Apple to drop support for certain G4 Macs, Xserves

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Apple next month will discontinue repair support for a number of aging Macs powered by PowerPC G4 processors as well as a handful of Xserve products.



The news was relayed earlier this week to Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASP) via a support bulletin that was subsequently picked up by MacMerc. It included a list of Macs that will be classified as either "vintage" or "obsolete" in all markets come March 17th.



Obsolete products



At that time, the following products will be classified as "Obsolete products," or those which were discontinued more than seven years ago. Support for these products will be discontinued without exception, meaning none of the company's service providers will be able to order replacement parts for repairs.

PowerBook G4Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio)Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver)Macintosh Server G4 (Digital Audio)Macintosh Server G4 (Quicksilver)

Vintage products



Meanwhile, a trio of Xserve products (below) will be classified as "Vintage products," or those that were discontinued more than five and less than seven years ago. Apple discontinues hardware service for vintage products like it does obsolete products, with the exception of those purchased in California, as required by statute.

Xserve RAIDXserve (Slot Load)Xserve (Cluster Node)

Owners of these products may continue to obtain service and parts from Apple Service Providers within the state of California.



Apple maintains a complete list of vintage and obsolete products on its support site, which can be seen here. If you own one of the aforementioned products and it's in need of repair, you may want to contact your local AASP in the next few weeks.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 61
    Eck! Ack! Oop!
  • Reply 2 of 61
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    Eck! Ack! Oop!



    !?!?!
  • Reply 3 of 61
    hillstoneshillstones Posts: 1,490member
    "PowerBook G4" is rather vague since there were so many different models of the PowerBook G4. However, the last Titanium PowerBook G4 was in 2002, maybe that is what it refers to.
  • Reply 4 of 61
    virgil-tb2virgil-tb2 Posts: 1,416member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    "PowerBook G4" is rather vague since there were so many different models of the PowerBook G4. However, the last Titanium PowerBook G4 was in 2002, maybe that is what it refers to.



    It means all PowerBook G4's. I don't get what's confusing.



    Are you saying there is a spelling mistake?
  • Reply 5 of 61
    teckstudteckstud Posts: 6,476member
    Well I guess if Pioneer can stop making LaserDisk players then nothing lasts forever!

    It (G4) does seem rather short lived though- doesn't it?
  • Reply 6 of 61
    Is this correct? I just bought my 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 in January of 2006.



    I'd upgrade, but I'm still very happy with it & the speed it provides. Also, the new MacBook Pros are BS. They are ugly with that black keyboard and I don't want to carry adapters around just to plug it into devices.



    I may have to go back to PC!



    OOPS! This DOES NOT include the last edition of PowerBook G4's. WHEW!
  • Reply 7 of 61
    shanmugamshanmugam Posts: 1,200member
    new macs in march 17th? (imac, mac, mac mini?)
  • Reply 8 of 61
    virgil-tb2virgil-tb2 Posts: 1,416member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SHAPIRO2 View Post


    Is this correct? I just bought my 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 in January of 2006.



    I'd upgrade, but I'm still very happy with it & the speed it provides. Also, the new MacBook Pros are bullshit. They are ugly with that black keyboard and I don't want to carry adapters around just to plug it into devices.



    I may have to go back to PC!



    If you bought it then you must have bought one of the very last ones and you would have known when you bought it that it was a dead end. And three years is better than any Windows laptop I have ever owned by about 1.5 years.
  • Reply 9 of 61
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    Not my 6 year old PowerBook!!! Whatever will I do? Damn you Apple.
  • Reply 10 of 61
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    !?!?!



    A PowerPC chip got stuck in my throat... ahem.
  • Reply 11 of 61
    brianusbrianus Posts: 160member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post


    It means all PowerBook G4's. I don't get what's confusing.



    Are you saying there is a spelling mistake?



    It's confusing because the article says "obsolete" = "discontinued more than seven years ago." The last PowerBook G4s were not discontinued until the spring of 2006, less than three years ago. So obviously they're either radically revising the term "obsolete", or "PowerBook G4" refers to a specific, early model in that line.



    Similarly, my company bought an XServe in October of 2005, so it does not fall into this article's definition of "Vintage." Yet, the article simply says "XServe (Slot Load)" will be put into this category, a description which does match our server since it does have a slot-loading drive. Hopefully they mean XServe G4 and not XServe G5.
  • Reply 12 of 61
    hillstoneshillstones Posts: 1,490member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post


    It means all PowerBook G4's. I don't get what's confusing.



    Are you saying there is a spelling mistake?



    No. The PowerBook G4's went from 2001 to 2006. So they should clarify which models of the PowerBook G4 are being classified as Obsolete. Based on the 7 year timeframe, it would appear all the Titanium G4's are now obsolete, and the Aluminum G4's are still supported. Next year, the first generation Aluminum G4 would fall into the obsolete catagory.
  • Reply 13 of 61
    virgil-tb2virgil-tb2 Posts: 1,416member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    No. The PowerBook G4's went from 2001 to 2006. So they should clarify which models of the PowerBook G4 are being classified as Obsolete. Based on the 7 year timeframe, it would appear all the Titanium G4's are now obsolete, and the Aluminum G4's are still supported. Next year, the first generation Aluminum G4 would fall into the obsolete catagory.



    Well now I'm confused also.



    This story was on several sites yesterday and the consensus was that ALL PowerBook G4's were now obsolete. I don't see it as a problem either way, but I would prefer them all to be obsolete at once than to get down to version numbers. Even the newest of them are old enough to qualify IMO.
  • Reply 14 of 61
    hillstoneshillstones Posts: 1,490member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SHAPIRO2 View Post


    Is this correct? I just bought my 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 in January of 2006.



    I'd upgrade, but I'm still very happy with it & the speed it provides. Also, the new MacBook Pros are BS. They are ugly with that black keyboard and I don't want to carry adapters around just to plug it into devices.



    I may have to go back to PC!



    OOPS! This DOES NOT include the last edition of PowerBook G4's. WHEW!



    You have 7 years of service support for your PowerBook G4 that was discontinued in 2006. After 7 years after the discontinued date, you won't be able to find service parts for it anymore. What adapters are you referring to with the new MBP? It has all the standard ports so I don't know what you are complaining about. The new MacBooks look so much better than the older models.
  • Reply 15 of 61
    brianusbrianus Posts: 160member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    The new MacBooks look so much better than the older models.



    Eh? The other guy was right; the black keyboard is pretty jarring and ugly. They should have gone with white, in keeping with the whole everything-looks-like-an-iPhone theme. After all the standalone keyboards have white keys, as does the iPhone on-screen keyboard. More distinctive and Apple-y too.. black keys just make it look like another PC laptop.
  • Reply 16 of 61
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by brianus View Post


    Eh? The other guy was right; the black keyboard is pretty jarring and ugly. They should have gone with white, in keeping with the whole everything-looks-like-an-iPhone theme. After all the standalone keyboards have white keys, as does the iPhone on-screen keyboard. More distinctive and Apple-y too.. black keys just make it look like another PC laptop.



    Dark keys give much better contrast on a backlit keyboard. On the old MacBook Pros and PowerBooks with silver keys and backlighting, there were some lighting conditions where the backlight made it harder to see the keys! I've got a new MacBook Pro and am very glad the keys aren't white. What Apple should be doing is updating the external keyboards so they have black keys. Oh, and Apple - release them with backlighting already!
  • Reply 17 of 61
    buckbuck Posts: 293member
    That's it. I'm moving to California.
  • Reply 18 of 61
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    "PowerBook G4" is rather vague since there were so many different models of the PowerBook G4. However, the last Titanium PowerBook G4 was in 2002, maybe that is what it refers to.



    Apple names each CPU revision a specific name. For example my MacBook Pro is "MacBook Pro (early '08). If you look at http://www.apple.com/support/specs you'll see the specs that refer to this particular model. Take a look at http://support.apple.com/specs#powerbook%20G4 and you'll see the range of different PB models. So Apple is only announcing that a model named "powerbook G4" is considered vintage.
  • Reply 19 of 61
    rainrain Posts: 538member
    Do you guys think this includes batteries?
  • Reply 20 of 61
    tony1tony1 Posts: 259member
    "Vintage"? Hmmmmm so does that mean that my Pismo is worth more now, like a "Vintage" Chevy. So I guess I'll wait a few weeks before I ask $1000+ on Ebay. ...just kidding she'll go with me to my grave.
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