCook · · Score: 1

      It's not really noticeable, but in benchmarks the iPad 3 is slightly slower than the iPad 2. This is definitely true on 3D graphics. It's past the margin of error, but it's not a 20% drop or anything like that... it's quite slight.

      --
      Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    6. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Which BTW is precisely the reason Apple is changing out the graphical subsystem in 10.8 and that requires dropping some of the lower end GPUs and...

    7. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by jbolden · · Score: 1

      I own both the iPad 3 and the retina and the GP is right. More so on the retina than the iPad. Though 10.8 fixes a good bit of the issue with a more complex graphics subsystem.

    8. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by bongey · · Score: 2

      Going to take karma hit but here we go.
      Really you are full of shit, it has nothing to do with the precious MBP display
      AMD Eyeinfinity and Nvidia Optimus can drive 5 displays at 1920 × 1080 and the technology is 3 years old already.
      The graphics cards have no fucking issue driving the pixel desity that the MBP.
      Also here is the specs on the 650M http://www.nvidia.in/object/geforce-gt-650m-in.html#pdpContent=2 .
      See the max resolutions are higher the MBP display.
      Shit fucking look at the story from yesterday http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/07/10/2349230/a-fresh-look-at-multi-screen-pc-gaming .

    9. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by jo_ham · · Score: 1

      Going to take karma hit but here we go.

      Really you are full of shit, it has nothing to do with the precious MBP display

      AMD Eyeinfinity and Nvidia Optimus can drive 5 displays at 1920 × 1080 and the technology is 3 years old already.

      The graphics cards have no fucking issue driving the pixel desity that the MBP.

      Also here is the specs on the 650M http://www.nvidia.in/object/geforce-gt-650m-in.html#pdpContent=2 .

      See the max resolutions are higher the MBP display.

      Shit fucking look at the story from yesterday http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/07/10/2349230/a-fresh-look-at-multi-screen-pc-gaming .

      Put up a high res desktop with a webpage on the rMBP, record the framerate. Scroll the page quickly, record the framerate. Do the same at the equivalent "non-retina" resolution. Record the framerate.

      This has been done, and the 650M is capable of driving all the pixels on the display, but it doesn't mean it's going to be able to do it really smoothly at high frame rates. Don't get me wrong, it looks great, but it does take a performance hit over the equivalent 650M-powered non-retina version of the MBP.

      The fact that AMD Eyefinity and Nvidia Optimus can drive 5 displays "3 years ago" means absolutely nothing when you put a mobile GPU into a very thin case and clock it to avoid overheating. Sure, they may still be capable of driving three displays at that res, but with a performance penalty.

      Ford's GT40 can do 160 mph "many years ago" so surely that means my Ford station wagon can also do 160?

    10. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope.

    11. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by bongey · · Score: 1

      So the new MBP is comparable to a station wagon ?
      Really was hoping the new MBP had better specifications because I want to have a machine that can do development on OSX,Windows and Linux but I cannot justify the price and lower specifications.

    12. Re:Fast Retina Display MBP by jo_ham · · Score: 1

      So the new MBP is comparable to a station wagon ?

      Really was hoping the new MBP had better specifications because I want to have a machine that can do development on OSX,Windows and Linux but I cannot justify the price and lower specifications.

      In terms of GPU performance, yes.

      It has a 650M driving (effectively) a gigantic display. There is a price to pay for that sort of setup. If Apple could put in a more powerful card more suited to drive something with that many pixels at higher frame rates then they would have, but in the march to make it thinner (so much so that they dropped the built in ethernet port because it was too tall) they had to limit the heat output and battery drain - that left them with the 650M and it's just about powerful enough but don't expect 40+ fps screen redraw at retina resolution on high-motion stuff.

      It's really more of a technology showcase for the retina screen. If you want a machine for multi platform development in the same approximate size and weight range, then the normal 15" MBP is the one you want - more ports, more expandability, better GPU performance (albeit at non-retina sizes), and similar price. You still get a 650M, but it's only driving half the pixels and is much more in its comfort zone.

  4. $prod $ver won't support $old_ver by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    $boredom_response

  5. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    With a first gen macbook pro I think your due for a new laptop......3-5 years is my max of keeping them around.

  6. Overhyped? by Dinghy · · Score: 2

    It appears that any Mac purchased within the last 3.5 years is ok, judging by the list on that site. I'd say that it's not too horrifying that a computer 4 years old may not run the latest upcoming system. It's a tough balancing act deciding between supporting older equipment, but nobody should be surprised that Apple only looks forward in that regard. That's how they've always been.

    1. Re:Overhyped? by gnasher719 · · Score: 1

      It appears that any Mac purchased within the last 3.5 years is ok, judging by the list on that site. I'd say that it's not too horrifying that a computer 4 years old may not run the latest upcoming system. It's a tough balancing act deciding between supporting older equipment, but nobody should be surprised that Apple only looks forward in that regard. That's how they've always been.

      And in previous years, Apple had more time between releases. If 10.8 were released one year from now, then it would have been 4.5 year old machines.

    2. Re:Overhyped? by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      The issue sounds like a technical one due to a transition period from 32-bit hardware to 64-bit so the timing of releases doesn't really factor into that. I'm not sure it's a great idea to no update the system as much just to cater to older systems especially when they'll run just fine with the latest OS they can run and if security is an issue there is Linux.

    3. Re:Overhyped? by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      if the hardware simply can't, that's one thing.. if it's arbitrarily locked out, that's another.

    4. Re:Overhyped? by thogard · · Score: 1

      A good transition to 64 bits is still a long way away. How many programs use more than 4 gig of memory? How many programs will be faster by pushing around all those extra 32 bits of zeros? The answer is not many. There are some speedups for programs that do lots of useless copies since they can do it in 64 bit chunks but most open source apps I've tested tend to run somewhere between 5% and 20% slower in 64 bit mode than 32 which seems to be nothing other than overhead for moving the larger sized ints and pointers around. What is real interesting is hash table code is often much slower and I've seen cases where hash based lookups are 400% slower with 64 bits than 32. Some programs (like freebsd fsck) have a problem with building huge sparse arrays because of endian issues with 64 bit numbers. Running a program in both 32 and 64 bit mode is a great way to find bugs like these. Also running on something with different bit orders (like sparc or ppc) help find lots of bugs too. Its one reason NeXT/OS X stuff was so bug free compared to today since it had been tested on both ppc and x86.

    5. Re:Overhyped? by MBCook · · Score: 2

      According to Ars Techinica, it's probably because Mountain Lion is full a fully 64 bit kernel and those machines only had 32 bit graphics drivers. By doing this, Apple doesn't have to re-write new graphics drivers for those older machines. Seems like a fair enough engineering decision.

      --
      Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    6. Re:Overhyped? by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      Walk through the code and pad any 32bit values with an extra 32 0's and compile as 64-bit. Damn, that's tough. Certainly as difficult as a complete rewrite, eh?

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    7. Re:Overhyped? by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1

      You're assuming the bios sets these devices up properly for 64-bitness to work. I have no idea if it is the case, though someone running a 64-bit linux with the appropriate drivers could answer.

    8. Re:Overhyped? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Can you tell me which it was that you tested that was 20% slower? That's pretty significant and i'd like to have a look through.

    9. Re:Overhyped? by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      I'm not a driver dev, so I'm really (almost) talking out of my ass with regard to the porting process, but my point was that it wouldn't require the complete rewrite MBCook was alluding to. It doesn't take a driver dev to figure that much out. In fact, I'm betting that I could pull off one driver per month of full-time work with just the source to the 32-bit drivers and a proper build environment. Apple's driver devs, who should also be a fair bit more familiar with the hardware than I am, should be able to perform at at-least that level.

      TL;DR: There's no excuse, even if the hardware vendor won't release the source. They can contract the vendor to provide binaries, or, knowing both the old and new interfaces (since they created both), code a compatibility layer and add a line to "About This Mac" indicating that performance may be degraded when that layer is in use. Much preferable (to the consumer) to being forced to buy a new machine.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    10. Re:Overhyped? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its not fair, the old machines can run 64-bit code just fine. They run other OS fully 64-bit. Even the 32-bit EFI can load a fully 64-bit OS.

      This is just a business decision by Apple not so much a technical one.

  7. New operating system doesn't support old hardware by franciscohs · · Score: 1

    so what's the news?

  8. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Dyinobal · · Score: 2

    I've always been baffled at people buying Mac, hardware to me it's a bit like console gaming, which also baffles me these days, as it's got all the hassles PC gaming has these days with none of the flexibility.

  9. The upgrade treadmill by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

    I wonder if anybody dreamed it would be this successful.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:The upgrade treadmill by jo_ham · · Score: 1

      I wonder if anybody dreamed it would be this successful.

      Well, given that the turnover seems to be about 6 years, a very slow but successful one?

      How often do people turn over their primary machines anyway?

  10. More of a reason to laugh by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At watching all those experiencing nerd rage that Microsoft is ending XP support after a mere 14 years, and how they are so angry at Microsoft they are going to buy a Mac next rather than upgrade to Windows 7. Then we read stuff like this.

    Only a little nerd rage here on slashdot from XP loyalists, but wired.com and CIO magazine's website was filled with them and they were somewhat serious about using a Mac next to avoid planned obscelence in their minds.

    1. Re:More of a reason to laugh by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

      Linux works on 4 year old Macs.

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
    2. Re:More of a reason to laugh by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      And they were wrong. XP should have died a long time ago. Vista should be dead now too.

    3. Re:More of a reason to laugh by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      And they were wrong. XP should have died a long time ago. Vista should be dead now too.

      Yeah no kidding.

      It is the bane of web developers who can't use CSS 3 and even css 2.1 features like curved boxes because these XP users still use old IE. Though, IE 6 is about dead on the web thank god which is truly a nightmare.

      IT support guys like me do not even have the dialogue boxes memorized on XP anymore. They are security risk to the users and XP really does suck on newer SSDs with no trim support and scaling on anything more than 2 cpus. It pages like a mofo which ruins the drives on ... ok enough is enough about ranting.

      But I see the corporate view too. They are just haning on since 2009 not to layoff workers in weak demand and you are asking them to replace something that works fine for no good reason?? More up to date wont cut it when you have targets to meet to satisfy shareholders, and lights to keep on with weak demand.

    4. Re:More of a reason to laugh by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      At watching all those experiencing nerd rage that Microsoft is ending XP support after a mere 14 years,

      That's disengenuous.

      They continued selling it up until 2010. Ending support in 2014 means that quite a number of machines had only 4 years support. Again, this is the problem with the new OSX. The youngest machines unsupported aren't that old.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    5. Re:More of a reason to laugh by vux984 · · Score: 1

      They continued selling it up until 2010.

      That's disengenuous too.

      They continued selling it in large part because of the amount of pushback against having to to upgrade there was.

      Seriously. IT admins buying XP machines in 2009, knowing full well that Vista had already been out for 2 years, service pack 2 had been released... if they really expected to get ANOTHER decade of support for XP, they truly deserve the pain they are feeling right now.

    6. Re:More of a reason to laugh by jbolden · · Score: 1

      As a Mac user since 10.1 I gotta agree that's nuts. Excluding the whole Windows-8 move... Microsoft is excellent about supporting old hardware and software. Second only to the big systems guys like Dec (broke), Sun (broke) and IBM (charges a ton). Apple OTOH moves their whole infrastructure quickly:

      2001 entire OS rewrite.
      2005 changed CPU type
      2007 dropped support for all classic applications
      2011 dropped support for all PPC appellations

    7. Re:More of a reason to laugh by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Vista was released in 2007. The only people who should have been buying XP after that point were:

      a) Enterprise customers on enterprise upgrades
      b) People buying used boxes
      c) People buying netbooks.

      It wouldn't shock me if Microsoft is still selling DOS systems somewhere. That doesn't mean they have to continue to support the OS.

    8. Re:More of a reason to laugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They continued selling it up until 2010.

      That's disengenuous too.

      They continued selling it in large part because of the amount of pushback against having to to upgrade there was.

      Seriously. IT admins buying XP machines in 2009, knowing full well that Vista had already been out for 2 years, service pack 2 had been released... if they really expected to get ANOTHER decade of support for XP, they truly deserve the pain they are feeling right now.

      Why XP runs just fine and is a supperior operating system that is well known and is the only platform that is compatible with business software? I can sell you a car with square wheels too because it is new or a I can sell you a 10 year old car with round wheels. Which would you prefer?

      At work the systems (even newer ones) just fly on XP. XP connects to the network in 3 seconds. Windows 7 on the same Dell hardware takes 50 seconds. I do not want people calling help desk and our scripts failing because it can't connect to the network during that 50 seconds. Active Directory works better on XP. You do not have to clear out ARP tables on XP networks. You can have old OU objects from multpile domain controllers running different versions of Windows Server. Under Windows 7 it freezes at the welcome page during login.

      XP is all that is good and the best operating system ever made at Redmond. I expect to keep running it well into 2014 and pay for another year of support until 2015 before we really really have too move on. More than likely by the end of 2015 Windows 9 will be out and we can evaluate it.

      Also we can keep our intranet software on IE 6 for another few years too without updating our software saving us money.

    9. Re:More of a reason to laugh by armanox · · Score: 1

      Um, what?

      On compatible hardware, I have yet to find a XP system that works better then 7. 7 boots faster, is more responsive, and for newer hardware, handles multi-core much better. UAC is wonderful. I've never had ARP table or AD issues with 7. I guess you're still buying cars with carburetors rather then fuel injection.

      And if your intranet requires IE6 you're not going to save any money, and will pay for it later (and probably are now too).

      --
      I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
    10. Re:More of a reason to laugh by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1

      Complaining about IE on XP is more about Microsofts bundling and monopoly practices. Firefox and Chrome work fine on it. The security model sucks along with the underlying SSL behavior, I'll give you that for sure.

      When you work with corporations you'll see why they like long running software. Once the employees run the software long enough, the staff teaches the staff. Less calls come in to IT because they recognize the common issues that show up. Put them on a new OS and instead of handling the problem, it's a call to IT which increases costs. So you're exactly right about that. This is why Microsoft is planning on supporting Win7 till 2020.

    11. Re:More of a reason to laugh by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1

      Businesses were buying XP in 2009 because their apps didn't work on it, and Vista was a POS. A large number of medical applications didn't get updated to support Windows 7 and 64-bit machines until Win7SP1 was out. Vista scared businesses so businesses said F* this and stayed with XP till Win 7 was well supported hardware wise.

      It was also 'stupid' to buy Vista in 2009 when Windows 7 was coming out in late '09. It was the smart choice to wait and see how 7 panned out.

      Almost all of my clients have loved the move to windows 7, it's been stable, well supported, and fast on the new hardware. Vista, especially the original had all kinds of odd hangs and weird applications issues, mostly because the developers didn't know how to program for it yet.

    12. Re:More of a reason to laugh by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1

      d) People who didn't want that steaming pile of shit called vista.

    13. Re:More of a reason to laugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      XP boots in 20 seconds!

      How is that not supperior. We can save hundreds of thousands by using what works and I know from experience AD does not work well with Windows 7 if you have mixed Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008. If you move OUs a lot the issue pops up in Windows 7 with AD while XP keeps on going without having to clear the ARP table.

      People prefer it and hate change. They love it where I work and I put XP back on after a few employees complained and the CFO decided to cancel the migration due to EU budget crises. Windows 7 is the same if not worse than XP yet requires 2x hardware for the same performance?? I can do what you can in Win 7 with only 256 megs of ram with XP.

    14. Re:More of a reason to laugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Complaining about IE on XP is more about Microsofts bundling and monopoly practices.

      Oh come on, what OS ships these days without a web browser? One of the most popular ones (iOS) won't even let you replace the default one!

    15. Re:More of a reason to laugh by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      The difference is that people buying XP in 2010 were buying it in full public knowledge of a termination date for support, a date which had been released three years previously. That's not the same situation as suddenly finding your Apple kit isn't supported by the latest OSX release.

    16. Re:More of a reason to laugh by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      That's disengenuous too.

      I don't believe so.

      You could buy a brand new machine with only 4 year's support.

      They continued selling it in large part because of the amount of pushback against having to to upgrade there was.

      It doesn't really matter why they were selling it. They were selling it and they did cut support after four years[*].

      Seriously. IT admins buying XP machines in 2009, knowing full well that Vista had already been out for 2 years, service pack 2 had been released... if they really expected to get ANOTHER decade of support for XP, they truly deserve the pain they are feeling right now.

      Maybe. But many people buying it weren't admins. Are "normal people" meant to look up details of support before buying a computer? Perhaps, but they won't.

      [*] They were selling it on cheap, low-end machines as a cheap, low-end OS. 4 year's support isn't all that terrible. Still, you get 5 years out of ubuntu 12.04 and about 15 minutes out of the latest Arch, but upgrades are always free.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    17. Re:More of a reason to laugh by vux984 · · Score: 1

      It doesn't really matter why they were selling it. They were selling it and they did cut support after four years[*].

      It matters greatly why. Suppose I announce in 2010 I'm going to sell X until 2014, and then discontinue it and replace it with product Y, but continue to provide support for X until 2020. Then the product has 6 years of extended support.

      If, come 2014, you and all my biggest customers gnash your teeth and say we haven't done jack squat for the last 2 years to get ready to transition to Y, and none of our stuff works with Y because of it... can you please sell us some more X.

      What am I supposed to do; X is obsolete and ridiculously insecure, and if I just keep selling you X you'll just keep buying it rather than fix your systems to support operating in the far more secure environment Y provides. But you are big customers... so I say, alright already... the current product is Y, X is officially discontinued, but if you buy a license of Y; you can keep getting copies of X bundled with it for another 2 years. Now get your shit together, because support for X is still done in 2020.

      That's essentially what happened with XP and downgrade rights.

      To be fair, Vista had some legitimate issues of its own, most of which were ironed out with 7. But the majority of enterprise stuff that broke was related to not being able to run as a "regular user" or a reliance on IE6... and come on... that HAD to change. Backwards compatibility is great... but Microsoft is right to force developers to develop userland code that ran with userland priviledges. And IE6... that should have been buried a while ago.

      [*] They were selling it on cheap, low-end machines as a cheap, low-end OS

      You mean netbooks? I was mostly talking about the extension of downgrade rights etc for enterprise customers.

      I was addressing the context of this thread that referred to CIO's planning etc... You do have a valid point about netbooks and the support cycle, and consumers perhaps being somewhat unaware of the support situation, but meh... that was consumer junk, and even for them the XP EOL dates had been published, so they really have no excuse for being ... surprised.

    18. Re:More of a reason to laugh by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Vista was an upgrade for people with the right hardware. The "certified for windows vista" vs. "works with windows vista" being used on older / cheaper machines was Microsoft being too cute for their own good. Had they kept the spec where it should have been (i.e. 2g of ram minimum), 64 bit drivers only ... they wouldn't have had that backlash. Vista was quite good. Microsoft, as usual just couldn't stick with one game plan.

      As an aside had they done the right thing they also could have included:
      new Windows File System
      Document Security

      per the original LongHorn spec and Vista would have been seen as a major upgrade.

    19. Re:More of a reason to laugh by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      You mean netbooks? I was mostly talking about the extension of downgrade rights etc for enterprise customers.

      Yes. For IT pros the choice was between rapid EOL (bad) and Vista (bad), but at least they knew it was coming.

      that was consumer junk, and even for them the XP EOL dates had been published, so they really have no excuse for being ... surprised.

      I'm trying to imagine any of my family members looking up operating system EOL dates online before making a purchase...

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    20. Re:More of a reason to laugh by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      The difference is that people buying XP in 2010 were buying it in full public knowledge of a termination date for support,

      Well, maybe. The EOL notice may as well be in a darkened basement with missing stairs, behind a door marked "beware of the leopard", as far as general users of comptuers are concerned.

      I'm not actually dinging MS in this case, merely pointing out that the last sold copies of XP had 4 years support, not 11.

      The whole thing only really applies to netbooks, since that's where it was last sold to general consumers. There's nothing preventing them upgrading to Win 7 should they wish, since netbooks have pretty generic intel parts for which good drivers exist. MS will happily sell you software if you want to pay...

      Also, 4 years support on a very cheap machine is not too shabby, especially as the option to upgrade the software does exist.

      Blocking upgrading for a 4 year old premium machine is, however, very shabby.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    21. Re:More of a reason to laugh by vux984 · · Score: 1

      I'm trying to imagine any of my family members looking up operating system EOL dates online before making a purchase...

      True enough... but my point was they in fact actually documented it, which is unusual. With iOS / OSX you really have no idea.

      My ist gen ipod touch I picked up in spring 2008; had to pay to update to ios2 in summer 2008, pay again to update to ios3 in 2009, and apple dropped support for the device in June 2010 when ios4 launched. Barely 2 years. C'est la vie.

    22. Re:More of a reason to laugh by armanox · · Score: 1

      I've never seen a domain joined XP system boot in under a minute. Our Pentium M laptops boot 7 in under a minute (boot and login, I mean), rather then 5 under XP. My Pentium 3 subnotebook (Dell C400, 1.4GHz P3 w/ 1GB RAM) also seems to run much better under 7. And we're running a mixed Server 2003 and 2008 domain as well. I have yet to see any issues with moving OUs (but we don't do it a lot, maybe there is a minimum threshold?).

      If you're still using systems with 256MB RAM, I feel sorry for you. Yes, you can still work on them, but by that benchmark, my Pentium II laptop (IBM Thinkpad 600E) running Win2k is a perfectly fine system too.

      --
      I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
    23. Re:More of a reason to laugh by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      Some software doesn't run on anything newer than XP. That's one of the reasons why Vista flopped and why XP Mode for Windows 7 exists.

    24. Re:More of a reason to laugh by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      I don't think there ever was a mobile device that let you remove the browser. It is more of a appliance than a PC. But you're right every OS comes with a browser because people want that but I can uninstall the browser Ubuntu comes with and I can remove Safari from OS X. Even if I could not when I opt to use another browser they stick with my choice. Windows (at least from my experience which admittedly does not go beyond XP) does not always accept my choice. For example opening links in MSN Messenger it will open in IE even though it's not my default browser. Windows more than any other system pushes its choices on you.

    25. Re:More of a reason to laugh by exomondo · · Score: 1

      I can uninstall the browser Ubuntu comes with and I can remove Safari from OS X.

      No you can't - at least on Lion - if you try to drop it in the trash it will tell you the application cannot be removed because it is required by the system.

      Windows (at least from my experience which admittedly does not go beyond XP) does not always accept my choice. For example opening links in MSN Messenger it will open in IE even though it's not my default browser. Windows more than any other system pushes its choices on you.

      That's MSN Messenger - not Windows - using IE as opposed to using the OS default, any application can do that. ICQ - for example - could directly open IE as opposed to using the system default too.

    26. Re:More of a reason to laugh by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1255588

      Apple do make it harder to just drag and drop it in the bin perhaps because it can be relied on enough to ensure someone doesn't break the experience by accidentally removing it but it's definitely removable and downloadable as a separate item.

      Admittedly I did make a mistake. I should have said Microsoft not Windows. But the point still stands that Microsoft purposely ignore your choices to push their choice on you.

    27. Re:More of a reason to laugh by exomondo · · Score: 1

      http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1255588 Apple do make it harder to just drag and drop it in the bin perhaps because it can be relied on enough to ensure someone doesn't break the experience by accidentally removing it but it's definitely removable and downloadable as a separate item.

      Yeah i'm aware of that but doing a force delete of the executable and libraries is something you can do with internet explorer on Windows too, there's no difference between Safari and IE in terms of the ability the respective platforms offer to remove them.

    28. Re:More of a reason to laugh by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      I'd still say it's different as IE was built into the OS. Safari is still separate but Apple certainly tries to keep it there for, as far as I can tell, to stop newbs from giving themselves problems. In fact I'd be willing to bet if something weird happened like Apple bought Firefox they could replace Safari quickly. Certainly quicker than doing that with IE.

      Though as much as Microsoft claimed it was impossible to do they did indeed give you the option to uninstall IE in Win 7 through add/remove programs which removes most of it leaving at least the rendering engine which many programs rely on.

    29. Re:More of a reason to laugh by exomondo · · Score: 1

      I'd still say it's different as IE was built into the OS. Safari is still separate but Apple certainly tries to keep it there for, as far as I can tell, to stop newbs from giving themselves problems.

      IE is built into the OS because the OS uses the Trident rendering engine just as OSX uses Webkit, but you'll note from the link you posted there is also deeper integration of Safari as well in that iCloud for example has problems when you remove Safari. Point is neither Windows nor OSX really allow you to remove the browser without doing a force-delete which is going to cause problems for other applications, it's the same in both OSes.

      In fact I'd be willing to bet if something weird happened like Apple bought Firefox they could replace Safari quickly. Certainly quicker than doing that with IE.

      I can't think of any reason that would be the case, why do you believe that?

  11. Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely... by Assmasher · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...scrapes by.

    That's reedonkulous.

    Unmitigated success for Apple has been bad for us.

    --
    Loading...
  12. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by blahbooboo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've always been baffled at people buying Mac, hardware to me it's a bit like console gaming, which also baffles me these days, as it's got all the hassles PC gaming has these days with none of the flexibility.

    Really? Last I heard console gaming had no configuration issues, drivers, etc which a PC does..

  13. people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    people that complain about this don't realize 10.7 will get security updates for the next 4 years...
    get a life, it's not like your computer doesn't function without 10.8...

  14. AGAIN? by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 2, Informative

    Holy upgrades Batman!

    If they make the next version of X-Code support only Mountain Lion like they made the current version only support Lion - I'm going to scream! Because my clients wanted to support features of the latest iOS, I had to upgrade to a new Mac because my older model couldn't run Lion - which is required for the latest X-Code.

    --


    "Lame" - Galaxar
    1. Re:AGAIN? by 0x000000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You have clients ... charge a little more and absorb the cost of new hardware. What's so hard about that?

      --
      cat /dev/null > .signature
    2. Re:AGAIN? by OzPeter · · Score: 2

      You have clients ... charge a little more and absorb the cost of new hardware. What's so hard about that?

      Its hard to do so when iOS app success is a "lottery": 60% (or more) of developers don't break even
       
      I'm in the same boat as the OP. I was forced to upgrade my iMac to Lion in order to continue doing iOS development (and for which I am only breaking into).. What this move does is increase the Apple Tax for iOS development from $100 per year to $350 a year minimum (say a new mac mini every 3 years at $800 a pop). If you're not making money in the first place then you can't bill your customers more.

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    3. Re:AGAIN? by vlueboy · · Score: 1

      You have clients ... charge a little more and absorb the cost of new hardware. What's so hard about that?

      Sure, but he is a MAC developer.
      1) Not that many mac-only clients out there
      2) World recession means that clients actively look for better deals. It's not too hard to switch Windows + Bootcamp and find a PC-only software provider. No mac premiums there. Not often that you hear clients saying "hey, you know, we're going to switch our userbase to macs we don't already own", so the switch to the PC should be more elastic.
      3) Note how he says "I" and not "my company." This is a small shop business where there are no money pools, and cash is budgeted by himself --drawback? every client he loses entails another hard networking effort akin to landing a job.

    4. Re:AGAIN? by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      Really? I do iOS development on Snow Leopard on my MBP. I had to hack a few files here and there, but it works fine.

      I know it's a bit late, but a quick google reminded me of this, which is what I believe I used.

    5. Re:AGAIN? by jbolden · · Score: 1

      The current is Xcode 4.3
      XCode 4.4 beta is designed for Mountain Lion requires OS X 10.7.4 I believe that will be true through release.
      Xcode 4.5 beta is needed for iOS 6 and at least now doesn't run on Mountain Lion. Probably though the later versions will require it.

    6. Re:AGAIN? by larry+bagina · · Score: 2

      If you upgraded to a new Mac for Lion then your hardware is good enough for Mountain Lion.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    7. Re:AGAIN? by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 1

      I tried some of those "hacks" to get X-Code 4.3 to run on Snow Leopard, but it didn't work and I had a deadline. I gave it a day of trying hacks before I I went to get a mac that was "compatible" with 4.3.

      --


      "Lame" - Galaxar
    8. Re:AGAIN? by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1

      Like always, Apple fucks the developers. I loved using macs in the earily to mid 90's, but all the developers I knew were like 'fuck them'. It wasn't till the successes of the 'i' devices that Mac OS even registered on the usage stats charts.

    9. Re:AGAIN? by Grudge2012 · · Score: 0

      You have clients ... charge a little more and absorb the cost of new hardware. What's so hard about that?

      Sure, but he is a MAC developer.

      Ignoring how wrong your arguments about that were - nope he isn't. Why would he mention iOS when he is?

    10. Re:AGAIN? by Bogtha · · Score: 1

      The OP mentioned clients - he's building apps for other people. The article you cite is about the kind of developers who only work on their own apps. Yes, it can be difficult to make money that way. But any freelance iOS developer with multiple clients can easily afford to buy a new Mac - at the going rate, it's a couple of days work for a cheap Mac.

      --
      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
    11. Re:AGAIN? by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      Or you could run a Hackintosh on modern capable hardware (or as a VM) and not worry about it. You're just developing, it's not like you need full GPU rendering of your apps.

      Not that that's within the realm of allowed ways to run OS X, but it certainly is an option. That said, $350 a year for the equipment and software you need as a developer to make a living really doesn't seem all that bad to me. As a systems administrator, if I can get by spending that little of my own money to familiarize with new equipment or to get a 'gut feel' for how new things work, I'd be tickled pink.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    12. Re:AGAIN? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its hard to do so when iOS app success is a "lottery": 60% (or more) of developers don't break even

      That's number is a huge misnomer. There are lots of apps that people treat as a hobby and give away for free. There are apples released by businesses that aren't meant to be profit generators but to supplement their primary services. There are a ton of developers that code internal only apps. So you cannot take the total amount of revenue generated and divide by the number of developers to get any meaningful statistic.

  15. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Bake · · Score: 1, Troll

    I too own a 1st gen MacBook Pro that doesn't run 10.7 either.

    That's perfectly fine because IT'S A 6 YEAR OLD MACHINE.

    In computing years, that's an eternity.

  16. Gasp! by JustAnotherIdiot · · Score: 3, Funny

    You mean Apple is forcing people to buy their hardware again to update their software?
    I, for one, am totally shocked at this completely unexpected turn of events.

    --
    What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
    1. Re:Gasp! by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      I know I'd be cheesed too if I had to either continue using the old OS or Linux on my 5 year old laptop. Next time I'll buy an Acer that will only last 2 years and that'll show them!

    2. Re:Gasp! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, a $2000 Macbook Pro looks pretty good next to a $300 Acer netbook. Good thing Apple doesn't have any other competitors or it might seem like a bum deal.

  17. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Psyborgue · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe you won't be able to run the OS, but it'll still be a long time before apps require 10.8. My 5 year old MBP (late 07) is supported. 5 Years isn't exactly bad. Had the 8600m GPU not burned itself out just after the warranty period, i'd probably still be using the thing.

  18. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by siddesu · · Score: 1

    Why is that so? Should I also sell my MGA for scrap because it was made in 1956?

  19. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Dyinobal · · Score: 1

    hmm I guess all those reports of certain games not working correctly if you had a different (older) hardware revision of the console were just false then and that no such thing ever happened.

  20. Still haven't gotten an answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What nobody has answered yet is what happens if you have an older Mac with a newer GPU. Mac Pros are upgradeable after all. What graphics cards are supported, and how old of a Mac can you put them in?

    1. Re:Still haven't gotten an answer by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Informative

      It isn't just the graphics card, you need a a Mac with a 64-bit EFI (Ars Technica article has more detail at the bottom).

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    2. Re:Still haven't gotten an answer by craigminah · · Score: 1

      If it was the GPU then MacPro users could buy a new GPU an be good but since the problem is the older Macs have 32-bit EFIs Apple decided it's easier to make them obsolete. Netkas.org has a workaround and has gotten the 2006 MacPro 1,1 working with OSX 10.8. I'll probably migrate from OSX to Linux when I can't do what I need to do with my MacPro...where's the "guy waving fist angrily in the air at Apple" emoticon?

  21. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, and how many Wintel machines bought in 2006 (first Gen Macbook Pro guessing the date) can run ANYTHING.

  22. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by FranTaylor · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I've always been baffled by people who think that spending the lowest amount of money on the initial purchase automatically means a lower overall cost.

  23. Use that cash, hire driver writers by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mountain Lion apparently doesn't play nice with 32-bit GPU drivers, and while Apple could spend time and resources bringing older models up to par, the Cupertino company decided it was better off dropping support altogether.

    If this were a true hardware limitation, it would still be bad. But not wanting to update drivers? While you are sitting on $100 billion cash? How many driver writers do you need for the limited selection of tightly controlled hardware?

    Ugh.

    1. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We are talking about individual device drivers, not upgrading IRS computers. The interfaces are already well defined. The hardware is already well understood. There is an existing code base to work from. There might be half a dozen GPUs in question, which could be handled by half a dozen driver writers working alone for a couple of months.

    2. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 2

      It's not wise to piss away money, especially for a small subset of your market. I'm sure they have a pretty good idea of how many people this current effects and it's probably not worth it. The move from 32-bit to 64-bit hasn't been great and it's still a bit shit in some cases but you gotta live with it.

    3. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 1

      You can make a huff about it but really they just don't care about you and your old computer.

      Maybe. You are speculating about their motives. I'm speculating about an internet rumor on their reasoning. Let's call it a draw.

    4. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      If you are paying professional quality prices than it better as hell last a long time supported. SCADA embedded systems are supported 10 years min! Why? They cost $20,000 and up. Same is true for servers that expensive.

      Apple has shown they prefer you to throw out your macbook if you need a new battery and not care how much you paid. I find this unacceptable at that price point.

    5. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by guruevi · · Score: 1

      The problem is that the interfaces are not really well defined or anyone would be able to write a GPU, eg. open source developers.

      Look at the problems (still) in the nouveau drivers and radeon/ati modules. From what I've heard, the problem lies in the older GMA card drivers from Intel which Intel doesn't (want to) release 64-bit drivers for. I have seen the same issues in Windows Vista 64-bit and I've heard complaints about the 7 releases too (very glitchy).

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    6. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 1

      From what I've heard, the problem lies in the older GMA card drivers from Intel which Intel doesn't (want to) release 64-bit drivers for. I have seen the same issues in Windows Vista 64-bit and I've heard complaints about the 7 releases too (very glitchy).

      That's the most persuasive thing I've read yet. I can easily see a pissing match between two large corporations pushing responsibility for the drivers on each other. In the end though, it is Apple that will take the bigger reputation hit. People will remember the limited support for Macs for years while very few know what GMA even means.

    7. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Bill stop it. You are a regular here. You know from these threads that Apple charges $199 for a battery for the rMBP. You won't have to throw anything out.

    8. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by jbolden · · Score: 1

      And what reputation did Apple have before this for long term hardware support with newer OSes? Apple isn't changing their behavior this is what they do.

    9. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

      Go google ifixit.com? The batteries are for older macbooks. They are irreplacable on the new ones.

    10. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      Professional quality tools last 10-20 years, minimum.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    11. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Maybe you didn't understand this. The rMBP is unfixable without specialized equipment, like the right solvents. That doesn't mean Apple can't fix, just that you can't. They still sell a battery replacement service. You pay them $199 and they take your rMBP and replace the battery. On the older systems it was cheaper, generally around $129.

      Here is an article in ifixit that backs up my point about the repair cost: http://ifixit.org/2763/the-new-macbook-pro-unfixable-unhackable-untenable/

    12. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by mckwant · · Score: 1

      Thank you. Apparently, it's not just me.

      mckwant.

      --
      ceci n'est pas un sig.
    13. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by armanox · · Score: 1

      Oracle doesn't support Solaris 11 on Sun Servers that are only a couple of years old (client has an M3000 that is unsupported). So it must be a UNIX thing.

      --
      I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
    14. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1, Funny

      1) You have a dell model A with a broken motherboard and a dell model A with a dead battery, how much does it cost to fix your dell model A?

      Nothing, just take the battery out of the notebook with the broke board.

      2) You have a apple MBP model X with a broken motherboard and a apple MBP model X with a dead battery, how much does it cost to fix your apple MBP model X?

      $199 motherfucker, pay up.

    15. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You clearly have no idea what it takes to write, maintain, and verify a graphics driver. The cost isn't so much in people to do the actual coding, but rather it's in maintaining quality control across all the hardware with the same codebase. These things do not scale up easily. And, frankly, people who have gotten 3 years out of their machines are doing really well. (Especially since no one is forcing them to update.)

    16. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Yes absolutely. You can't fix. But $199 is totally different from unfixable.

    17. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2: Nothing, Just swap the top case (complete with working battery) over to the one with the working motherboard. Strangely, that's equivalent to your solution to the Dell above. Sure, it involves a few more screws, but it's certainly not anything *I* couldn't handle. Or, swap the working motherboard over to the top-case with the good battery. (That actually involves fewer screws than the other way around.)

      Seriously, don't comment on things you don't understand.

    18. Re:Use that cash, hire driver writers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2) You have a apple MBP model X with a broken motherboard and a apple MBP model X with a dead battery, how much does it cost to fix your apple MBP model X?

      $199 motherfucker, pay up.

      Well, you might do that. Personally, though, I'd pay a few bucks for a "pentalobe" screwdriver and swap the motherboards. Think outside the box a little!

  24. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Baloroth · · Score: 1, Troll

    With a first gen macbook pro I think your due for a new laptop......3-5 years is my max of keeping them around.

    Well, maybe, but Apple fans often triumph how their laptops last for 5+ years, so for Apple to drop support like this is a bit of a smack in the face.

    (Yes, I hate Apple, I fully admit it).

    --
    "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
  25. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Sez+Zero · · Score: 1

    ...scrapes by.

    My $2200 4.5-year old Mac Pro scrapes by handily. Why did you spend $6000 on a computer again?

  26. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Missing.Matter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not anymore. A 6 year old machine might not be able to run the latest games, but it can run the latest Windows or Linux OS, the latest work processing and productivity software, and the latest browsers. I have a 2006 Core 2 machine with 4 GB RAM and a nice big harddrive in it. It runs Ubuntu 12.04, Windows 7, and Windows 8, runs Office 2010, runs Google Chrome and Opera 12.... this is a machine that does what most people need it to. This is very different from say 1996, where a computer from 1990 was laughable.

    But we're not even talking about 6 year old machines here; where talking about machines you might have bought in 2008/2009. That's 3-4 years old! I have a quad core machine that old that can even run some of the latest games at decent resolution and FPS, and of course runs the latest Windows and Linux OS. It's unacceptable that a 3 year old mac could not run the latest Mac OS.

  27. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Literaphile · · Score: 2

    My Xbox 360 is 6 years old and I have no problems running 2012 games.

  28. Remember Vista? by rogueippacket · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In before the haters, just think back to the release of Vista and signed vs. unsigned drivers. In this case, we're talking about drawing a very clear line between four year old Mac hardware which will not be supported, and everything else, which will be fully supported. There is no gray area.
    Now think back to the debut of mandatory driver signing with Windows Vista - where individual components in your computer would cease to function after an upgrade for no reason other than Microsoft wanted your manufacturer to pay extra for the privilege. Even worse, there really was no way to know before the upgrade if your system would function entirely. At least Apple's upgrade paths are clearly defined, and always have been - from Classic to OS X, PowerPC to Intel, and now Lion to Mountain Lion. You knew what you were getting into when you bought the Mac, and that's a very rigid upgrade cycle of roughly three years (right after your warranty expires) if you want to remain on the bleeding edge.

    1. Re:Remember Vista? by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but you can STILL get security updates for XP, let alone Vista or Win7.

      It sounds like Apple only supports one previous version.

      That means that if you run windows you STILL get completely official security updates for a computer 12 years old, though you should be saving up to replace it now as that will end TWO YEARS from now, when your computer is 14 years old.

      It sounds like with OSX you're going to be on shaky ground in 5-6 years. I don't think that is terrible for personal use, but for a corporate user having to roll out a new OS version every other Apple release (they release annually it seems) is a huge amount of overhead, and if you do have some kind of oddball hardware setup you will be forced to keep that moving along as well.

    2. Re:Remember Vista? by benjymouse · · Score: 1

      Now think back to the debut of mandatory driver signing with Windows Vista - where individual components in your computer would cease to function after an upgrade for no reason other than Microsoft wanted your manufacturer to pay extra for the privilege. Even worse, there really was no way to know before the upgrade if your system would function entirely.

      This is so much BS that it could have made a Peter Gutmann "research" report.

      1) There was no driver signing requirement for 32 bit Vista. To this day there is no driver signing requirement for *any* 32 bit Windows - including Windows 7. If you upgraded from Windows XP (a 32 bit OS) there would *not* be any issue with driver signing. Microsoft has clearly stated that 32bit Windows are exempt from driver signing *exactly* because of potential backwards compatibility issues.

      2) 64 bit Vista *did* introduce driver signing for *kernel mode* drivers. If you upgraded from 32bit XP to 64bit (if your hardware was capable) Vista you would need to obtain signed drivers for the the devices which had *kernel mode* drivers. Part of the graphics drivers execute in kernel mode so you would need signed drivers for that. However most drivers for non-bus devices (a bus device include very generic devices such as IDE, SATA or USB hubs), i.e. most consumer electronics do not need signing.

      3) There was an upgrade assistant which would produce a comprehensive report on what hardware and software you could expect to be able to run on Vista. Petty you never found it.

      4) Microsoft *never* sees any money you pay for a code signing certificate. Microsoft simply trusts Verisign and a few other CAs to issue authenticode certificates. All the signed driver ensures is that 1) they can find the identity of a publisher of a driver - they assume that Verisign has performed a deeper verification than simply a credit card and 2) publishers or individual certificates can be revoked and thus cause systems to refuse to load malicious or exploited drivers.

      As for your "clear path" - MS has stated for Windows 7 that if your system worked with Vista - it will work with Windows 7. They have now stated that if your system works with Windows 7 - it will work with Windows 8. Does it get any more clear than that?

      --
      Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
    3. Re:Remember Vista? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      MS has stated for Windows 7 that if your system worked with Vista - it will work with Windows 7.

      That might be true, but only technically. There are no driver downloads for my Gateway subnotebook that shipped with Vista, for Windows 7. I can load the Vista graphics driver but then I can suspend and resume ONCE, the second time the machine never comes back further than a flashing cursor. Also my battery life was cut by an hour. This is because AMD does not provide direct downloads for mobile platforms. nVidia was like that for a long time, but they changed their policy. Consequently I will never* buy another mobile AMD and/or ATI-based system again (just to differentiate between CPU and GPU, I know it's one company thanks). User hairyfeet claims that I can load the drivers from the same hardware sold by some other vendor and use them, but how would the average user ever find that out? I looked and looked and never managed to find this information out on my own.

      * OK, if they unfuck themselves and start providing driver downloads for mobile hardware including past hardware then I will change my mind. Where are my R690M downloads for Windows 7?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Remember Vista? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Last I checked, you could still get Mac OS 9 updates with Software Updates, too. Apple still supports their old software, they just aren't supporting their hardware as long as they used to. Does this mean OS demands are out-pacing hardware capabilities? Is Mountain Lion bloatware? Is Apple just trying to ensure a pleasurable user experience?

    5. Re:Remember Vista? by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Absolutely. Apple is rather corporate unfriendly. And that comes (came) right from the top: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLvvzktuVY8

    6. Re:Remember Vista? by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      I'm happy to stand corrected on their OS support if true, but I couldn't find any clearly stated policy on the Apple website (I looked). The best I could do was some oneline discussion which suggested they stopped publishing updates two versions in the past.

    7. Re:Remember Vista? by tstrunk · · Score: 1

      There is no official information about the OSX lifecycles.
      However there are well educated guesses: http://www.sture.ch/node/196

      Apple not providing this information is a big problem. If they would, consumers would have a reason to cry foul.
      But they don't and this leads to the fact that many many Mac users, still running 10.5 think their operating system is still safe, although they didn't receive security updates for a long time (June 2011). I except this to repeat when 10.6 runs out of support.

    8. Re:Remember Vista? by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Seems really bizarre not to have a policy.

      Even tiny linux distros with 20 users usually have policies. Their policy might be that they don't do security updates, but they have a policy or can produce one if asked.

      Nothing wrong with changing the policy either, as long as it is forward-moving.

      Who knows what vulnerabilities they are just sitting on because people are willing to buy their product without any promise of a response.

  29. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by DragonWriter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apple's hardware isn't just pricey, but they like you to buy new hardware on a regular basis.

    Is there any company that doesn't like you to buy their product as frequently as possible?

  30. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by reybo · · Score: 2

    Every time they update the OS they claim to have added hundreds of new "features." Most are useless crap, and the good ones are quickly orphaned.

  31. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by FranTaylor · · Score: 1

    Huh? I have a 2000 laptop with P4, 1 Gig RAM, loads and runs Fedora perfectly

  32. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

    YOUR max.
    3.5 years is not a horrendously long time. Hell, 3.5 years ago (2009), they were using 1.83 - 2.0 ghz processors and 512mb-1gb ram in the macbook pro. That's not slow...

    --
    -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  33. Subsidies by Missing.Matter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And this is why Mac OSX doesn't cost just $19.99. If you bought a Mac in 2011, you've already subsidized your purchase of OSX Mountain Lion you'll buy later in the year. Problem is, if you bought a Mac in 2008, you've already used up your copies of OSX, so you don't get to buy Mountain Lion at $19.99. Apple's decided you need to buy a new Mac to subsidize the next 4 versions of OSX, which you'll be free to buy for $19.99 of course. Until 2016 of course when the process starts over again.

    1. Re:Subsidies by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      Exactly which is why they don't want you to put OS X on other hardware. They are a hardware company more than a software company but obviously a PC needs an OS. So they've developed one which you pay for in the hardware too.

      It's still a better deal given the hardware is still usable with it's latest OS or Linux and it beats having an dell that you'd be lucky to see last 4 years.

    2. Re:Subsidies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People pay for OS X upgrades?!

  34. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by blahbooboo · · Score: 2

    hmm I guess all those reports of certain games not working correctly if you had a different (older) hardware revision of the console were just false then and that no such thing ever happened.

    Would love to see a citation on this claim....

  35. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by FranTaylor · · Score: 0

    So in other words you are perfectly happy with the computer you have, and you have nothing to complain about, because the new stuff is all junk

    Why do you even bother posting when life is nirvana for you?

  36. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

    If you game on your dad's computer, than you're right.

    --
    -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  37. An interesting dichotomy by davidbrit2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As a software company, it's in Microsoft's best interest to prevent "new hardware" from being a barrier to entry for buying their software. (Remember the "Vista Capable" mess?)

    As a hardware company, Apple mostly uses their software to try to entice you into buying new hardware.

    1. Re:An interesting dichotomy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a software company, it's in Microsoft's best interest to prevent "new hardware" from being a barrier to entry for buying their software. (Remember the "Vista Capable" mess?)

      As a hardware company, Apple mostly uses their software to try to entice you into buying new hardware.

      As a hardware company, Apple uses their software as a barrier against you buying GOOD hardware

      FTFY

  38. For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47

    Looks like it is possible but there's some work to be done. I'll be trying this in a few weeks once the dust has settled.

    What pisses me off is that, even if I had the cash to update my Mac Pro, firstly I don't want to, it's still a great machine and secondly, there are no new Mac Pros available anyway.

    1. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      What pisses me off is that, even if I had the cash to update my Mac Pro, firstly I don't want to, it's still a great machine and secondly, there are no new Mac Pros available anyway.

      Yeah, the Mac Pro issue is pretty annoying. I have a 3,1 from 2008. It's had memory and hard drive updates and is within 30% of the speed of a new Mac Pro. It's also a pretty expensive machine. Now, I can update my graphics card and I should be 10.8 capable, but earlier versions like the 3,0 machines - which are just as fast - won't be upgradable.

      So, you decide to bite the bullet and get a new Mac Pro - then you realize that they've barely been upgraded in the past 6 years and you wonder why you'd want to drop top dollar on that old of a design.

      Makes you feel unloved, it does.

      If Windows 7 didn't just completely annoy me, I might go back to Redmond. Except that Windows 7 is going to be the old version pretty soon and I just can't handle the Metro Interface.

      Grrrr. This Photoshop addiction can get ugly.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by jbolden · · Score: 1

      2013 they are doing a major update of the MacPro. You can hold out a year on 10.7.

    3. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      Wow, I've been called an Apple Fanboy on Slashdot before, but you're really taking things to new level. You even make ME hate Apple users (and I'm on a MBP, use a Mac Pro, have an iPhone and 2 iPads, etc).

    4. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by jbolden · · Score: 1

      I think you may be misunderstanding something. You were talking about how you shouldn't upgrade because the new MacPros aren't much better in 6 years (I actually think more like 3) and mentioned that in 2013 that won't be the situation. The OS issue isn't a problem for a year.

      If that makes a fanboy so be it.

    5. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      *I* wasn't talking about anything. The post you just replied to was my first post in this thread.

      I do, however, agree with the OP. My MacPro 1,1 is quite a snappy computer. I dare say it's faster than many of the 2-year-old iMacs or Mac Minis we have at our office for daily use. I think it's ludicrous that Apple isn't extending support. The Mac Pros have barely been upgraded in what -- 2-3 years? Saying "well, just wait another year" seems the epitome of the uncritical (indeed ANTI-criticism) Apple Boy.

      Realistically, given the 3rd party solutions (that I will probably try) to get ML running on a MP1,1 Apple could have easily done the same. Apple could have bought out the project even. Instead they focus on twitter integration, facebook integration, gamecenter, and so forth. It's been a very good ~10 years of Apple computers. I'm afraid the software quality is on a downward spiral, however.

      Dropping classic? No problem.
      Dropping PPC? No problem.
      Dropping support for perfectly good, fast, powerful hardware? Not good in my book.

    6. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by jbolden · · Score: 1

      There are three issues here:

      1) Apple's failure to overhaul the MacPro for years. That's a valid criticism. I think the MacPro is at this point a total ripoff. What used to be an excellent workstation just isn't anymore. If possible I think if one needed a MacPro now, buy used. Criticism is valid.

      2) The fact that Apple isn't upgrading the older MacPros to 10.8. There are good technical reasons for that, and I think they are making the right call. Apple's willingness to demand the right hardware is one of the key reasons OSX is so pleasant to use, and the older MacPros while being very fast 32bit machines, are 32 bit machines.

      3) Further I see no harm to the MacPro people in not being able to upgrade to 10.8. There aren't really any major MacPro 10.8 features. The logical upgrade path is to switch over to the 2013 machines when they become available. Because those are going to be excellent and likely will take advantage of 10.8 features. Just think about how much horsepower it is going to take to drive dual 30" retina displays. If the 2013 machines suck then Apple is simply out of the high end desktop market.

      4) And your list is a perfectly good example of how personal it is. Dropping PPC kept me on 10.6 all last year. And there was no good reason Apple had to drop Rosetta they could have kept it for a decade. But I signed up for a fast moving platform, and I got bit on that one. OTOH when they dropped classic I was ready.

    7. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      4) And your list is a perfectly good example of how personal it is. Dropping PPC kept me on 10.6 all last year. And there was no good reason Apple had to drop Rosetta they could have kept it for a decade. But I signed up for a fast moving platform, and I got bit on that one. OTOH when they dropped classic I was ready.

      Don't get me wrong, PPC is still a feature we use. In fact, I still have one computer at work running 10.4 (Dual g4 1.25ghz) for one server application that would require a $10,000 upgrade to run on Intel. We used Classic mode for years. What I meant with my statement was, I'm ok with Apple dropping PPC support roughly 7 years after a major hardware transition. It affected several programs we do use, so we had to phase them out on new purchases and keep older computers on older operating systems. Mostly iMacs. I don't think this is analogous.

      Let me put my overall complaint like this. How hard would it be for Apple to code their own Chameleon equivalent? Or to buy Chameleon's technology? What kind of investment? 100k? 500k? A million? Pocket change for Apple, and they would have made a lot of Mac Pro owners (who are ALREADY not happy about upgrade paths) happy, and increased sales of Mountain Lion. Yes, this is amplified by the fact that I'm stuck on Lion unless I want to spend a lot of time migrating back to a prevision Snow Leopard install. This is the first OSX upgrade (Lion) that I felt has been a regression. There's not one feature I miss on my Snow Leopard computers. MacPro1,1's aren't going to be driving Retina displays, but neither are the earlier 64-bit macbooks and imacs that ARE supported. That's entirely a red herring.

    8. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by jbolden · · Score: 1

      I get your point. Let me respond 2 ways:

      Chameleon specifically: First off Parallels does exactly what you are asking for. So there is a well supported commercial version with Chameleon. However, Chameleon seems to have an encumbered license. Some people believe all the code is under the APSL some believe it is under the GPL. No way is Apple including GPL code tightly intermixed with stuff like their firmware. And no way are they going to try and license something with ambiguous licensing and ambiguous ownership. So buying it is out.

      Something like Chameleon: Absolutely trivial. The problem isn't creating Chameleon it is supporting it. If they do what you suggest they have to support two entirely different graphical subsystems. Right now every developer who targets 10.8 gets to target one mode of display. Which makes testing easy, especially when looking for things like skips or lags. With a corrupted graphics system that is officially supported developers would have to target two subsystems. One of the advantages that Apple offers its developers is simpler hardware / OS features than Windows and Android. Doing what you want would go totally against the grain of Apple's whole development model.

      It doesn't matter whether those other old devices are in fact supporting a retina display. It matters whether they are running a graphic subsystem used by the retinas. Developers under this model are getting a simple message, "build the next version of your app for retina". With two graphic subsystems the message becomes, "build for a range of devices".

      I think you need to separate out your issue of not liking Lion from what 10.8 is for, which is to:
      1) upgrade the security
      2) integrate better with iOS including retina, the notification system, upgrade the integration with facebook ...
      3) open the door to Apple TV.

      You are an unusual case of someone who upgraded, didn't downgrade immediately, uses a MacPro (which is unusual), doesn't care about 10.8 features and doesn't want to get things like Samba from Macports. You are cutting against the grain too much.

    9. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      So what are the differences in the "graphics subsystems" that you're talking about?

      Oh, to add to my laundry list -- The Preview.app in Lion is a useless slow, crashing, clusterfuck. I deleted it and copied Preview from a SL install. That actually made me enjoy Lion slightly more.

      You are an unusual case of someone who upgraded, didn't downgrade immediately, uses a MacPro (which is unusual), doesn't care about 10.8 features and doesn't want to get things like Samba from Macports. You are cutting against the grain too much.

      Yes, Mac Pro users are a minority of mac users. So what? Support effort would be minimal. We're not talking about supporting a parallel architecture or even outdated hardware! I didn't downgrade immediately--how many people actually downgrade when it's harder to do that? How many people make a snap decision in a day or even a week? I would hardly say that by NOT downgrading I am unusual! I have to support newer Macs, so I eat the dogfood, so to speak. Unfortunately in this case, the release was dogfood (imho of course). I'm not sure how getting samba from ports is supposed to solve Finder browse issues or Finder samba access problems on Lion workstations?

      Basically, the only way I am cutting against the grain is by not faithfully upgrading my computer every 4 years. My MBP is almost the same age (and runs better than new thanks to memory and an SSD), yet it supports Mountain Lion? Its specs are inferior in every way to the vastly more expensive (and expandable and upgradeable) Mac Pro.

      Look, you can justify this however you want. Apple will do the same. The bottom-line is, for a lot of users, it's a kick in the face, and yet another symptom of an Apple that increasingly cares about nothing but iOS and iOSification of OSX. It's sad for me.

    10. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by jbolden · · Score: 1

      So what are the differences in the "graphics subsystems" that you're talking about?

      The graphics system on Lion allows for KEXTs (32 bit extensions) in drivers. There is an actual code wrapper that goes between the graphics card and the driver on Mountain Lion which is 64 bit hence no KEXT support.

      We're not talking about supporting a parallel architecture or even outdated hardware!

      That's exactly what you are talking about. Supporting 32 bit only hardware. If Apple had a 64 bit driver for your card it would run Mountain Lion. In fact it wouldn't shock me if a 64 bit Linux driver gets ported over and then ML does run.

      I'm not sure how getting samba from ports is supposed to solve Finder browse issues or Finder samba access problems on Lion workstations?

      Because you would be running the full featured samba and not the reduced functionality. Lion moved from Samba 2 to Apple's Samba clone. Ports has Samba 3.

      Its specs are inferior in every way to the vastly more expensive (and expandable and upgradeable) Mac Pro.

      No its specs in terms of driver support are not inferior and that's where you are getting snagged.

    11. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      The graphics system on Lion allows for KEXTs (32 bit extensions) in drivers. There is an actual code wrapper that goes between the graphics card and the driver on Mountain Lion which is 64 bit hence no KEXT support.

      That's exactly what you are talking about. Supporting 32 bit only hardware. If Apple had a 64 bit driver for your card it would run Mountain Lion. In fact it wouldn't shock me if a 64 bit Linux driver gets ported over and then ML does run.

      No, I don't think you're right about this. As you say, the ATI x1900xt (the card in my Mac Pro) has windows 64-bit drivers. I've run one under Vista 64! Secondly, if what you are claiming as a major graphics change would be true, I could swap in a $50 graphic card into my Mac Pro and be fine to install ML. But I can't...It's more arbitrary than that.

      Because you would be running the full featured samba and not the reduced functionality. Lion moved from Samba 2 to Apple's Samba clone. Ports has Samba 3.

      You're claiming installing the Mac Port replaces the builtin smb functionality?

      No its specs in terms of driver support are not inferior and that's where you are getting snagged.

      EXACTLY. The keyword from your reply is: "support." This is where Apple is not willing to put in the effort. The hardware itself is fine. Apple is just not willing to do the support. Again, this situation is very different from 68k to PPC, or PPC to Intel. Deprecating old architectures makes sense. Deprecating powerful workstations -- while supporting inferior laptops -- just because you don't want to port a 64-bit driver that already exists for every other OS does not make sense. Blocking ML on a computer even if it has a fully upgraded, brand spanking new 2012 graphics card does not make sense.

    12. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by jbolden · · Score: 1

      No, I don't think you're right about this. As you say, the ATI x1900xt (the card in my Mac Pro) has windows 64-bit drivers. I've run one under Vista 64! Secondly, if what you are claiming as a major graphics change would be true, I could swap in a $50 graphic card into my Mac Pro and be fine to install ML. But I can't...It's more arbitrary than that.

      First off let me point they haven't written a Mac driver. NT kernel and the Xnu kernel are nothing like one another. So lets say it would take ATI a few man weeks to fix the driver problem. The ATI card change is the change in the graphic subsystem. You have one more problem. Because there is no KEXT support your EFI won't work. You need to reflash your firmware. But yes, you have me right:

      a) A port of a driver and / or a $50 replacement
      b) A new firmware

      and your system runs Mountain Lion fine. That's what the people who are hacking the preview onto their older MacPros are doing. You've mentioned Chameleon so you are familiar with the community. So in other words:

      a) Yes apple faced a real technical problem. This isn't arbitrary and they had good reason to make the shift they did in ML.
      b) Yes it could have been fixed with a complex install but not with anything simple. Which is pretty much what's happening. The people who can handle the reflash and understand the issue can load ML but Apple doesn't have to support that complexity in the field. And they won't have to support it as times goes on, rather the open source community will. I guess I can see a position for the Apple store offering to do this for say $100 labor. You do have a point there, given that they haven't updated the MacPro they should probably throw you all a bone on this one.

      You're claiming installing the Mac Port replaces the builtin smb functionality?

      Why not? Here are instructions: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120401160655922
      XNU is modular SMB is just a module you can replace it.

    13. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      Why not? Here are instructions: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120401160655922 [macworld.com]
      XNU is modular SMB is just a module you can replace it.

      Nice, thanks for the link. Bit of a PITA to fix a lion deficiency, though. My experience with OSX upgrades is that every point release generally reverts these type of changes. Still might be worthwhile...

      I guess I can see a position for the Apple store offering to do this for say $100 labor. You do have a point there, given that they haven't updated the MacPro they should probably throw you all a bone on this one.

      It's frustrating. I will do the Chameleon thing and hope for the best. With years without updates, deprecated models, no more server OS (almost understandable) and no more Xserve--not to mention the debacle with the video tools--it's just really apparent that Apple is one of first old school computer companies to jump headfirst into the post-PC, post-Power User world. As a user who always liked that OSX was UNIX--and a really slick system--etc, it just seems a sad thing to me.

      More cynical slashdotters would say I was fool for ever thinking Apple cared one cent about my ilk!

    14. Re:For Mac Pro 1,1 and 1,2 help may be at hand by jbolden · · Score: 1

      I don't think you are a fool at all. During the G3/G4 era one of the Apple's targets was the fact that the G3/G4s outperformed the Pentiums. The G5s were a point of pride. On laptops, phones and tablets they still sell performance. But everyone has dropped their high performance desktop lines. Take a look at how meager the offering are at Dell compared to when you bought your PowerMac. The last poweredge I bougtht had their 14 drive configuration (RAID 50) was upgradable to 196g of ram... I don't see anything like that now.

      Hopefully Apple does wow people with their 2013 offering and has something to win over all of the remaining Workstation users from Windows. But in general I agree. Apple is moving away from server. Apple doesn't use OSX for iCloud servers.

      But you shouldn't exaggerate, in terms of no more server OS they still have server, its just free / cheap and aimed squarely at small business: http://www.apple.com/osx/server/

      As an aside if you like the old Workstation with lots of umph on the G5s have you ever consider the IBM pseries with the G7s? There you could get a real upgrade: 512g rom, 32 G7 processors each one 2-3x as fast (in terms of work) as what you have, overlapping memory so the CPUs aren't sitting around pulling NO-OPs... IBM at least still makes beefy Unix computation machines.

  39. Closed source drivers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So apple can't get companies to write new 64bit drivers for their obsolete GPUs? Shocking!
    Really, we should be applauding apple here because they're really cutting to a full 64 bit release for OSX.

    Microsoft has done a good job since vista getting support for 64bit windows. (Probably because since then they've had a policy of denying certification unless you wrote both 64 and 32 bit drivers for your products..) I was surprised, however to learn that they're releasing 32bit windows 8. Hell, I was surprised 32 bit windows 7 even existed.

    32bit server '08 only technically existed for a short time (You can't buy it) and is really,in practice, an unsupported platform. 32bit was completely dropped for R2.

  40. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Missing.Matter · · Score: 1

    What do you mean huh? That's exactly my point. Even a 12 year old system can run a modern OS just fine.

  41. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Relic+of+the+Future · · Score: 1
    Since when is seven years later equal to "on a regular basis"?

    I just recently replaced mine because the plastic case was decaying beneath where my hands rested; loving the aluminum.

    --
    Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
  42. But...but...I upgraded my own GPU! by Mr.+Protocol · · Score: 1

    I stuck a much more modern GPU into my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1, but I bet the 32-bit firmware won't be supported by Mountain Lion anyway. A pox on them all. For the first time I'm seriously considering gutting a Windoze box I don't use any more and turning it into a Hackintosh. Anything future editions of OS X don't like about THAT box, I can upgrade away from piecemeal. Including the mobo.

    1. Re:But...but...I upgraded my own GPU! by dhickman · · Score: 2

      Treat your mac as a hackintosh and boot it in legacy mode. Do it with my 1,1 and have been running lion in full 64bit mode. I have heard the ML DP4 works well also and it can be installed as an upgrade install.

    2. Re:But...but...I upgraded my own GPU! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I run mine with Snow Leopard in 64bit mode (fantastic for running VMs...) but yeah its a shame apple doesn't just do a WCS like the old amigas or VAXes for new firmware... C'est la vie I guess.

    3. Re:But...but...I upgraded my own GPU! by Zemplar · · Score: 1

      Great Apple, give us a reason to consider upgrading our hardware. But there is just one problem...

      Even though my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 is still working great, I might be very interested in a new Mac Pro for power savings (RDRAM anyone?), a better I/O bus, and just an overall speed bump. However, Apple's latest Mac Pro refresh is pathetic and doesn't offer much more hardware than my current Mac Pro. Apple, please give me a real Mac Pro upgrade, and I just might actually buy a hardware refresh!

      Is it any wonder my last computer purchase was a PC? If it wasn't for Apple's Aperture software, I might ditch the Mac entirely. Presently there is no real competitor to Apple's Aperture software, and even though Adobe's Lightroom is available on the PC, it just doesn't compare once you've been spoiled by Aperture.

    4. Re:But...but...I upgraded my own GPU! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple, please give me a real Mac Pro upgrade, and I just might actually buy a hardware refresh!

      Wait till next year. They responded to the backlash against the recent barely-an-upgrade by having Tim Cook personally promise that something much bigger is coming in 2013.

      My guess is that they're working on a combination of proper Retina display support through Thunderbolt ports and upcoming developments in high end flash storage technology. The flash storage part is probably the holdup because there is an upcoming industry standard which isn't fully baked yet. See http://www.nvmexpress.org/ . The TLDR is that the industry is working on a new standard for workstation/server SSDs which connect through PCIe rather than SATA or SAS.

      Apple being Apple, I can easily see them deciding to hold off on a major new revision until this stuff is ready to ship.

  43. older Mac Pro with EFI 32 bit likely locked out as by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    older Mac Pro with EFI 32 bit likely locked out as well. And the flash is to small to take EFI 64.

    Now they have 64 bit cpus and can run 64bit code as well windows 64 so why can't apple work around that?

  44. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by greg1104 · · Score: 1

    I happily work some days on a 2006 ThinkPad T60. The 2GB memory limit is the only part that really limits its ability to function as a basic business laptop. MacBook Pro models from 2006 with 2GB of memory are equally fine for routine work, just can't have too many applications running at once.

  45. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A top end video card for rendering (not games), maxed out memory and huge hard drives will eat $6k in a Mac Pro.

  46. Hackintosh your Macintosh. by dhickman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have a macpro1,1 with 8 cores(clovertown), 16 gigs ram, and the current 2011 ATI video card.

    Yes I have had the machine for 6 years and I could upgrade. But the current hardware is not that much of a performance upgrade for the cost.

    Xeon based systems of this generation like the Dell 2900, 1950, are still a viable system and still well supported and will be for years into the future.

    Apple decided to stop supporting this machine a few years back by not allowing it to run a 64 bit kernel with the lame excuse that a 32bit boot loader can not boot a 64 bit os.

    Solution that works great.

    Hackintosh your machintosh.

    Install cameleon and boot the mac in legacy mode as a hackintosh. With Snow Leopard, the machine runs the 64 bit kernel and is noticeably faster. There is no reason that Mountain Lion will not work well also since the macpro1,1 is the same hardware as the 2,1 and most of the 3,1.

    By doing this you can now run any video card that you want and still maintain a legal right to use the software.

    I was starting to decide on upgrading to a current mac pro, but to be honest, there is no reason to drop that kind of change on a machine that Apple will drop within a 5 year period.

    1. Re:Hackintosh your Macintosh. by dhickman · · Score: 1

      Oops. Lion also works well this way, and I have seen that people have been running Mountain Lion DP4 this way with no issues. From what I understand upgrade install works fine.

    2. Re:Hackintosh your Macintosh. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      Looked at the Chameleon website, hasn't been updated since 2009. And it specifically states

      Chameleon is developed to boot Darwin/Mac OS X on PCs, it doesn’t work on Macs.

      Is there something else here that isn't apparent?

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    3. Re:Hackintosh your Macintosh. by GrumpyOldMan · · Score: 2

      MOD PARENT UP!

      I've been doing the same thing for years with a similar Macpro1,1 that I use as a dev box for 10GbE ethernet drivers. When 10.6 previews offered a 64b kernel, I was majorly pissed that I had a less than 2 year old $3000 machine that I could not use to test my drivers in 64-bit mode. So I did what you did & turned my MacPro into a hackintosh.

    4. Re:Hackintosh your Macintosh. by williamyf · · Score: 1

      Nope, you can not do that.

      The devs clearly state (in red letters, nonetheless):
      >

      http://chameleon.osx86.hu/articles/chameleon-20-rc4-is-out

      Having said that, is bollocks that an EFI 32 can not boot a 64 Bit OS. Hell, machines with BIOS, which are mostly written in 16bit ASM code can boot windows and/or linux in 64 bit mode, if the proc allows!

      While I am not affected by the cut (Mac Book alumnim unibody late 2008), I can see why many people with powerfull machines are upset. My special sympathies to the Mac Pro users that were left behind, even though their machines can run in 64Bit mode, and they can buy OpenGL 3.0 Video Cards DIRECTLY FROM APPLE.

      --
      *** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
  47. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Burz · · Score: 1

    I agree, though my Macbook C2D will not be supported.

    Apple has become hooked on planned obsolescence via the iPod, and more so with the iPhone, to the point where they are now worse than Microsoft and their clonemaker army. At this point I would be open to something laptop-centric based on Android.

  48. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When was the last time you played on a PC?

    It's been probably a decade since I last time had problems with configuration issues, drivers, etc. on a PC.

    It's generally buy > download > install > play nowadays. Sometimes it's download > install > download > play > buy instead.

  49. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Missing.Matter · · Score: 2

    You might have heard people complaining about long load times. I have an old Xbox from 2006, so old it doesn't even have an HDMI port. It doesn't have internal storage so I can't pre-load a game onto the harddrive, and some games like Skyrim have unbearable load times between zones. Newer revision consoles allow you to load all that data locally, so you're not reading if off disk. But the fact is I can still play the game just fine once it's done loading.

  50. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've just dropped a 256gb SSD in a thinkpad from 2006. The thing runs better than when it was brand new and it runs considerably cooler and quieter. It's for development and non-gaming entertainment so even if is no doubt lacking in the gaming department that doesn't matter.

    I intended to keep my macbook until it falls apart or the battery dies. There's no need to buy new hardware just for the sake of it if you don't need it. Unless you buy rubbish low-end Dells or Acers which then you'll be lucky to get 3 years out of it.

  51. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've always been baffled at people buying Mac, hardware to me it's a bit like console gaming, which also baffles me these days, as it's got all the hassles PC gaming has these days with none of the flexibility.

    Really? Last I heard console gaming had no configuration issues, drivers, etc which a PC does..

    maybe your pc has configuration/driver issues...

  52. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seconded. I bought a three-year-old MBP on eBay, and flipped my 6+-year-old one on craigslist. Total cost was about $500, and I get a much-needed upgrade and another Apple-branded feline.

  53. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

    They are far happier to cut off old things and don't provide the same sort of legacy support that Windows does. In many ways that's a good thing but it's also unforunate because actually the hardware lasts for quite sometime so buying a new machine can feel a bit forced.

    Who knows, someone may find a way around that. It could be that your machine will support it but it's not ideal so they refuse to support it properly but it'll work.

  54. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

    3 years ago was 2009, and that was the second generation Macbook which has 2.66 ghz or a 2.8 ghz processor with 2-4 gb ram.
    Judging by your price, you went with the higher of the chip & ram.

    I bought mine for $1,100 and have a 2.8 ghz processor and 4 gb ram, this year.

    --
    -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  55. Re:New operating system doesn't support old hardwa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The hardware is still 64bit and idential to current models other than the Intel chipset jumps for smaller ICs. This isn't moving from one arch to a new one, it's still generic Intel with Apple's own proprietary crap thrown on top to ensure you still have to buy your cards (and even harddrives in some cases) from Apple only.

    Do you really believe a quad core xeon with standard Nvidia GPU is "old"? Because that's what Apple is doing here.

  56. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Not really. They don't do legacy support on the scale Microsoft does and I suspect the benefit outweights the hassle of supporting the older hardware. That sucks but that doesn't instantly make the machine unseble and even if someone doesn't want to use an outdated version of OS X for years then put Linux on it or, if you're not very bright, Windows.

  57. google 'skyrim freeze ps3' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i was surprised to see that console gaming is now a lot like pc gaming.

  58. EFI32 by dmitriy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mountain Lion kernel is 64-bit only, and requires 64-bit EFI firmware. Older systems have 32-bit EFI. Unofficial Chameleon EFI emulator can run 64-bit EFI on some older systems.

    1. Re:EFI32 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Mountain Lion kernel is 64-bit only, and requires 64-bit EFI firmware. Older systems have 32-bit EFI. Unofficial Chameleon EFI emulator can run 64-bit EFI on some older systems.

      I don't think the EFI is the real issue. I have an older Macbook with a 32-bit EFI, and yet according to Apple, it's still supported for Mountain Lion (it's a "mid 2007" which is on the oldest supported model).

      So, despite what Ars Technica and company are saying, there's at least one counter-example out there to the EFI theory.

      -JS

    2. Re:EFI32 by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      Mountain Lion kernel is 64-bit only, and requires 64-bit EFI firmware.

      Some people call that a commitment to clean architecture. I call that lazy.

      But, we are talking about a company that says one USB port on a $3,000 machine ought to be enough for anyone.

  59. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    I think "not very bright" is the reason they're using Apple hardware/software in the first place.

  60. HDMA freeze on early SNES by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The DMA channels of the Super NES can run in manual mode or in an automatic mode called "HDMA". Manual mode acts like a hardware accelerated memcpy and is essentially identical to the "Blast Processing" of the Sega Genesis. HDMA restarts at the end of each scanline and is useful for fancy 3D-like scrolling effects. But the first Super NES consoles shipped with a defective CPU that would freeze if a manual DMA finishes right before an HDMA starts. (These older consoles show version 1/1/1 in The Lion King and PowerPak instead of the more common 2/1/3.) I seem to remember one of the three versions of Street Fighter II for Super NES triggering this bug and needing to be recalled.

    1. Re:HDMA freeze on early SNES by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Defective hardware is a whole other story, if any system ships with defective hardware it's going to cause problems, be it a console or a desktop computer.

  61. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 2

    He is right and there was an offer to replace units so while it sucks you get a new xbox out of it. Between RROD and all the other issues I'm sure MS has given away more hardware than anyone else.

    http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/18/new-xbox-360-update-incompatible-with-some-models-ms-offering-r/2

  62. Re:older Mac Pro with EFI 32 bit likely locked out by Sez+Zero · · Score: 1

    Now they have 64 bit cpus and can run 64bit code as well windows 64 so why can't apple work around that?

    Because they want you to buy new hardware.

  63. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have one too, the reason is that the CPU is 32bit only. 10.7 needs 64bits. This is also the reason why quite a few new apps that support 10.6 won't run on your machine either.

    Apple isn't one to keep both 32 and 64 bit variations of their OS around, like MS with Win7.

  64. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There's a non-trivial amount of hardware that just plain didn't get drivers when the driver model changed between XP and Vista/7. I know I've got an external sound card and a printer that I had to replace.

    In this case it was the graphics card. That sucks and all, but what the hell is Apple supposed to do about it?

  65. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

    You are right. http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/18/new-xbox-360-update-incompatible-with-some-models-ms-offering-r/2 and there is this list of problems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems

    That said it's down more to rushed / cost cutting hardware design for most of their problems so even if the system were more open it wouldn't really have helped.

  66. You aren't Microsoft's customer by sjbe · · Score: 2

    As a software company, it's in Microsoft's best interest to prevent "new hardware" from being a barrier to entry for buying their software.

    That's because you are not really Microsoft's customer. Relatively few of us actually buy any version of Windows directly from Microsoft. Mostly it is purchased through OEMs. You are not Microsoft's customer. HP, Dell, Asus, Acer, etc are Microsoft's customers. They sell a license to them and those companies resell it to you. The result is that Microsoft has a hard time paying attention to their users and it shows in the experience of using their products.

    As a hardware company, Apple mostly uses their software to try to entice you into buying new hardware.

    Actually Apple is fundamentally a software company. Nobody buys a Macintosh because of the hardware. Load Windows on Mac Hardware and without seeing the Apple badge on it you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between an Apple PC and a Dell PC. Sure the hardware is nice and given the price charged it darn well better be. No, the difference comes in the software. You buy Apple hardware to get Apple software. They make their money by bundling the two. Same with the iPhone, iPod and iPad. You can get similar hardware for similar or lesser prices. People might like the iPad or iPhone but if you loaded Android on them there is nothing to differentiate them. People buy the iPhone and iPad for the software when all is said and done. The design and branding is just extra.

    1. Re:You aren't Microsoft's customer by jbolden · · Score: 1

      I agree with you regarding Apple and software. Yes that is their marketing strategy. I'm an example, my feeling was that OEM SCO + apps was just under a grand. An Apple is way cheaper than a Sun workstations and I'm getting a steal getting a Unix that also runs a full business productivity suite. If it wasn't for Apple I'd probably be running some PIA VM windows / Linux solution that takes forever to setup. That being said, there are exceptions:

      1) When apple was making G5s they were way cheaper than http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/p/index.html. For a short time Apple actually found itself being a player in supercomputing.

      2) There are lots of Linux people who like the MBP as a laptop, Linus being an example. For example you can consider the recent rMBP as a top of the line Zenbook and the Zenbook is selling well. People like the very high resolution all SSD loaded with memory and fast processor in a thin form factor even if they hate OSX.

  67. Exactly why I buy a Late model Macs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got burned back in 1999 with a poorly timed mac desktop purchase. Now before buying a Mac I look for rumors about upcoming releases. Two replaced macs (the old macs are still used daily) later and I have found the sweet spot to be the latest model of the last version. I'm already regretting not buying a second 17" MacBook Pro after the retina "upgrades".

    It is a bit of a hassle and given the direction Apple is going I suspect they will be too consumer market to meet my requirements soon.

    1. Re:Exactly why I buy a Late model Macs. by craigminah · · Score: 1

      I wanted to buy a Mac tower when the G5s were popular but heard rumors of Intel MacPros coming out August 2006. I waited to buy that "late model" MacPro and loved it until Apple me with a lack of GPUs and me with no OSX 10.8 compatibility due to laziness. Now when It's time to buy a new computer I will not be buying Apple...I'll get something else and they can go themselves. Great computer and OS but crappy support.

  68. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by bluec · · Score: 1

    Mac Pro != Macbook

  69. Compare to cars by FranTaylor · · Score: 0

    People lease cars for 3 years and move on to a new one, it's commonly accepted practice.

    Even though cars have been around for 100 years and the new ones are really only marginally better than the older ones.

    Modern cars last 10 years no problem even in the salt and snow of new england.

    So WHY do people FREAK out when they roll over computer purchases in the same 3 year period? The progress rate is very high so the modern system makes the 3 year old one look like junk and STILL people moan and complain!

    I just don't get it.

    1. Re:Compare to cars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably because they are too bankrupt from buying a car every three years to be able to afford a computer on that same schedule.

    2. Re:Compare to cars by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Because we buy them and not lease them. Only rich people with supperior credit can lease anyway and the bottom 80% of us have to buy. Leasing is a terrible deal too unless you are filthy rich and do not care about money.

      XP users are moaning if you go to places like www.wired.com and forbes.com thinking they are entitled to keep their 8 year pcs working with comments like "...I get to decide to leave Xp thank you very much! ..". You do not throw out your fridge after 10 years it still works?

      Macs are an expensive investment so it should be logical to expect more life out of them. Apple is getting greedy and will push users away with this as it forgets about the customers needs too. In a perfect economy both the customer and the seller reach an equilibrium that satisfies both their needs in a compromise. Apple is taking the ball and telling them to go home.

    3. Re:Compare to cars by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      People lease cars for 3 years a ...

      So WHY do people FREAK out w

      Possibly because there's more than one "people" in the entire world.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:Compare to cars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      from buying a car

      buying =/= leasing.

      Someday, you should probably try to learn the difference.

    5. Re:Compare to cars by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Leasing is a terrible deal too unless you are filthy rich and do not care about money.

      BS. Leasing is quite often a great deal. It depends on the residual on the lease. Cars that have a strong used market frequently have very high residuals because the finance company can make a profit. The finance company is basically buying the car for much less than dealer cost and washing some of that time through the first buyer. That's how Avis, Hertz, National used to make their money by buying new cars well below normal cost, putting some milage on the and then selling them at a high used price. As a buyer of a lease you are doing great:
      Heads some of that high residual strong used market washes back to you when you turn the car in.
      Tails, the used market has dryed up. So even better you have an option of taking your cut of the residual but because the the finance company is going to get creamed you can buy your own car back for a fraction of the residual.

    6. Re:Compare to cars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No shit, who the fuck bitches about getting a new Mac? And if you spent 10 grand on some loaded Mac Pro for production work then just keep using it. The Mac isn't going to stop working just because you can't get the latest twitter integration in Mountain Lion or whatever. Swear to god people will whine about anything.

    7. Re:Compare to cars by couchslug · · Score: 1

      "People lease cars for 3 years and move on to a new one, it's commonly accepted practice."

      I preferred to pay off my houses. I still drive older vehicles but dry my tears with the deeds to my land.

      You don't need to be well-off to have disposable income if you don't piss away what you have.

      http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  70. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by beelsebob · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Really? You're complaining that a 6 year old computer isn't up to running modern stuff? Really?

    Seriously, if you're that concerned about having to buy new machines, sell it after 3 years. Pour $2000 MacBook Pro would almost certainly have fetched $16-1800, and you'd have got a new one, capable of running more modern OSes for effectively $2-400.

  71. Mountain Lion who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Twenty years ago I was the greatest Mac bigot of them all.

    Now, why buy Mountain Lion anyway? Lion had exactly one feature (resize windows from any edge) I wanted; the rest I've either turned off (Retard-a-scroll) or ignored (iCloud, software store, social media junk.) Mountain Lion looks like the lobotomized twin of Windows 8.

    (I call it retard-a-scroll, but it's actually a good idea, if I hadn't spent all those years getting used to the opposite. What could they have been thinking?)

    I never enjoyed programming OS X as much as I did Classic, and now I think that last contract really will be the last. I looked at the new Retina MBP at the Apple store the other day and it didn't impress me much more than a similar Samsung at the MS store (for a third less $) Big selling point: both run the current OS, no being limited by the next.

    1. Re:Mountain Lion who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The new way of scrolling is the GREATEST feature of Lion. Once you use it you realize the old way was retarded. I move the page up by scrolling down? Thank god they fixed it. Now they only need to remove that stupid control panel that switches it back to the old retarded way.

    2. Re:Mountain Lion who? by jbolden · · Score: 1

      (I call it retard-a-scroll, but it's actually a good idea, if I hadn't spent all those years getting used to the opposite. What could they have been thinking?

      That people who have been using Mac's supposedly for 20 years would know that this sort of setting can be reversed via. control panel in about 4 seconds.

  72. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by bsane · · Score: 4, Informative

    First gen MBPs are 6+ years old... so fans can still brag about the 5+ year life...

    Math is hard.

  73. also the ati / nvidia cards are not that differnt by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    also the ati / nvidia cards are not that differnt from other ati / nvidia and on the windows side they have 64bit drivers for all the video chips found in macs.

  74. WRONG WRONG WRONG by FranTaylor · · Score: 0

    > You buy Apple hardware to get Apple software.

    WRONG WRONG WRONG

    I bought a MacBook for the HARDWARE

    It mostly runs Linux

    My GOODNESS have you SHOPPED??? Nobody makes a laptop as sweet as a MacBook. NOBODY.

    1. Re:WRONG WRONG WRONG by sjbe · · Score: 1

      I bought a MacBook for the HARDWARE. It mostly runs Linux

      Well played Sir!

      However I have to ask... "Mostly runs Linux"? What else might you be hiding on that hard drive? Hmmm... I suppose it doesn't matter. Run along and play with the 3 other people who traded in OS X for Linux on a Mac.

    2. Re:WRONG WRONG WRONG by FranTaylor · · Score: 0

      whassa matta U???

      Never heard of vmware???

    3. Re:WRONG WRONG WRONG by FranTaylor · · Score: 0

      LOGIC FAIL!! OMFG!!!

      I must be some sort of chameleon creature in your eyes, on the one hand, I have so much money that I splurge on a Mac, and on the other I am so broke that I pirate software.

      Which vending machine did you purchase your analytic skills from?

    4. Re:WRONG WRONG WRONG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually I tend to recommend them for OSS as well as Windows. The specs are good, they often have good support in OSS drivers, and they look nice. Plus you can run all the OSes easily. Sure I can do the same on my Thinkpad, but OS X gets painful with weird third-party kexts made by teenagers on crack.

    5. Re:WRONG WRONG WRONG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And who exactly here gives a fuck what you did? Oh.. you thought you represent mainstream users?.. how cute.. looks like this one has yet to grow up.

  75. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Intel CPU?

    Just install any linux flavor or windows on it...

    Problem solved!

  76. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by QuantumLeaper · · Score: 1

    6 years old? How often do you use it, once a month? The oldest one that my friends have is 3 years old.

  77. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Depends on what you use it for. The current generation is more than twice as fast. If you get work done on it and the speed makes you more productive, it's beyond the time when an upgrade will likely pay for itself. If it isn't, then you'd probably be better off with something cheaper in the first place.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  78. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Literaphile · · Score: 1

    3 or 4 nights a week for about 45 minutes each time, after the wife and kids go to sleep. So it still sees pretty regular use.

  79. WHAT MACBOOK PRO DO I HAVE? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you are uncertain of the date from which your Mac was produced, I suggest the CoconutID freeware.

    It ID's your MacBook (or other model) and pegs the manufacture date within a few days of precision. Clever - it can also perform a lookup and see if a Mac with your ID has ever been reported as stolen. Interesting, for some eBayer's. ;-)

    If you ARE on and Mac portable, look at their Coconut Battery app, at the same location. Great for managing battery age, charge history and cycles. It got me free replacement batteries at the Apple Store, on two different machines/occasions. I haven't ever managed that with Sony or Lenovo...

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
    1. Re:WHAT MACBOOK PRO DO I HAVE? by hendridm · · Score: 1

      Hmm, I ran the program but it wasn't terribly helpful...
      http://i1270.photobucket.com/albums/jj612/hendridm/Screenshot2012-07-11at85337PM.png

      Not a big deal. Lion runs like shit on my silver-keyboard MBP, so I'm guessing Mountain Lion would be even worse, but I was curious since I bought mine used.

      You'd think it would at least assume that it was built in China because, well, they all are. :P

    2. Re:WHAT MACBOOK PRO DO I HAVE? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 2

      Wow. My July 2008 was ID'd correctly - and runs Lion well, too. (4GB RAM)

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    3. Re:WHAT MACBOOK PRO DO I HAVE? by hendridm · · Score: 1

      Wow. My July 2008 was ID'd correctly - and runs Lion well, too. (4GB RAM)

      I have 4 GB RAM also, and it's a 2.5 GHz model. It was annoyingly sluggish when I tried Lion, but perhaps my expectations are high - I'm running Snow Leopard on this thing right now, and I think that it could definitely be faster. And yes, reloading helps but I would still like to see it more responsive. I have zero patience.

    4. Re:WHAT MACBOOK PRO DO I HAVE? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      Got ya. I'm 2.4 GHz - but dual core. I guess that the Core2 Duo is actually significant. I've had my doubts on my Linux box.

      I guess on the Linux machine, Dell's crappy disk I/O is such a bottleneck, I don't get any perceived advantage from the core/threading boost. :-)

      I am with you on the patience. That's why I'm running a 4 year old MBP, instead of last-year's Dell. It was un-tuneable.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
  80. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oracle likes you to buy their products just once. It's only the paying thing that they want you to do as frequently as possible.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  81. Re:older Mac Pro with EFI 32 bit likely locked out by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    ok I can buy my own hardware and hack mac os on it or just go windows 7.

    but the mac pro is a no go right now 2010 hardware and video card at the same 2010 price.

  82. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    The problem is that most OS X upgrades contain a number of usability regressions and half a dozen really useful features. It's always (well, except with 10.6) a bit difficult to decide whether the benefits outweigh the pain.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  83. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That is a pretty stupid statement to make. "Professional use" is a marketing statement, not a technical one.

  84. I tought that the advantage of closed hardware by Hentes · · Score: 1

    was no compatibility issues.

    1. Re:I tought that the advantage of closed hardware by Monkey-Man2000 · · Score: 2

      was no compatibility issues.

      Apple Marketdroid:There's no compatibility problem between the software/hardware if you buy the latest and greatest hardware. It works like a charm!

      --
      This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
  85. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Same here: Thinkpad r50p, April 2006.
    Surplus from the office: Only replaced the battery and upgraded the HD from 60G to 320G.
    15.4", LCD is 1600x1200 and non-glossy. FireGL video card with 256 MB real RAM.
    Best laptop display I have ever seen.

    Runs Win7 and Linux Mint in dual-boot.
    2GB RAM and it can't take more, but for most things that I do that is perfectly fine.
    Mainly programming in VS2008/VS2010 or Eclipse.
    A lot of Diablo-II at LAN parties.
    Diablo-III is playable too ! Had to turn the graphics down a lot, but not to absolute minimum.

  86. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does this OS make them stop working? No?

    So they'll still be running just fine without the latest & greatest for 5+ years? Yes? Ok, then. Rant on.

  87. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    For most people the speed difference between these machines will not make any practical difference, since they just create documents, browse the web, and read emails on it. The days in which Macs where exclusively almost used for video/graphic/audio/science editing are long gone. They are now just shiny consumer machines. If you need a true powerhorse, you get a Linux box, and you control it remotely.

  88. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by FranTaylor · · Score: 0

    mod parent up up up

    If you use a computer professionally, prepare to pay for service.

    If you don't use a computer professionally, you're not the target customer, so don't expect to be treated that way.

  89. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Assmasher · · Score: 1

    You can run Mountain Lion on your 4.5 year old Mac Pro?

    When we bought this OSX box we needed a lot o' cores and memory because the box was replacing several dell servers in a rack we wanted to be rid of (we use the monster mac to run a lot of virtualization environments and it is much simpler to debug on one physical machine in this fashion.) We did this with a Mac Pro instead of a WinTel box because it killed several birds with one stone (testing our .mono codebase under stress on OSX, Linux, Win 7, and WS2008.)

    --
    Loading...
  90. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by SilverJets · · Score: 1

    Ummmm....different people like different things?

    Just because you don't like Macs doesn't mean I can't like Macs.

    I'm baffled at all the people that stuck with Windows in its various stages of shit. With one exception it NEVER got stable until Windows 7 and that exception is Windows XP with the service packs.

  91. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Assmasher · · Score: 1

    This is a dual hex core, 24 hardware thread, 26GB monster machine running OpenSUSE, OSX, Win7, and WS2008.

    --
    Loading...
  92. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by SilverJets · · Score: 0

    ROFL

  93. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh no, your 6 year old laptop won't get all the new features they're developing today!

    1) No, it doesn't run perfectly, I'm sorry, unless you're doing nothing more difficult than browsing the web and sending email. I have a 15" 1st-gen Macbook pro as well, bought in early 2006. It's slow as fuck unless I'm browsing the web or reading email, and even then, it's pretty bad.

    2) Snow Leopard (10.6) is still getting security and maintenance updates, and has had no end-of-life announcement published. So ALL you're missing is the "new bells and whistles" added in Mountain Lion and Lion. And you can get those when you realize that your computer needs to be upgraded, and buy a new one.

    3) "Buying a new laptop every 6 years because the hardware just can't keep up" doesn't really qualify you for bitching rights about being "forced" to upgrade on a "regular" basis.

    You're just looking for a reason to whine and bash apple, that much is pretty clear.

  94. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by epyT-R · · Score: 1

    says who? there's no reason for this arbitrary lockout.. the gpus can handle it. apple is just choosing not to ship the driver. it's assinine.

  95. Hey apple users! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MOO!

    1. Re:Hey apple users! by newcastlejon · · Score: 1

      MOOF!

      FTFY

      --
      If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
  96. Re:New operating system doesn't support old hardwa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think that the news is that Apple hardware is well-built, durable, and long lasting.

    That's the only thing I can figure, since people with 6-year-old first-generation macbook pros are still running them, and are bummed that they won't be able to upgrade them to 10.8, I see no other really "newsworthy" comments in TFA or the comments.

  97. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Rockoon · · Score: 1

    When moving from XP to Win7/64 I noted that there were no 64-bit drivers for my shitty philips webcam.

    The OS still installed. The computer still worked. The webcam was cheaply and easily replaced with another slightly less shitty one.

    The difference is that Apple is yet again telling their customers "FUCK YOU!"

    Win7 runs on 1ghz Pentium 3's for christ sakes (released in 1999)

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  98. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

    And if you're using it in a business environment, it should be fully depreciated by now.

    Further, 10.7 should run just fine for a number of years - it doesn't self destruct when 10.8 roles around.

    And further further, anyone up upgrades at 10.8.0 is either insane, hopelessly naive, or into BDSM. Never, ever run an Apple OS until it gets to the .3 revision. So you have some time to ignore the issue and just keep working.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  99. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by pmontra · · Score: 1

    If you're still doing the work you were doing three years ago, chances are that all your software got faster (example: browsers are) and your old computer is better now that it was out of the box. My almost 6 years old linux laptop is faster now than it was in 2006: faster browsers, faster application servers, faster file system. I doubled the RAM and swapped an 80 GB disk for a 500 GB one. Luckily I could service it myself. That said, I know that I could buy a faster laptop nowadays but probably with a worse screen: I got a 1680x1050 16:10 one, much better than the 1600x900 ones that are considered top notch in the PC world today. So I'll stick to my old one until it will be no more adequate for my job or it falls apart. And just in case one's wondering about it, an OSX machine is not an option for me (very bad GUI IMHO so maybe I'm not at home in this thread).

  100. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by epyT-R · · Score: 1

    it's artificial and not due to hardware limitations. this is different than expecting not existent functionality.

  101. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by ravenknight · · Score: 1

    My Xbox '07 just stopped working (dvd-rom drive failed). Not every single xbox 360 was/is defective.

  102. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by csshelton · · Score: 1

    This is a known issue with these laptops (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377) and apple may very well be willing to replace the logic board for you for free. I recently took in an early 2008 macbook pro with this exact same problem and they replaced the logic board for free within 3 days. I never even had the extended warranty. Best of luck.

  103. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by postmortem · · Score: 1

    I bought my Dell laptop in 2006. Guess what? It is Windows 8 compatible & I'll be getting it.

  104. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by epyT-R · · Score: 1

    argument from antiquity.. there's no reason the machine can't run the new os. it's artificially restricted.

  105. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Windows 8 compatible yes, capable of running Windows 8 at a usable speed? Not f**king likely.

  106. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by TheLandyman · · Score: 1

    This is a known issue with these laptops (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377) and apple may very well be willing to replace the logic board for you for free. I recently took in an early 2008 macbook pro with this exact same problem and they replaced the logic board for free within 3 days. I never even had the extended warranty. Best of luck.

    I had this happen to me, took it in, and they replaced it for free I was waaaay out of warranty. 100% covered. That's customer service, IMO.

  107. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

    You bought the upgrades from Apple? Blame no one but yourself.

  108. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's what I call hitting the nail on the head. I have an 8-core mac pro. I stopped upgrading with 10.6; 10.8 looks *appalling* to me, what with the broken multi monitor support, the sandboxing, the certificating, the dumb-assery of moving towards the IOS interface. No thanks. 10.6 will do.

  109. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by TheLandyman · · Score: 1

    Ahhh, maintenance.

  110. Lovely comments by FranTaylor · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    If you are complaining:

    What are you complaining about? You bought into the OSX way. You are not buying a computer. You are paying for the use of a Mac. Keep paying and they will make you happy with better machines and better software.

    If you are not willing to keep paying: that is fine too. You have a great piece of hardware and it will run Linux or even Windows well. Bully for you. At least it's a mainstream intel machine. Don't expect Apple to lift a finger for you.

  111. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    Most business environments I have seen still use 2004 era hardware with IE 6 half upgraded to IE 8 and XP stil with 512 megs of ram with no plans to trash them until 2014.

    Running FF 3.6 under these contraints is quite fun ... before Mozilla tackled the ram issue in more modern releases.

  112. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Darinbob · · Score: 2

    Coffin makers. Generally a one time purchase aside from stage props.

  113. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    Really? You're complaining that a 6 year old computer isn't up to running modern stuff? Really?

    Yes.

    My 4.5 year old netbook is 100% up to date on the latest Arch and still runs everything. It's beginning to be a little slow, but it still runs things. It's also the spec of a new, high end machine from abuout 11 years ago.

    10 years ago, the idea of a computer lasting 10 years was stupid. 10 years later, it turns out that they could.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  114. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by ravenspear · · Score: 1

    With a first gen macbook pro I think your due for a new laptop......3-5 years is my max of keeping them around.

    Speak for yourself. My Mac Plus is still kicking. Though my frame rate in Starcraft 2 leaves something to be desired.

  115. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by exomondo · · Score: 1

    You are right. http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/18/new-xbox-360-update-incompatible-with-some-models-ms-offering-r/2

    From the link:
    Following a recent update to our system software, we have become aware of an issue that is preventing a very small number of Xbox 360 owners from playing retail game discs. This issue manifests itself as a unique 'disc unreadable' or 'disc unsupported' error on the screen and is unrelated to our recent public beta. We are also able to detect this issue over Xbox LIVE and are proactively reaching out to customers that may be impacted to replace their console.

    Not that it's something I would expect but I don't see Apple reaching out to its customers to replace older unsupported Macs from 2006+ with new ones. Again, not saying they should or would be expected to do that, just that this situation with the XBox is clearly not analogous.

  116. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 1

    My six year old MacBook Pro 15 runs 10.7 (lion).

    --
    These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
  117. Couple of options... by erp_consultant · · Score: 1

    1) Stick with Snow Leopard. AFAICT, Lion and Mountain Lion updates are mostly fluff. 2) Install Linux on it. I dual booted my iMac (2008 vintage) and Linux is noticeably faster than OSX. There are even desktop themes you can download that will make it look a lot like OSX if that is your preference. Plus, everything worked flawlessly - wireless, bluetooth, webcam, sound...everything. 3) Turn it into a Hackintosh (other posts have detailed that). 4) Load Windows 7 on it (ohhh...the humanity!!!). Don't laugh....W7 runs great on a Macbook. 5) If you've absolutely, positively got to have Mountain Lion then sell your machine on eBay and take the cash and put it towards a new Macbook. Or even one that's just a year or two old. I've got a 2008 iMac and the two real limitations to it are memory (4GB max, well 6GB actually but I can't find a 4GB DDR2 stick anywhere) and upgrading the hard drive. I wanted to put in an SSD but trying to do that on an iMac is a nightmare. Having said that it works fine for day to day work. Most of the time I'm firing up Remote Desktop to a Windows server and doing my dev work there. The Windows box is doing all the heavy lifting. The screen is still fantastic and it's never been in for repair.

  118. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by rHBa · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I have a 5yo Vaio that is perfectly capable of running Ubuntu with XP and Win7 VMs (for testing websites in IE7-9).

    My (web designer) colleague has a 5yo Mac that he can't even run any 2yo browsers on NATIVELY!?!

  119. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by exomondo · · Score: 1

    Yeah, and how many Wintel machines bought in 2006 (first Gen Macbook Pro guessing the date) can run ANYTHING.

    Core2Duo E6600 + 4GB RAM + 8800GTX SLi, runs the latest AAA titles like Diablo 3 perfectly.

  120. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Maybe you won't be able to run the OS, but it'll still be a long time before apps require 10.8.

    That wasn't true for the upgrades from 10.2 through 10.5, it was always a very short time before apps required the new revision. I haven't touched base with Apple in some time because though I was turned into a Newt once I got better, so I have to ask, have things actually changed since, or are you just making things up?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  121. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are a FOOL if you think EITHER is suitable for everyday professional use

    Lighten up, Francis.

  122. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    My Xbox '07 just stopped working (dvd-rom drive failed). Not every single xbox 360 was/is defective.

    and that's not even permanent! you can still replace the optical drive, and it's not horribly difficult nor does it require exotic tools, although a cheap (sub-$5) case cracker tool DOES make it significantly easier. You can replace the drive for twenty or thirty bucks and maybe an hour's time if you have to do a PCB swap... I know, because I've done this. I have a very old 360 as well, which I bought used.

    With that said, I bought a used unit on the premise that I would be less likely to encounter the RROD, and so far it seems to have paid off... But the average user probably wouldn't be able to replace the optical drive at all.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  123. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    I have an old Xbox from 2006, so old it doesn't even have an HDMI port. It doesn't have internal storage so I can't pre-load a game onto the harddrive

    But uh, can't you just snap a hard disk onto the side/top of it like everyone else? And it's not like HDMI buys you any functionality, except being able to use an HDMI cable. You can still get the same quality of video into your TV, given the right cable and the right free ports.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  124. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You bought the laptop form Apple? Blame no one but yourself.

    Wait, are you saying the Apple is or is not a bad deal?

  125. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by bitingduck · · Score: 1

    I can install pretty much anything that's available for *nix on my mac, and those things generally install with minimal hassle. And I get the OS X front end when I want it, and I can run most Windows-only things (including stuff that uses external data acq hardware) using Parallels. All in an easily carried and reasonably tough laptop. The optical drives do tend to die young though-- I think I've had to replace the optical drive in most of the powerbooks/macbooks that I've had over the years, as well as for a few other people.

  126. Seriously ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All Apple products are 128-bit now, why would they bother to continue to carry anyone still using legacy 64-bit architectures?
    People should just be happy they just don't remove it from their computer, lazy bastards for not buying new hardware...
    Get a frekin' job - the BMWs those Apple execs have don't drive themselves!

    1. Re:Seriously ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the Priuses that those Google execs have do drive themselves!

  127. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    10.7 dropped support my 1st gen $2000 MacBook Pro, which otherwise still runs perfectly (but with only 10.6).

    For about ten years, I've told people to figure on spending $1K/yr on an Apple laptop. That's a good machine every 3 years with AppleCare.

    Now that the machines can't be upgraded at all, you need to max them out when you buy them, but the prices have come down a little bit, so the pricepoint still holds. Considering price inflation, I guess it's a little bit cheaper now.

    The nice thing about that model was you could usually unload your 3-year-old Macbook for at least 1/3 of what you bought it for. With these recent changes, they're probably less valuable.

    Still, for many people that $1K per year is money well-spent, if it improves their productivty (and they feel they can support Apple as a corporation).

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  128. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

    I'm saying, their baseline machines are kinda expensive in the first place, but when it comes to upgrading, they really, REALLY gouge you with gusto.

  129. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by MBCook · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And his 6 year old computer could run both the OS it came with (would that be 10.4?) and the version of Mac OS X available when Windows 7 was released in 2009 (10.6, Snow Leopard).

    Plus, it runs last year's OS X, 10.7, Lion.

    In other words, it's roughly the same.

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
  130. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, that's a warranty period that should be longer, not cut to enable a business model of selling warranty. Warranties that are too short to expose manufacturing defects are common these days, true, however that's still exactly what it is. You effectively have selective warranty where the company can pick and choose which manufacturing defects they are willing to repair well within the lifespan of the product. What should happen is that products designed to last five years and implied to the customer that it will last five years should in fact have a five year warranty, that'd be customer service. What you got was selective customer service that you can't rely on, only hope for.

  131. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by MBCook · · Score: 1

    Because I'm sure that when Windows Vista and Windows 7 were released, Microsoft only said they changed 6 things. I hear in Windows 8 they only changed three things.

    In fact, I'm so sure I'm right I'm not going to waste my time looking it up.

    It's marketing. If they changed anything, they claim it's an enhancement. We did the work, we might as well claim it, even if no one would every buy an OS because it now supports GRB pixel alignment as well as RGB and BGR.

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
  132. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So in other words you are perfectly happy with the computer you have, and you have nothing to complain about, because the new stuff is all junk

    No, read what he wrote - Most are useless crap, and the good ones are quickly orphaned.
    Is it really that unclear to you?

  133. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's what I call hitting the nail on the head. I have an 8-core mac pro. I stopped upgrading with 10.6; 10.8 looks *appalling* to me, what with the broken multi monitor support, the sandboxing, the certificating, the dumb-assery of moving towards the IOS interface. No thanks. 10.6 will do.

    Your concerns are ridiculously overblown. 10.8 is a lot like 10.7, with some new things. 10.7 was in turn like 10.6 with some new things. A lot of those things are great. Some of the things in 10.7 were rough around the edges at first, but welcome to every dot-zero OS X release ever (I've been using it since 10.0).

    Fear of iOS UI is one of the dumbest memes to sweep the Mac community in recent times. iOS UI was highly derivative of OS X UI, especially at the technological level, but Apple wasn't stupid enough to make touch UI exactly the same as mouse/keyboard UI. That's why iOS has done well, and why there's any distinction at all between iOS and OS X. Feedback flowing in the opposite direction was inevitable, but Apple isn't dumb enough to make their mouse/keyboard UI the same as their touch UI either. What they're doing is taking some concepts from iOS where it makes sense to do so, and putting them in OS X in a way which makes sense on the desktop.

  134. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Doogie5526 · · Score: 2
    What model does he have? What browsers are you talking about?

    Chrome supports 10.5(sidebar)
    Firefox supports 10.5
    Safari supports 10.5

    I did read an article the other week that Chrome is thinking about dropping 10.5 support in a few months.

    Is this a ppc Mac? I just looked it up, and that was announced 7 years ago. It looks like they were selling them until Aug 06 (6 years ago), but if you purchased one in that time you can't really expect newer software to work.

  135. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by rgbrenner · · Score: 1

    And if you're using it in a business environment, it should be fully depreciated by now.

    Computer equipment depreciates over 5 years. In 2007, Intel was releasing dual and quad core processors--no 8 core processors. So there is NO WAY his machine is fully depreciated.

  136. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by CrackedButter · · Score: 1

    My university lecturer is still rocking a Titanium Powerbook. It's at most 12 years old.

    'you're' btw motherfucker.

  137. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by exomondo · · Score: 1

    Since when is seven years later equal to "on a regular basis"?

    I think he's referring to those 3-4 year old macs that are unsupported.

  138. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mac Pros aren't laptops.
    Troll harder next time.

  139. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    Apple keeps updating the OS aggressively during the first 3 mo after the new OS comes out and then more slowly for another 9+ months. They offer security patches well beyond that. I have an old 12" g4, running 10.4 which got a security patch in 2011.

    That being said though, Apple offers the advantage of moving their platform aggressively. While Apple equipment will last, you won't be on the latest and greatest after your first year. Just like it was in the 80's and 90's when technology improved rapidly.

  140. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Just to support that. The people who bought PPC computers in 06 were doing so to run legacy software, not infrequently 10.4 with the classic box or to take advantage of the G5s (the switch to Intel really was a downgrade for desktops).

  141. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 2

    The GPUs are exactly the reason Apple isn't supporting these older machines. Apple has a new graphical subsystem in 10.8 designed for retinas which is increasing the complexity of CPU/GPU communication. The older GPUs can't run the new graphical subsystem. So no they can't handle it.

  142. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 2

    Why is it unacceptable. What do you want to do that you can't do with Lion?

  143. Apple apps only supporting lion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Last rounds of apples own iPhoto and aperture apps require Lion to install and apple cut snow leopard off from their cloud services

  144. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    I was running 10.6 until a month ago, because I didn't want to lose Rosetta and could live without 10.7. I'd say you are good for about 8 mo after a new OS and then things start to get slightly more painful. But it was never horrible or I wouldn't have ended up waiting. For example I wanted iCloud but iWork (iWorks syncing service built in, which might even have been better) still worked until I got my new machine.

  145. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by imamac · · Score: 2

    Instead of buying new hardware, spend a few minutes in Terminal and run Mt Lion on your unsupported Mac anyways: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1325818

  146. THREE year old Mac hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mac minis from early in 2009 will not be supported by mountain lion. Those are less than four years old.

  147. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    And Apple's working to change it back to the old system where people upgraded. Consider their latest: >200 ppi, all SSD running at 450mb/sec, 16g ram, quad core (and fast)... The days of lagging hardware are coming to an end in the Apple world. And BTW Windows 8 is trying to bring that to the Microsoft consumer community as well.

  148. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by BronsCon · · Score: 0

    iTunes? App store? I don't think people using their computers professionally are the Lion or Mountain Lion target market.

    --
    APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
  149. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

    Get new PC. Install Windows 7. It works.

    Where in this process are you having configuration issues?

  150. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

    if you're not very bright, Windows.

    Smug attitude, Check.
    Calling users dumb for spending less than a grand on each iteration of hardware, check.

    What a great example of OSX fanboyism, someone archive parents comment.

  151. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by jbolden · · Score: 1

    That's not quire fair. With Apple you have to be careful with upgrades and check. Sometimes they are quire reasonable, sometimes they are super expensive.

  152. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by jbolden · · Score: 1

    What do you mean worse than Microsoft? Microsoft is excellent on supporting old software and hardware. Apple has always been an aggressive upgrader of systems. There is no change in attitude here.

  153. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by jbolden · · Score: 1

    I agree with you and am upgrading to 10.8.0... new rMBP and I really want the graphics. I'll let you know how it goes.

  154. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    so a simple GPU check, if it can handle it do it if not dont (you know, like Aero)

    yeah I know, slashdot, M$ evil apple god, but seriously, when MS can handle the different GPUS yet apple cant (wont) thats a problem. To put it another way, would you have been ok with windows XP ONLY working on flat screen LCD screens? Would you be ok with windows 7 ONLY working on 1080P screens? so why limit the os based on the screen?

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  155. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Apple got to put the squeeze on their supplier and Nvidia has to pay for each one of these swap outs, so Apple will keep doing it until Nvidia terminates their agreement. They got caught lying so they are responsible. In very few other cases would Apple ever offer free out-of-warranty motherboard replacement. It's usually rather expensive.

  156. re: Apple dropped support by King_TJ · · Score: 1

    I understand your frustration, but at the same time? If you would resell your used Apple Mac gear every 2-3 years, you'd find that it fetches incredibly good resale value compared to most PC hardware.... Since I both prefer Mac systems/OS X *and* don't want to get stuck with systems unable to run their latest OS offerings, I try to regularly rotate out my systems. I typically get back as much as 2/3rds. of what I paid for them, new, and then it's really not that big an expense to pay the difference to always have something current.

  157. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    There's two problems with a Dell running Windows 8 -- Dell and Windows 8.

  158. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by walshy007 · · Score: 1

    While i agree with your general sentiment, browsers are a poor example. Five years ago we had nowhere near as much javascript abuse and other shenanigans that websites do that browsers have to handle these days, so the job really has changed and is more demanding than it was.

  159. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    so a simple GPU check, if it can handle it do it if not dont (you know, like Aero)

    Which is pretty much what they are doing. They just announced in advance what GPUs can handle it.

    when MS can handle the different GPUS yet apple cant (wont) thats a problem.

    Not really. MS is excellent with legacy hardware and software support. Apple has always been terrible. The expectations are different. And frankly I buy Apple because I like the advantages of the entire platform moving every 4 years and their aggressiveness. I get more rapid change, and in exchange I pay more.

    To put it another way, would you have been ok with windows XP ONLY working on flat screen LCD screens? Would you be ok with windows 7 ONLY working on 1080P screens?

    Yes the same way I'm applauding Microsoft targeting the new generation of touch screens on keyboard laptops with Windows 8.

  160. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Moridineas · · Score: 1

    Have a stable non-crappy operating system. Can't do that with Lion...

    I kept my home systems on 10.6. I upgraded my work MacPro 1,1 to Lion. I wish I hadn't. It sounds like Mountain Lion fixes a lot of the stupidest annoyances of Lion: restores Exposé functionality, restore Spaces functionality, more save Save/Save As/Versions/Duplicate semantics and functionality, stability fixes, samba fixes, memory handling fixes, etc.

  161. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Burz · · Score: 1

    There are critical bugs in XP that Microsoft said (years ago) they will never patch. It leaves the OS open to attack over the Internet. I don't call that proper support.

    MS is also known to be a promoter of bloat, encouraging OEMs to load up systems with garbage and making people feel they have to have their systems constantly thrashing with anivirus scanning activity. Because of decades of piss-poor engineering, they allowed organized crime to gain a foothold and become very well financed and resourceful at a rate that was absolutely needless.

  162. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    cant run the latest games? Im running D3 on a machine that I built in 2004! now it was top of the line in 04 around 3400$ and I built it up (amd machine ATI vid card) and the ony changes to it were replaced fans and replaced hard drive (expansion, not crash) in 2004, a machine from 2000 was unusable, but today, a good desktop should easily last, with good upkeep (change the sparkplugs) years.

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  163. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sony PSP firmware updates.
    Sony PS/3 firmware updates.
    ...

  164. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    Why didn't you just roll it back if you didn't like Lion?

    Anyway, 10.8 mission control is pretty much the same. They aren't "fixing" that. As for Samba, I doubt it. But "sudo port install samba3" and you are off to the races with samba. Stability / memory I'm not sure what you mean.

  165. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Really? Microsoft seems to be pretty damn good at maintaining compatibility. This is just nonsense.

  166. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by jbolden · · Score: 1

    There are critical bugs in XP that Microsoft said (years ago) they will never patch. It leaves the OS open to attack over the Internet. I don't call that proper support.

    That's the same level of support they've always given. Microsoft use to have errors in their trig formulas which were in Visual Studio. It took them a decade to fix. I'm not talking proper support, I'm saying maintaining support. If you want good support you don't buy Microsoft to begin with.

    MS is also known to be a promoter of bloat, encouraging OEMs to load up systems with garbage and making people feel they have to have their systems constantly thrashing with anivirus scanning activity. Because of decades of piss-poor engineering, they allowed organized crime to gain a foothold and become very well financed and resourceful at a rate that was absolutely needless.

    All true, and true of their new systems as much as their old.

  167. Install Linux by cyberrodent · · Score: 2

    This IS Slashdot. Just install Linux on it. This is what you've been waiting for. Remember, you bought it because it was UNIX -- with a shell -- and you can run X. Well, now that you're done trying out the OS that came with the computer, you can actually install the OS you wanted to be using all along.

    --
    Talk is cheap. Supply exceeds demand.
  168. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    fair enough, I guess I just am not in the same camp as you, Than again I have a first gen xbox that has c64 and atari games on it. I like being able to use my old software (or, old software), I dont like being locked out of something, when there is no technological reason for the lockout.

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  169. You don't need all new hardware by thoughtlover · · Score: 1

    If there's just a GPU check, perhaps the Mac Pro 8-core with a GeForce 8800 GT would make the cut. The Early 2008 Mac Pro comes with that option, too and it made the cut. If there's just a GPU check, it would be conceivable that you could put a Radeon 5770 in a Mac Pro 1,1 and 10.8 would install.

    --
    No sig for you! Come back one year!
  170. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a pathetic attempt at an excuse. You really don't know what you're talking about.

  171. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by stewbacca · · Score: 1

    10.7 dropped support my 1st gen $2000 MacBook Pro, which otherwise still runs perfectly (but with only 10.6).

    So what you are saying is that it still runs perfectly. No one is forcing you to update beyond 10.6.

  172. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    There is actually a semi technical reason for the lockout. There are replacing the graphical subsystem and drastically increasing what's expected of the GPU. The reason for this is the shift to retina displays. They need to take load off the GPUs. In theory they could just offer the kernel with 2 graphical subsystems, which is what Microsoft would do but that's just not the culture on OSX. Developers have a more narrow target and it costs more.

    I agree for someone who likes C64 games, and doesn't want to upgrade Apple is a terrible choice. But that's not a change. They've always been like that. They introduced a graphical subsystem in 10.0 started an almost complete overhaul in 10.2 finished the overhaul in 10.4 and then replaced it again in 10.6.

  173. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Moridineas · · Score: 1

    Why didn't you just roll it back if you didn't like Lion?

    I don't believe you can restore from a Lion Time Machine backup to Snow Leopard. Do you know?

    Anyway, 10.8 mission control is pretty much the same. They aren't "fixing" that.

    Except for the ungroup application windows option! I'm glad this is one of the instances where Apple listened to a groundswell of disappointment over the removal of a feature. Spaces is also improved (ie, returned more to the way it was)?

    As for Samba, I doubt it. But "sudo port install samba3" and you are off to the races with samba.

    In terms of the built-in samba/smb integration. We have had some persistent browse / connection issues with multiple Lion workstations on our office network. I've read reports that Mountain Lion seems to work better in mixed environments.

    Stability / memory I'm not sure what you mean.

    If you read the forums where people are talking about their Mountain Lion experiences, even with the beta many people are reporting decreased memory usage and greater stability in ML than in Lion. With my one computer running Lion, I have had more freezes or situations where the system gets into a weird state (my computer got locked into Mission Control a week ago. In the miniature windows I could type, press buttons, etc, but Mission Control would not dismiss. Very bizarre. Had to hold down the power button) than any other OSX revision I've used. That's what I mean by stability and memory usage.

  174. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by stewbacca · · Score: 2

    I have a 1999 G4 Mac that runs just fine (but only supported up to 10.3 or something). It's a freakin' 13 year old computer that runs better than most 5 year old commodity grade PCs running WinXP so I fail to see any "smack in the face".

  175. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by stewbacca · · Score: 0, Troll

    Your Dell laptop was crap in 2006 (spare me the details, valid statement for every Dell laptop made). It will still be crap with Windows 8.

  176. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by stewbacca · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've always been baffled at people buying Mac, hardware to me it's a bit like console gaming, which also baffles me these days, as it's got all the hassles PC gaming has these days with none of the flexibility.

    Even more baffling is your grammar and choice of punctuation.

  177. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by stewbacca · · Score: 1

    What a great example of OSX fanboyism, someone archive parents comment.

    Call me an OSX fanboy, but what in the hell does this sentence even mean?

  178. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by stewbacca · · Score: 1

    It's unacceptable that a 3 year old mac could not run the latest Mac OS.

    Most Mac users don't even care what version of OS they are using because the brand has been really good since about 10.3. Only geeks can tell the difference between 10.5 and 10.8 (I'm using the dev preview). Random Mac user tooling around with Leopard doesn't even know what they are missing in Mountain Lion, so it's NOT unacceptable to them in the least. This is not ripping on random Mac user -- it's just a realistic observation. I'd rather use OS X 10.4 over any version of WinXP, so complaining that my 12 year old G4 can't move beyond 10.5 (7.75 years later) is pretty dumb. Considering same 12 year old Mac has worked just fine for the past 4.75 years "stuck" on 10.5 and my 5 year old Compaq PC is worthless (even using the same OS it shipped with) says enough.

  179. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

    So, it's BDSM for you?

    Sticks and stones may break my bones,
    But whips and chains excite me.

    (seen on a car license plate frame, the personalized plate read "N2LTHR")

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  180. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by MADCOWbeserk · · Score: 2

    You really should get something more modern, may I suggest an MGB?

  181. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    I don't believe you can restore from a Lion Time Machine backup to Snow Leopard. Do you know?

    You can't automatically Apple assumes you want the latest image. After you reinstall 10.6 as your OS though you can go to any of the older weekly files that were from 10.6 pull them down. You have a full history. Copy your backup drive using something that understands rsync structure. Delete the newer backup and use migration assistant.

    Some of the Apple backup utilities allow you to do this as well. Just google there is planty of info on this.

    In terms of the built-in samba/smb integration. We have had some persistent browse / connection issues with multiple Lion workstations on our office network. I've read reports that Mountain Lion seems to work better in mixed environments.

    I don't know the answer. But I'd just use the MacPorts samba which is a clean samba and much newer than Apple's.

  182. Simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stick with the OSX you have already.

    I'd prefer a streamlined OS that isn't hobbled, complicated or bloated by an arbitrary requirement to be backwards compatible for 10 year old hardware.

    With Apple, you get the hardware+software sold together as a single item, this obviously provides much better integration than other cobbled together systems.

  183. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Negative, OS X 10.7 "Lion" dropped support for Core Duo Macs.

    On the other hand, Windows 7 supports those same Macs just fine, and judging from the Windows 8 Release Preview, it works just fine too...

  184. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by GigaplexNZ · · Score: 1

    Would you be ok with windows 7 ONLY working on 1080P screens?

    If it means the death of the crappy 1366x768 LCD panels, 1000 times YES!

  185. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Considering same 12 year old Mac has worked just fine for the past 4.75 years "stuck" on 10.5 and my 5 year old Compaq PC is worthless (even using the same OS it shipped with) says enough.

    Ah yes, the ever present anecdotal 'my mac is fantastic and my pc is worthless', i counter with a 'my pc is fantastic and my mac is worthless'...schooled!

  186. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by siddesu · · Score: 1

    Do you own one that you want to sell yourself? If you do, we can talk.

  187. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Karlt1 · · Score: 1

    Yeah MS handles low end hardware well -- just look at how great those "Vista Capable" machines turned out....

    http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/channel-programs/206905984/tracing-microsofts-vista-capable-debacle.htm

  188. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by dryeo · · Score: 1

    There's tenfour (fork of Firefox) if you want a newer browser on your ppc Mac. http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/

    --
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  189. Are you sure XCode 4.5 doesn't run on ML? by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Could have sworn Apple said XCode 4.5 was a single binary that ran fine on both lion and mountain lion.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Are you sure XCode 4.5 doesn't run on ML? by jbolden · · Score: 1

      I'm speculating, if you are quoting a fact, even from memory I'll defer. But right now Xcode 4.5 doesn't work with the Mountain Lion previews.

  190. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

    You can still get the same quality of video into your TV, given the right cable and the right free ports.

    Will Xbox actually let you play Full HD video over anything other than HDMI with HDCP? I'd be surprised...

  191. Good move if you can afford it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As a software engineer that has to support legacy hardware day in and day out, and constantly have to think about upgrade and downgrade paths, I say this is a good move by Apple.

    Doing this, if you can afford it, wins in many fronts.

    1. You cut the scope of your projects because you don't have to design for something to work on every platform that you ever sold, this also make your project less complicated which hopefully will translate to faster time to market.
    2. You save money and time. You either don't need to hire as many engineers or you can redirect the efforts towards new features. And you have less tests to run.

    Obviously, the cons are you pissed off your old customers by not supporting their hardware anymore. But this crowd is pretty masochistic and comes back for more of your shiny expensive new things, which is made possible because of the same reasons above.

    Compared to Microsoft and Windows, which waste tons of money and engineering hours making sure your Windows 8 can still run Lotus 1-2-3 and Broderbund Software.

  192. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Will Xbox actually let you play Full HD video over anything other than HDMI with HDCP? I'd be surprised...

    It will certainly do 1080p output for games over any old connector. I haven't heard anything about Netflix requiring HDMI. Reading around I find assertions (from pretty much everyone) that you need HDCP for digital connections, but that component (or any other analog format) works fine.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  193. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My $2200 4.5-year old Mac Pro scrapes by handily. Why did you spend $6000 on a computer again?

    That's the Apple spirit, blame the user. He's probably holding it wrong too!

  194. Everyone Disappoints. by raque · · Score: 1

    I have to admit, after years of being an Apple fanboy the last few years have worn me down. I really don't like mountain lion. There is huge vender lock in. The prices!!

    Mobile Me was the beginning of the end. What a crappy service. I used Yahoo! mail. It was, and still is, insanely better then Mobile Me. It's better then iCloud too. The hardware is nice, but it isn't nicer then any other quality hardware.

    As for the best desktop OS, Mac hasn't been that since Windows '95. They're different. Neither has had a real advantage in years.

    Sigh. Everyone disappoints.

  195. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are critical bugs in XP that Microsoft said (years ago) they will never patch. It leaves the OS open to attack over the Internet.

    For example? You know Apple's piss-poor engineering means that even the recent Flashback malware isn't being patched in 10.5 which is less than 5 years old, pathetic.

    MS is also known to be a promoter of bloat, encouraging OEMs to load up systems with garbage

    Wrong, that's OEMs being paid by software vendors. Nothing to do with Microsoft, no benefit to Microsoft and thus no encouragement from Microsoft. But if it's so well known you won't have any trouble finding citation for that.

  196. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

    Jeez, why would you stick with a company that would do that? Seriously dude just get a nice Windows laptop and make a Hackentosh out of it. Then you can have the nicer and cheaper hardware while still enjoying OSX if you want and a free Windows as a bonus, in case you run into something you want that doesn't have a Mac version.

    Although I have to wonder, what with the slow updates and the hardware getting farther behind the curve, if Cook isn't gonna end up abandoning the Pro users, if not X86 altogether. It was Jobs that was into "Apple is the machine on which movies are made" whereas Cook just doesn't seem all that jazzed up, not that I can blame him. After all Apple had a damned good thing going with Nvidia that Intel took a giant dump on without even caring what Apple thought and if its one thing Apple likes is control.

    So I could easily see Cook keeping just a couple of consumer models, since the consumer units are frankly more powerful than the average user is gonna care about anyway so they don't need refreshes as often, whereas the Pro users need the extra GPU power and more frequent refreshes that the consumers frankly just don't need. Its pretty obvious that Apple is making the majority of its money on consumer electronics so it really wouldn't hurt the bottom line and would probably make more money long term by cutting guys like you loose.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  197. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Worse than Microsoft? Buy a phone now that will run Windows Phone 8 when it comes out in less than six months, then get back to me.

  198. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by iocat · · Score: 1

    The thing I don't really get about this is that AFAIK the retina display Macbook Pros are functionally going to run at 1440 x 900 anyway; other than font rendering and videos it's not even clear to me what the extra pixels are for. Will you even be able to set your machine to let you individually address those pixels? So why not let older machines just run at their native res, and don't tax the GPU?

    --

    Dude, I think I can see my house from here.

  199. Besides this odd example, that's not true. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good God man, my 2006 MacBook had Tiger (10.4) when I bought it and Snow Leopard (10.6) when I moved on to my MacBook Pro. I used the thing for five years.

  200. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 1

    Yeah MS handles low end hardware well -- just look at how great those "Vista Capable" machines turned out....

    They turned out exactly as the grandparent described: the "Vista Capable" computers were not powerful enough so Vista automatically switched off Aero. The OS still worked on the low end computers, but it would happily make use of the extra power provided by the more modern, high-end systems.

  201. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by pmontra · · Score: 1

    Please let me insist :-) Browsers are the best example: despite all the JavaScript added to every site (sometimes a dozen of scripts from a dozen of different sites) the JS interpreters of every browser got so much faster after the introduction of Chrome's V8 that they compensate the increase in complexity. That's why those sites can afford stuffing all that JavaScript in their pages and keep being usable and used. I know that I should back this sentiment with figures but it's early in the morning here (still yawning) and I feel that I can't be much wrong given that I keep browsing the modern web on this 6 years old laptop (HP nc8430) and pages load up quickly. Furthermore I see how slow a Firefox 3.6 runs in a WinXP VM on this computer compared to a FF 13 in another WinXP VM.

    In the other windows I'm developing a Ruby on Rails application: I did that job 6 years ago and I'm still doing it on the same laptop. The complexity increased but the environment got faster and compensated it. Was it the interpreter, the database or the framework? Hard to tell here.

    What could spell the demise of my laptop is memory. I maxed it up at 4 GB and still I can't open more than a couple of VMs. Not that I need to do it often but sometimes I need a server VM and a Windows VM to test with IE. I'm lucky that in most cases I can do without the server VM because servers are usually Linux and I develop on Linux, but in some cases I need a software environment that I can't easily replicate. I remember starting to take care of a very old application with compatibility issues with modern releases of Java and MySQL: I had to download a Debian 4 from the Debian archive. Eventually I'll need more than 4 GB and a new computer. Hopefully laptop screens will get larger again by then if the retina Mac will put pressure on PC manufacturers.

  202. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apologist much? Are you actually saying every upgrade you've done is because the previous one didn't work properly?

  203. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Grudge2012 · · Score: 0

    When moving from XP to Win7/64 I noted that there were no 64-bit drivers for my shitty philips webcam. The OS still installed. The computer still worked. The webcam was cheaply and easily replaced with another slightly less shitty one.

    So install a different chipset-integrated GPU into those Macs, and you're good to go.

  204. Just Install Linux On It by Greyfox · · Score: 1

    Ubuntu breathed new life into my old Macbook Pro, which I still use as a dev machine. It actually feels snappier than it did with OSX, though nothing apparently supports its funky-ass Radeon's 3D. Running an Apple was kind of nice for a while, kind of like Linux back when Loki was putting out games for it. I had enough of beating my head on their platform though. I'm currently running Windows 7 on my desktop for the games, but it seems that real life is getting to be more interesting. It probably won't be long before I'm back on Linux full time.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  205. update? by pbjones · · Score: 1

    It's an update to Lion, not a new OS version, and if your processor doesn't start with 'i' (i5 i7 etc) then don't bother. Apple sells hardware too, what did you expect? You need to factor in a touch mouse or pad to get the best out of it. If you don't like it? Win 8 is just around the corner!

    --
    There was an unknown error in the submission.
  206. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by beelsebob · · Score: 1

    Actually, there is –one of the major features of the new OS was reduced footprint. That feature was predicated on not including 32 bit binaries of everything under the sun, hence, the reason to drop the older machines is that they stop the new features from working ;)

  207. Apple sucks by SuperDre · · Score: 1

    And then people complain about MS, which does still support old hardware, but then again, Apple is known for dropping support on 'older' hardware (and they call 2 years 'old' hardware)... Do you see Apple still supporting their 11 year old OS like MS does with Windows XP? Nope..

  208. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by tyrione · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have a 5yo Vaio that is perfectly capable of running Ubuntu with XP and Win7 VMs (for testing websites in IE7-9). My (web designer) colleague has a 5yo Mac that he can't even run any 2yo browsers on NATIVELY!?!

    And when X Windows or Wayland requires OpenGL 3.x throughout the OS to run then we can talk. OS X 10.8 baseline profile for OpenGL is 3.2. That means system-wide Quartz Extreme is accelerated via that baseline profile. Seeing that GNOME and KDE latest are just now sucking hind tit with OpenGL ES 2.0 bits which is a subset of OpenGL 2.x it is rathers clear that older GPUs will be supported on those DEs. If they don't complain when KWin and GNOME's equivalent requires OpenGL 3.x accelerated GPUs tells me they'll have grown up.

  209. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My friend's PS3 is from 2007 and still works flawlessly. The front isn't as glossy but it all works.

  210. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't know about him, but I'm having trouble with my old DVD reader. It works perfectly under Linux, but it fails under Windows. Something about not having region coding built into it...

  211. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by walshy007 · · Score: 1

    Well I distinctly remember surfing the internet on my then new shiny p3 450 and everything being as fast as can be (plain text pages etc). Presently I'm on a four year old eeepc with 2gb of ram and it feels the pain with javascript/flash heavy sites.

    No doubts it is becoming more efficient, but the added complexity of the task is not entirely free, the improvements only mitigate it not completely rule it out.

    Scripting languages (it's what I tend to call dynamic weakly typed languages like python, ruby) have become far faster through the use of just-in-time compilation techniques etc. This performance increase was only available because of their lack of efficiency to begin with, strong, hard typed things have always in general compiled to far more efficient machine code.

    Back in the day people avoided interpreted languages because of these performance penalties, now it's just becoming less of an issue with the combined software/hardware improvements making performance acceptable.

  212. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Chrome will no longer be updated for 10.5. Safari hasn't been updated for 10.5 since 5.0.6.

  213. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by pmontra · · Score: 1

    My netbook is an eeepc 901, the 20 GB SSD Linux edition. I upgraded it to 2 GB and to eeebuntu first and Ubuntu 12.04 when it was clear that the Aurora project was going nowhere (I checked right now, still no news). It's definitely slower than my T7200 laptop, it always was. Maybe Ubuntu is not the right OS for it but I needed some first hand experience with Unity before deciding it won't make it on my laptop because of the global menu, launcher, etc (lenses would be ok, hud maybe).

    With eebuntu it was bearable as an emergency development environment when I have to travel light (but I was logging on tmpfs). Ubuntu is still a new relatively new install so I don't know how it performs.

  214. Planned obsolescence by hueckelaromat · · Score: 1

    The planned obsolescence of Apple products and other companies is making me sick. Planned obsolescence should be banned by law and by all (possible) customers.

  215. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jimicus · · Score: 1

    There's a whole bunch of reasons, and while they vary from person to person, they're usually not directly related to hardware specifications or flexibility.

  216. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Karlt1 · · Score: 1

    The product managers at MS were not even happy with the performance of Vista on low end machines and didn't want the "Vista Capable" crap, but we're overruled by the marketing guys.

  217. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    KWin requires OpenGL 3.x? Not bloody soon, if Graesslin is to be trusted.

  218. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    sell it after 3 years. Pour $2000 MacBook Pro would almost certainly have fetched $16-1800

    What kind of idiot saves 10% by buying a three year old laptop?

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  219. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I share your pain.

  220. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

    Man, they're total bastards for not wanting to support 6+ year old stuff on brand new software architectures!

    I'm pretty sure you've gotten your money's worth, since most notebooks are obsolete and replaced within 4 years.

    --
    Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  221. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by stewbacca · · Score: 1

    Not at all. I upgrade my equipment as much as possible because I generally like upgrades (Win and OSX). If his 6-year old computer "runs perfectly" with Snow Leopard, then what's the problem? It's not like Snow Leopard is obsolete, given it is still the most used version of OS X.

    I have purchased three Windows PC in that time frame, only one of which can run anything beyond XP, thanks to cheap PC manufacturers using outdated RAM and CPUs and using minimal RAM slots (2 that max out at 2GB, for one example). I know, I know, I bought a cheap PC so I get what I deserve, but you'll see plenty of anecdotes in this thread making the ridiculous claim that $300 e-machines PCs still run Windows 7 great, six years on. Riiiiiight.

  222. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by beelsebob · · Score: 1

    Who knows, but they do...

  223. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by stewbacca · · Score: 1

    Yeah, sorry, didn't mean to sound so trollish, but Dell laptops were pretty crappy in 2006 compared to other offerings (and MacBook Pros). And since I'm coming from an all Dell Latitude (600 series) organization (worked there 2007-2011), I can tell you that Dell Latitudes from 2007-2010 (D610, 620 at least) could NOT run Windows Vista or Windows 7 well enough to meet the requirements of our contract. This kind of sucks when your contract requires your software to run on Vista (government hadn't switched to Win7 yet) and your organization uses nothing but a bunch of business grade crappy Dell laptops.

    Hopefully I just untrolled my troll comment?

  224. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by stewbacca · · Score: 1

    Well, my current PC running Win7 is actually really good (and it's a cheap, sub-$600 emachines), but the difference is that it less than 3 years old, so still within the very usable lifespan of a cheap PC. My anecdote was simply to state that my old-ass Mac that hasn't been upgradable for the past 5 years is still decent, but my 5 year old Compaq PC is crap. I expect the same thing in 5 years when I compare this 2008 Macbook with my 2010 emachines. Sorry you can't read my mind. I should have been more clear.

  225. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    I'm using one right now. The OS is addressing those extra pixels. For example my wallpapers are 2880x1800. What the system does though is size things up that would otherwise be small by default. For things that are huge it runs them at their native resolution. So for example if I use a 1080p video stream full screen it runs has if the screen were 1920x1080 and the GPU makes complex adjustments. If on the other hand I use it in a box I get the 1920x1080 pixel by pixel with the rest of the screen wrapped. For example this is the standard rMBP setup for Final Cut Pro (http://www.blogcdn.com//media/2012/06/mza2289436121407075041.800x500-75.jpg ). The image (on a rMBP not in the graphic) you see is pixel for pixel perfect 1080p.

    So no you address those pixels. OTOH the world is built around the 96 PPI standard so what the OS is doing is showing good judgement about when to double and when not to.

  226. Why is this news? by drewco · · Score: 0

    Apple does this all the time, so what's the big deal?

  227. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by jbolden · · Score: 1

    Yes it is for me. But that's way more fun than computer OSes :)

  228. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Rolgar · · Score: 1

    I have a Silver King vacuum (paid list price of 2800) with a 60 year warranty that I could pass on to one of the kids when I die. I do have to buy my filters from the manufacturer, but at $50 every other year, I'm not too concerned since that's a lot less than a $200 vacuum every two years.

  229. and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this is why you shouldn't buy anything from Apple, unless you like the feeling of being fucked in the ass.

    1. Re:and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you should try being fucked in the ass before you compare it to something.

      Seriously - the anus is full of nerves. Done right, it can be an intensely pleasurable experience, and one which will change your outlook on sex.

      I guess if you've only ever been gang-raped as a prison-yard bitch, you probably have bad memories associated with it. But that's not anybody else's fault but your own, dickcheese.

  230. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by mario_grgic · · Score: 1

    I don't see anything in Mountain Lion that restores Expose and Spaces functionality? What exactly are you referring to?

    --
    As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
  231. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apple hardware isn't pricey? Where are you shopping? Cause I can't find a single place that apple hardware isn't WAY more expensive than similar PC hardware. They sell their OS cheap, but over charge you for hardware, and schedule obsolescence into it.

  232. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Cute+Fuzzy+Bunny · · Score: 1

    Sweet huh? We make record breaking worldwide profits, but eh...we don't feel like spending a few hundred grand on revamping some video drivers so the computer you paid twice as much as you needed to 3 years ago can run the current OS?

    Hmm, windows 7 runs on some ten+ year old platforms without anything special.

    Great to see how much Apple likes to take care of their customers by essentially forcing them to upgrade their hardware if they want the new OS and all of the services that will soon be linked to that OS version. Just like they've been doing all along.

    I have a short stack of Apple products that won't take a new OS for similar "We just didn't feel like making those old bits work, even though they will". My favorite was having to replace my wifes ipod because her old one wouldn't update to the new version of ios, which was required for some recipe program she used the ipod for in the kitchen. I'm sure a recipe program truly requires the newest OS and the latest hardware. Except for the fact that I ran a similar app on an IBM PC AT about 25 years ago. Five bucks says I could get windows 7 running on that box.

  233. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its also technically illegal to use under linux, and if legality was never the concern Im pretty sure you could get Windows to ignore the region lock too.

  234. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you even read the post you replied to? Because I said nothing about "maintaining compatibility". Perhaps you could address one of my points, rather than shouting back nonsense?

  235. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is there any company that doesn't like you to buy their product as frequently as possible?

    Raspberry Pi?

  236. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    Which Slashdot are you talking about where Apple don't get any shit. Not this Slashdot where Apple are public enemy no 2, Besides which MS will get shit here because it is a convicted criminal organisation that has not been punished sufficiently.

  237. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Moridineas · · Score: 1

    Expose now has the option to "ungroup application windows". I had read somewhere of some spaces improvement, but I am not sure about this.

  238. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    The Windows desktop my dad bought in 2004 still runs plenty of stuff quite happily. Define ANYTHING.

  239. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No they weren't. Five years ago was 2.2+ GHz processors and 2 GB RAM for MacBook Pros. 1.83-2 GHz processors is close enough to the first gen MacBook Airs from 4 year ago but even that was 2 GB RAM

  240. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Chrontius · · Score: 1

    If you consider requiring them to backport from natively 64 bit everything with ugly hax "artificial", I suppose.

  241. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not an Apple historian, quick Google searcher but from what Wikipedia says the second generation MacBook Pro wasn't announced until October 14th, 2008 which means at least up until then 1st generation MacBook Pros were available from purchase, which means a 1st gen MacBook Pro might only be 3-4 years old.

  242. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

    They don't advertise their systems as being able to play all software released which is why they have system requirements where as a 360 does no have system requirements because it's expected that a 360 plays all 360 software. It would be like Apple labelling their software as Safari Mac 2007. Now what will MS do when they release a new model of the xbox?

  243. Re:Looks like my $6000 3 year old Mac Pro barely.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem is not that you cannot keep running the older OS: the problem is that applications need to be upgraded, and a lot of important ones are Lion only and will soon be Mountain Lion only, even when there really is no reason for that.

    Snow Leopard has pretty much all of the Lion features and could be updated. Most of the "features" of Lion really are just using technology the OS already had, and some is serious backward steps.

  244. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

    Unless you're a hardcore gamer there is no good reason to use windows over pretty much any OS that has a reasonable fanbase. Unix based systems are just better.

  245. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

    I spent roughly £850 on my Macbook Pro which is, give or take £40 what I spend on my Thinkpad 5 years before so actually my Macbook Pro was cheaper than my Thinkpad.

    Unless you use your laptop as a desktop and it rarely moves then you really don't do yourself any favours buying cheap. In fact I can't really see myself spending less than £700 for a laptop regardless of who makes it.

    It entertains me when people are happy buying £300 laptops every couple of years. Well in 6 years that works out to be £900 which is actually more than I spent on my Thinkpad and my machine still looks almost like new. The hinges are in no way loose, the keys work fine. Hell the keys have no fading of the text other than a wee bit on the S key and that is after 6 years old solid use either programming or chatting on messages boards, IM, etc and tons of hours playing Quake, TF2 and numerous other games.

    The only thing that went bad on it was the battery which I'm picking the new one up tomorrow. I can't complain about getting 5 years out of a battery. The last year it was bad but considering I did abuse the battery and didn't look after it properly that's still good.

    Baring something like me dropping it I'm sure I can easily get another 2 years out of it. Probably more unless something changes where the processor is deemed to be too slow. I've just chucked a SSD in it the other week and over all the experience I have is better than when I bought it.

    So no, it's not OS X fanboyism. It's just that I actually use my laptops and regardless of the brand (though there are some brands I just won't buy) I don't go cheap and my laptops last. Everyone I personally know that goes cheap always has more problems than me and i can't think of anyone that bought some cheap laptop that's lasted nearly as long as mine. So like I said if you really want to use a laptop as it is, going cheap just isn't going to work.

  246. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by exomondo · · Score: 1

    They don't advertise their systems as being able to play all software released which is why they have system requirements where as a 360 does no have system requirements because it's expected that a 360 plays all 360 software. It would be like Apple labelling their software as Safari Mac 2007. Now what will MS do when they release a new model of the xbox?

    Exactly, maybe i should re-iterate my point for you (even though i wrote it twice in the original post just to be clear you still seemed to somehow miss it):
    Again, not saying they should or would be expected to do that, just that this situation with the XBox is clearly not analogous.

  247. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Douglas+Goodall · · Score: 1

    If Apple chooses not to support my Mac Pro 8-core Xeon 3.0 GHz 16-GB-ram 2TB-hd machine, I am going to be unhappy.

  248. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by postmortem · · Score: 1

    It has
    Nvidia graphics with HW DX9 support
    1680x1050 display
    dualcore CPU
    was selling with vista at that time.

    Stop talking shit of things you know nothing of, I didn't even mention the model name.

  249. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    If you were on the inside let me ask you something. Of the 3 major enhancements for Longhorn:

    1) Aero interface
    2) Document security (Palladium)
    3) Windows File System

    What happened to #2 and #3. Why didn't Microsoft push ahead with Longhorn / Vista being a major step up from XP?

  250. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    Look it up. It has to do with what video card / EFI the rest of the system far exceeds the spec.

  251. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The GPUs are exactly the reason Apple isn't supporting these older machines. Apple has a new graphical subsystem in 10.8 designed for retinas which is increasing the complexity of CPU/GPU communication. The older GPUs can't run the new graphical subsystem. So no they can't handle it.

    Old machines don't have Retina displays. They don't need to "handle it".

    Also, the "complexity of CPU/GPU communication" doesn't change at all for Retina. That's total nonsense. More pixels and more scaling operations just means you need more GPU performance, not fundamentally new technology.

    Apple is trying to deprecate older GPUs somewhat aggressively, but Retina has nothing to do with it.

  252. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, there is –one of the major features of the new OS was reduced footprint. That feature was predicated on not including 32 bit binaries of everything under the sun, hence, the reason to drop the older machines is that they stop the new features from working ;)

    Every library still must be 32-bit/64-bit fat, or 32-bit binaries will break. I don't think they've even announced a deprecation schedule for 32-bit binaries, so you can probably expect support for at least one more major release beyond 10.8 (they usually tend to announce deprecation in one major release, then remove in the next).

    Fat binaries are not the worst source of bloat in OS X anyways. Dig down into an application bundle and you'll usually find that the binary is a small fraction of the total size of the app, even if it's a fat binary. I just checked Lion's Mail.app (which is fat, i386/x86-64) and it's about 3.4MB out of an app which takes up 51MB on disk. It looks like the binary would be almost 9MB, but OS X transparently compresses system-installed binaries. (That's something they added to reduce footprint in either 10.6 or 10.7, I forget which.)

  253. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by Karlt1 · · Score: 1

    I didn't have to be on the "inside" it came out in the lawsuit that product managers didn't want the Vista Capable mess and that they gave in to pressure from Intel.

  254. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    Why would Intel want people to be able to use cheaper hardware, i.e. cheaper CPUs? And why would Microsoft care what Intel marketing wanted?

  255. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by jbolden · · Score: 1

    OK I read the email chain now. At least my read of the chain I don't agree with the Ars summary (linked above) that it was Intel. Rather it seems like Microsoft was soft on the issue that Vista would require more expensive hardware at the time, while they had never been soft about that with Longhorn. Once you fail to make that clear then the disruption becomes, from the OEM's standpoint pointless. In other words they had this problem because they were still considering Intel integrated graphics only systems as not being totally beyond the pale for Vista. Had it been clear to consumers that there would be years of Microsoft selling XP on lower end systems and Vista on higher end systems they wouldn't have experienced a disruption.... Vista can't be both "the new OS" and "the more demanding OS with cooler stuff" unless you are going to drive a universal price increase through the market.

    But thank you for pointing out that email chain is now public.

  256. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by steve_bryan · · Score: 1

    Isn't this mainly just the dark side of Moore's Law? I'm right on the cusp now for Mountain Lion so I am not unfamiliar with the frustration that I will need a new MBP for future updates but I also know how much technology has progressed since I got my classic 15" MBP that runs so well. On the other hand Macs tend to hold their value so you should be able to sell your model to someone who doesn't need the latest update for a good price. Try that with a 5 year old Toshiba (or a 1 year old model).

  257. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by scot4875 · · Score: 1

    Most Mac users don't even care what version of OS they are using ... Random Mac user tooling around with Leopard doesn't even know what they are missing in Mountain Lion

    Yet for some reason, the Apple fanbois don't seem to realize that this is exactly the case with older versions of Android. It does what the owner wanted it to do when they bought it.

    --Jeremy

    --
    Jesus was a liberal
  258. Re:Just buy new hardware! (NOT) by stewbacca · · Score: 1

    What do Apple fanbois have to do with old versions of Android?

    And you are assuming that people picked Android because it did "everything they wanted it to do"? That seems odd. I bought my iOS device because it does the things I like better than the competition for similar prices. It certainly doesn't do "everything" I want it to do.