Buy a Mac Pro before or after Leopard?

messiahmessiah
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Being a Mac user for longer than I care to remember, I've suffered at the hands of early adoption a good few times.



I'm thinking that there's a good chance that any Mac Pros produced after the introduction of Leopard will be Leopard-only, and this effectively means that purchasing a Mac Pro after the intro of Leopard will once again lock you in to early adoption hell.



So is there a argument for buying a Mac Pro before Leopard is intro'd?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    shroudshroud Posts: 30member
    Although that situation is possible, I don't think it will be likely. Apple usually gave fair warning regarding the next computers as to whether or not the computer would support legacy software such as OS9 direct, OS9 through emulation and then finally no OS9. Looking farther back I think they tried to help the transition to PPC chips similarly.



    I have a feeling that Leopard will be the most polished of the OSX series though for some reason. I can be totally wrong, especially if they make big changes like using the relatively new ZFS among others. (I would welcome the new changes personally)



    The slowness of the first few OSs has finally gone. I loved Panther and appreciated the under the hood changes of Tiger but Tiger has had too many bugs for me to really love. I think Leopard will keep the speed (increase it for intels chips) and fix the many bugs of Tiger while at the same time bringing some nice new features like resolution independence.



    Oh well, I'm an eternal optimist so don't listen to me anyway lol!
  • Reply 2 of 5
    leonardleonard Posts: 528member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah View Post


    Being a Mac user for longer than I care to remember, I've suffered at the hands of early adoption a good few times.



    I'm thinking that there's a good chance that any Mac Pros produced after the introduction of Leopard will be Leopard-only, and this effectively means that purchasing a Mac Pro after the intro of Leopard will once again lock you in to early adoption hell.



    So is there a argument for buying a Mac Pro before Leopard is intro'd?



    At first I was going to answer like the other poster... but then I saw what you were talking about. Typically, Apple requires any Mac that they sell, requires the version of the MacOS that they sell it with or a higher version. So if Apple introduces a new set of Mac Pros after Leopard, they will likely require Leopard or above.



    The reason for this is that there is usually additional hardware drivers for the new hardware - for example if Apple introduces Mac Pros with new high end graphics cards, the new MacOS will hopefully contain those graphic card drivers, because if they don't your Mac Pro will kernel panic when started from the System CD/DVD. This actually happened once to Apple when they didn't include the drivers for the Geforce 6800 Ultra in the first Macs that shipped with it and included the drivers as a driver update. When users wanted to reinstall the MacOS, they couldn't unless they created a new MacOS CD/DVD with the updated drivers.



    So yes it is probably likely. So if you have software that doesn't get updated as frequently, you may want to get a Mac Pro before the Leopard update.



    By the way Apple lists the original MacOS that your computer comes with here:



    Intel http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303315



    PowerPC http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25517



    Note the statement on the last link:



    Quote:

    Important: You cannot normally use a Mac OS version earlier than the one included with the computer. See "Don't install older versions of Mac OS than what comes with your computer," as well as the related documents mentioned below.



  • Reply 3 of 5
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    I think you are correct. It's hard enough for Apple to maintain compatibility with previous hardware, when they release new software. Maintaining compatibility with previous SOFTWARE when they release new hardware that already comes with the new software would be a bit much.



    Plus it reduces the chance that lazy developers would just say to use Tiger with their app.



    So far, the only thing not compatible with Leopard that I have is QuicKeys.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    Yeah, my main concern is that I've had a few instances where a new OS breaks the drivers for third party peripherals. Moving from 10.2 > 10.3 was an absolute nightmare for me. Likewise, there are a number of peripherals that we currently use where the Intel machine won't support them.



    Of course, none of this is Apple's fault ? it's all down to when the manufacturers decide to release updated drivers ? but by the same token, manufacturers don't have an obligation to keep updating their drivers so that you can use a new OS that it was never originally designed to work with...
  • Reply 5 of 5
    hobbithobbit Posts: 532member
    I've been following Mac products for more than 15 years and time and again saw that any big generational step had issues with its version 1.0 release. Do not trust Apple to ever get a big generational step perfectly right from the beginning. This is especially true for notebooks (be it white spots on LCDs, CDs not ejecting properly, computers running too hot) but also for desktops.



    The first question to ask is:

    Will the next Mac Pro classify as a 'next generation' or merely an evolutionary update (e.g. a drop-in faster CPU)?

    If the latter, you're safe to wait and can get the next model.



    If the former, you have to ask:

    Are the rumored or likely new features so important to me that I am willing to live with version 1.0 flaws?

    For example many criticized the lack of internal HD bays on older models. To many having more room for internal HDs would be more important than potential version 1.0 issues.



    Unless you want a very specific built-to-order MacPro which will no longer be available from Apple once a new generation is introduced, it might be best to wait until the day of introduction of the next update to see what's new.

    Decide there and then whether to dive into the new generation or buy an older model - which is usually still available at Apple dealers. That way you can make an educated decision.



    Pretty much the same goes for the OS.

    A major new OS generation, and Leopard will qualify as such, will cause issues with older software, drivers, etc.



    Now the big question with Leopard is how many of those new features will be linked to new hardware that cannot be retro-fitted onto older Mac Pros.



    Again, probably best to wait for the introduction day and then decide whether the new features are worth the version 1.0 hassles. Or how much you will lose out on Leopard features when getting the previous generation hardware.
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