Updated Leopard requirements to exclude 800MHz systems - Page 2

I have a MacBook and iMac G5 1.6 so I should be good for 10.5, but by the time 10.6 gets here it will be time for new computers anyways. I think they should have left the 800 G4's be apart of the party- just make it so they have to have a gb of ram. No matter what they do, its better then anything else.

So.... I guess it won't run on my Apple IIe....

I have the G4 Dual 800 also... does this mean we can't load Leopard?

Well said.

I suspect the 800MHz threshold is just that. Apple doesn't want to encourage users of older Macs into thinking that Leopard will give them a satisfying experience, so it raises the recommended bar for Leopard.

It's been my experience that unless there is a technical incompatibility between the MacOS and the Mac's processor/hardware, that older Macs should run Leopard, however responsively.

I once ran Tiger on a first generation G3 Bondi iMac with 96MB of memory, and it worked, but it wasn't pretty, and I went back to MacOS 9.2.2.

I'd wait for Leopard's release, borrow a friend's copy, and try it out on your older Mac. If you're satisfied with the experience, buy a copy and move on. If you're not, stick with Tiger, or replace your Mac with a faster machine.

What you say?

Looks like my 1Ghz G4 is going to max out at 10.4, too close to the min spec for 10.5 to perform well, I suspect.


Nice. I be those who dropped a few grand on a G5 just a couple of years ago feel the same as you.

Since you seem to be wanting to hang onto your G4 Sunflower like I am, have you seen this G4 iMac CPU upgrade? It would upgrade your 800Mhz to 1.35Ghz. Costs nearly as much as a base Mini without keyboard, etc. though, so YMMV.

i don't think generous is the word. i have owned my g4 less than two years. apple BETTER have support for it in leopard. even 10.6 actually.

unfortunately, i bought my PB g4 loaded because it was perfect for everything i needed it for at the time. i also figured apple would not be so dumb as to discontinue support after two years. they are not, but it is not being generous at all.

my mom has a 1 year old windows computer that can't run vista, and there are people complaining that their 5 year macs can't run leopard?

Yes it's time to retire that 1999 technology to something like a media server, bare OS with large hard drive on a network. You will be absolutely amazed with the new Intel C2D machines.

Dude, it was a joke. Did you see the laughing emoticons?

That's exactly what I was thinking. No legacy hardware support from 6 years ago! You're turning into Microsoft! I can run Linux on my 20 year-old washing machine. If only it had speakers...and the processing power to play an MP3.

The funniest line of the rant is:
Right, because Apple's core consumers can't afford an upgrade after four years? Take my household as an example. We're squarely in the "creative middle class", and probably the definition of Apple's core consumers: affluent, but not wealthy middle aged adults with college and high school aged children. We average one upgrade every two years. The bottom of our chain is currently using a PowerBook G4 500mhz, and will need an upgrade to run Leopard. Can we afford $2000 to buy a new MacBook Pro after 6 years of use on the same computer? Yeah, and most of Apple's "core consumers" can too, if they aren't already on supported systems. Even without comparing to Microsoft, the $2000 investment for 6 years of use on that PowerBook is pretty nice.

The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Microsoft's "core consumers" are slightly less affluent and most computers bought even one year ago aren't compatible with Vista. Even though you might be able to buy a Vista-capable computer for about $500 now, this means the lowest ends of the Microsoft user base have had to shell out $1000 per user in the last year to keep up with the OS changes, whereas in my example the cost, even for the most upgrade-happy user (me) is about $1200 for three years, which of course includes better hardware and more capability than the Windows machines.

Bottom line, my 400mhz iMac G3 DV edition runs 10.3 very well, but I wouldn't upgrade it because it would be too slow. My 800mhz iMac G4 17" isn't going past 10.4, and I'm not expecting the 17" iMac G5 to make it past 10.5. My new MBP may go to 10.7, but only because I bought it a few months before the Leopard release. See the pattern? This phase-out is hardly unprecedented and is probably right in line with the upgrade trends of Apple's core consumers.

Decisions like these make me glad I opted for the 466MHz PowerMac in 2001 and not an iMac. 1.46GHz processor upgrade? Check. Radeon 9800 for Core Animation? Check. USB 2.0 (someone mentioned it...)? Check. Bring on Leopard

Well, dang it, my poor 800MHz iBook G4 just missed the Leopard cut line. It's only 3 years and some change old. Thanks for the bean ball, Steve. \

To quote a variation on the great Bob Uecker line from the movie Major League: "Juuuust a bit inside!".








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I suspect that the biggest factor to OS upgrades is the GPU on any pre Intel Mac from now on.

I haven't seen this and it's very intruging... but two things.

1) I hate paying for labor! I've upgraded my Superdrive and HDD and RAM myself, and I'm sure I could do this upgrade myself as well. People just tend to be intimidated by the inside of the iMac.

2) I really want a media center that I can use eyeTV with... but that would require USB2... for which I don't beleive there's a solution for me.

The thing I love the most about my iMac is the form factor. I've thought about implanting a used Mac Mini inside and replacing the 15" monitor with a higher-res display... That would be a challengingly-fun project, I think.


How long do you presume these upgrades will preserve the life of your machine? Does the $$/year price of extending its life really cost much less than the $$/year of a new computer?

-Clive

Windows users in general don't seem to be very likely to upgrade the OS, it's cost prohibitive and an unnecessary hassle. Instead, they will generally replace the entire system when it fails. I'm actually in that camp too, for Windows. I don't know if I'll buy a Leopard upgrade or not, we'll have to see if it holds up to scrutiny.

The same goes to businesses too, many times they will lag in Windows OS by three years or more, simply because the new OS doesn't offer enough benefit for the hardware, labor, training & disruption expenses, as well as compatibility issues to the myriad software that they need to use. Businesses often skip revisions of Office for this reason too.

Long enough until we're all forced to make the Intel switch, I hope (so far so good).


It's worked out to around $100 a year... so absolutely.

$100/yr seems optimistic. How much are the upgrades you need, and many years of additional use are you really expecting out of the upgrade? The parts you note can easily cost more than $300 combined, and you expect to get more than three more years out of it? The machine is still not going to meet or beat a 4 yr. old G5. Maybe I was very lucky, but I bought an original G5 dual 2.0 for $400 a year ago.

Plus the cost of Leopard? Plus the cost of iLife?

Remember, this software comes with a new Mac, so after just these two items, retail, a $599 Mac Mini would be about $390 more. Over 4 years, that's less than $100/year. And surprisingly the Mac Mini seems to be much more upgradable than iMacs, so you could probably get more than 4 years out of that as well...

Food for thought.

-Clive

10.6? 10.7? Impssible, they ran out of cats! Only one left I can think of is Ocelot...

Isn't it about time for OS11?

I'm alright with this Mhz limitation. I had an 867Mhz Powerbook G4 but with 2 months left under Applecare it's onboard video shot craps. Apple couldn't scare up a mainboard for me and they replaced it with a new Macbook Pro. I don't think the PBG4 would have run Leopard very well, as Tiger wasn't fantastic on it with 768MB of RAM. I like a really, really zippy OS. I'm really looking forward to seeing what this machine with 2GB of RAM can do with Leopard (even if it's just a Core Duo and not a Core 2 Duo.)

Anyway, when you think about it (and a few others have mentioned this) I have seen BRAND NEW, out of the box PCs that Dell or HP, for some God forsaken reason, sold to our students with 512MB of RAM (and shared video RAM.) It was truly one of the most painful computing experiences of my life, and I have been in the support biz for about 13 years now. So, a 5 year old Mac actually being able to run the OS that is about to come out vs a brand new PC not effectively running the latest Microsoft OS from a few months ago, makes me feel pretty good that Apple has worked the > 800Mhz Macs into the mix.

How about Sabretooth? Lynx? Cougar? Wildcat?

Not all of those are true 'big cats', but I doubt anyone much cares.

Apple can take the 'cat' naming convention all the way to 10.9, if they so choose.

The one that was REALLY funny was naming 10.0 'Cheetah'. It was anything but fast...


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by the time time 10.6 arrives I'LL be older!... .6 is the last thing i wanna see coming around

Here's some "cats" to think about. Still a lot more cat names to carry the Mac OS to XII.

* Genus Felis
o Chinese Mountain Cat (Felis bieti)
o Jungle Cat (Felis chaus)
o Pallas's Cat (Felis manul)
o Sand Cat (Felis margarita)
o Black-footed Cat (Felis nigripes)
o Wild Cat (Felis sylvestris) (including the Domestic Cat)
* Genus Prionailurus
o Leopard Cat (Prionailurus bengalensis)
o Iriomote Cat (Prionailurus iriomotensis)
o Flat-headed Cat (Prionailurus planiceps)
o Rusty-spotted Cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus)
o Fishing Cat (Prionailurus viverrinus)
* Genus Puma
o Cougar (Puma concolor)
o Jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi)
* Genus Acinonyx
o Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)
* Genus Lynx
o Canadian Lynx (Lynx canadensis)
o Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx)
o Iberian Lynx (Lynx pardinus)
o Bobcat (Lynx rufus)
* Genus Leopardus
o Pantanal (Leopardus braccatus)
o Colocolo (Leopardus colocolo)
o Geoffroy's Cat (Leopardus geoffroyi)
o Kodkod (Leopardus guigna)
o Andean Mountain Cat (Leopardus jacobitus)
o Pampas Cat (Leopardus pajeros)
o Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis)
o Oncilla (Leopardus tigrinus)
o Margay (Leopardus wiedii)
* Genus Leptailurus
o Serval (Leptailurus serval)
* Genus Caracal
o Caracal (Caracal caracal)
* Genus Profelis
o African Golden Cat (Profelis aurata)
* Genus Catopuma
o Bay Cat (Catopuma badia)
o Asian Golden Cat (Catopuma temminckii)
* Genus Pardofelis
o Marbled Cat (Pardofelis marmorata)

# Subfamily Pantherinae

* Genus Neofelis
o Clouded Leopard (Neofelis nebulosa)
o Bornean Clouded Leopard (Neofelis diardi)
* Genus Panthera
o Lion (Panthera leo)
o Jaguar (Panthera onca)
o Leopard (Panthera pardus)
o Tiger (Panthera tigris)
* Genus Uncia
o Snow Leopard (Uncia uncia)

I like 'Caracal', even though technically it's just a Lynx. Didn't think of that one.

Most of those names are non-starters from a marketing POV, of course. Can't really see "Mac OS 10.6, Pallas's Cat."

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I don't see my Quad G5 not being capable of running recent OSs anytime soon!

you spend way to much time on Wikipedia, man...

Not an iLife user so that's something that doesn't affect me.

Someone in my situation (2001) who purchased an iMac back then... probably isn't using it today. They would have purchased a G3/400 based CRT iMac... what is the likelihood they'd be using that today? If they planned on running modern software throughout the years (as I've been able to do), it just wouldn't be possible. The Mac Mini you're speaking of to enable them to run Leopard would likely be their third computer purchase. Total it all up and you'll see why upgrading just makes more sense. I agree that the Mac Mini of today with its upgradeable CPU is a huge step in the right direction, but the integrated graphics, lack of expansion slots and hard drive bays still would keep me from buying. I'm hopeful that my Digital Audio G4 can tide me over until Apple switches completely over to Intel (10.6?)... and then I'll be buying a Mac Pro for another good 7-8 years of use.

Well, I think G4 support is very important. But I am honestly, happy to draw the line at minimum G4 1.0ghz 512mb RAM.

And to be fair this wasn't the Finder's fault anyway. The network filesystem plug-ins were far to synchronous and would simply block (e.g. pinwheel) whatever application you were using while it tried to re-connect to the server. The filesystem plug-ins, especially AFP's, are much improved.

My Quicksilver 933 has been working fine since 2002. While I'm glad to see it's supported in Leopard [for now], I never intended to upgrade...10.4 was it.

I bought a 933MHz iBook G4, my first Mac, and now I am wishing I had gotten the 1GHz model. My choices were (a) 933MHz/40GB HDD for $1299 or (b) 1GHz/60GB HDD for $1499, and I decided the extra $200 was better spent on maxing the RAM so I went for option 'a'. I really can't complain because if I had purchased my iBook 3 weeks earlier I would have bought an iBook G3 with Jaguar.

My Dual 800MHz runs v.9.2.1 as well as X (up through Tiger). Makes good use of video capture boards that don't work in G5s, and SCSI boards for my old high-res scanner, and running old copies of programs like PageMaker that some thrifty clients still use. With PCI FW800, eSATA and gigabit ethernet cards, it's a very handy tool in my studio. I keep thinking I should upgrade to a faster processor card, but can't really justify it with any real need.

I'm in the process of moving my wife's Dual 500MHz running Jaguar to a Dual 1.8GHz G5 that I bought when Motion was first announced. Not sure what I'll do with the old Graphite CPU... probably sit it next to my Mac Plus in the basement, or load OS X Server 10.2 on it for dedicated file sharing.

An old 233MHz G3 still hums along running Apache as a test machine. (Getting tough to find those old SCSI boot drives, though.) My 867MHz 12" Al PowerBook G4 sits in the kitchen, hooked up to the counter-top LCD TV for email & web access via Tiger. My primary desktop runs Tiger, a G5 Dual 2GHz. It will go to Leopard when I get it, as will my MBP 2.33GHz.

My "FrankenMac" PowerTower Pro 225 (with a 500MHz G3 DayStar card and a bunch of other junk inside) could run OS X, but I just never felt the need.

When you can buy a 1.66GHz Mac Mini with a 1-year warranty for $429 from Apple today, how can you say a Mac upgrade is not affordable? What's Apple supposed to do... give away a free computer with every $129 copy of Leopard to people that think buying a computer every 6 years is enough to keep a good company in business?

"the 67MHz increase will exclude a handful of Mac system, namely the 800MHz PowerBook G4 (Titanium), 800MHz PowerMac G4 (Quicksilver), 800MHz iMac G4, 800MHz iBook G4, and 800MHz eMac."

I thought it might be useful to look at the dates on the earliest compatible systems:

Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver)\t867 MHz\t07/18/2001
Xserve\t1 GHz\t05/14/2002
PowerBook G4\t1 GHz/867 MHz\t11/06/2002
iMac (17-inch)\t1 Ghz\t02/04/2003
eMac (ATI Graphics)\t1 Ghz\t05/06/2003
iBook G4\t1 GHz/ 933MHz\t10/22/2003

So some people who bought their systems as recently as four years ago will be SOL, and everything older than six years is verboten.

But it does seem to be a technical requirement (not simply marketing), so I'll give Apple the benefit of the doubt and assume it's not just bloatware.

I remember some people still running Fat Macs ten years after they purchased them But I always recommend that people consider upgrading at least every four years anyway. If nothing else they're being dragged along by the Internet and browser compatibility, and if they upgrade other software they'll run into issues, too (slowness is common). My aunt has a PowerBook G3 (FIrewire), released in 2000, that's still running Classic. The latest available browsers for it fail on a lot of web pages. (It will soon get a face lift, but not to Leopard )

— Andy

You forgot the PowerMac G4 Dual 800Mhz. I wonder if the the speed of the two processors makes a difference?

G4 imac 800MHz here, Tiger is great on my iMac, and - I know some of you will disagree - I don't see what's so great about Leopard's announced features. I skipped Panther, and I'd skip Leopard even if my iMac was included. So what's the current buzz about Cheetah ;-)

Only 4 years old? With advances in chip technology alone, isn't that an eternity?

My 800MHz iBook G4 debuted in late '03, and was still on sale as new for a year after that (I know, 'cuz I bought it new off of Amazon in Q3 2004).

So, yep, you could've bought a NEW system as little as THREE YEARS ago, and still be hosed far as the Leopard update goes. I did.

So I say... boooo Apple on this one.


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That's not what people are complaining about. They just want to be able to run OS 10.5, without needing to replace a perfectly good Mac to do it, and without being subject to Apple's dictating to them what "slow" is.

All of the Quicksilver G4s, from the slowest (733 MHz) to the fastest (dual 1 GHz) have the same "machine ID": PowerMac3,5. And both of the 900 MHz iBook G3s have the same machine ID (Powerbook4,3) as some of the 800 MHz and slower iBooks. So if Apple prevents the OS 10.5 installer from running on the 800 MHz and slower Macs, then it will need to use some other identifying factor than the machine ID. That means it may be relying on the actual MHz speed of the Mac, and/or whether it has one or two procesors, to make this determination. If that's the case, then it might turn out that Macs that have had their processor speed boosted (either with a faster and/or dual processor board, or by moving the processor's speed-controlling surface-mount resistors up a notch), will take an OS 10.5 install. If this turns out to be the case, then there will be a temporary revival of the small market for do-it-yourselfers to increase their Mac's processor speed, to bump it past the 800 MHz mark.

Personally, I find OS 10.4.x to run annoyingly slow on anything below 867 MHz, so I can sort of see why Apple made this decision for 10.5, but when you get down to it, it's really the user's decision to make about what's too slow for them. Apple should let 10.5 install on any Mac that 10.4 can install on, and if a user decides it's too slow, THEN they can decide to buy a faster Mac.