The fact that apple care only last for three years tells ya that apple could give a fiddlers fart about your computer after that. So why is this so shocking or surprising? By the time 10.6 comes out, the last G5's will be about three years old, and in computer years that's about six years.
I'm putting my money on Apple not releasing 10.6 until September 2009. This way, anyone who bought a G5 in August of 2006 will have run out of support and Apple wont have to deal with you. This will also exclude first gen macbooks running 32bit only.
I love Apple, but I think they would have no problem treating you and your three year old computer pretty poorly. They are the cutting edge of technology, so I'm never surprised at the decisions they make regrading it.
...unless you consider that Apple was still selling G5's as recently as 2 years ago. Yes, Apple has over the years abandoned old hardware as new OS'es were released. But I cannot think of a time when the gap between hardware sale and OS abandonment was this short. Heck, Tiger still booted G3's. Leopard still booted 867Mhz G4's. Both of those were WAY more than 2 years old. This is unprecedented and as such is bound to set a few more people off than past releases.
Agreed. There must be a very substantial installed base of PowerPC's that are still humming along quite nicely. At first glance, it doesn't make a whole lotta sense for Apple to forego all those upgrade dollars. But perhaps their decision is related to memory requirements, as Snow Leopard is said to support unheard-of amounts of RAM, which opens the door for all kinds of things that today's older Macs would be completely incapable of taking advantage of anyway.
So were likely looking at 2011 before an OS with new features that the PPC can't run will be out.. That still gives the last of the PPC machines a 5 year lifespan.
Pretty reasonable.
...and since 2012 marks the end of the world as we know it why even stress? Save your cash for a kegger.
I seem to remember Steve Jobs saying PPC Mac would be supported for 5 years after the intel ones arrived. The lawyers must be rubbing their grubby hands in glee - can anyone say "class action"?
Just because 10.6 may be Intel only, it doesn't mean Apple will quit "supporting" PPC. I'm sure there will be security updates, etc. There just won't be a new optimized Snow Leopard for it. I hope the software developers continue to support PPC for those who rely on it. But supporting PPC is different than actually developing new software (or a new OS) to run on PPC.
I'm in favor of this direction (assuming it happens as we believe). Snow Leopard is for the future - an optimized, lean and mean, secure OS that can use more RAM, is better with multicore processors, etc. People writing new software for it should be able to really make improvements. Adding support for PPC would only slow down the process of developing an incredibly efficient OS. If you have a newer Intel Mac, Snow Leopard may be a good improvement, but the real improvement will be with new computers that are built with Snow Leopard in mind.
I think many of us feel bitter about the death of PPC for two reasons.
First, it's a defeat or sorts. PPC was something Apple had a personal investment in. It was made, to some extent, for us (though, obviously not exclusively). x86 never felt good enough for Macs because it wasn't custom, it wasn't something made specifically with us in mind. The move to x86 just marked this feeling of mediocrity, and the failure of PPC: the great hope.
I don't like to see Apple at the whims of someone like Intel who has so many other interests. Not to say the situation was any better with Motorola and IBM. Perhaps this acquisition of PA Semiconductor will bring us back to the glory days when a 400mhz G3 beat the pants off a Pentium II. That's what a lot of us wish for.
We have the upper hand the OS arena, and even in the design arena -- but when it comes to hardware, we have the same stuff the generic PC folks have. It's so similar, that the PC folks are throwing OS X onto any old beige box. A lot of us want to go back to the days when everything about Mac was better -- period, not just the OS and looks of the machines.
I'm a PPC user and I am NOT bitter about the death of PowerPC (and, thus, am not clinging to my guns or my religion.) My main machine, a Dual 2GHz PowerMac, is about to celebrate its 5th birthday and it can't even match the benchmarks of today's Mac mini. I need a good excuse to upgrade to a current Intel-based machine. The boss doesn't care if I could be enjoying my computing experience more, but may be convinced by obsolescence!
Also, if Snow Leopard just improves the speed and stability of Intel-based Macs, then I won't be missing out on the whizz-bang features that usually drives OS updates. Of course, as software starts to require Intel chips, then my purchase of a new machine may be hastened.
PowerPC had its day. It solved problems that x86 had inherently and apparently seemed to have a permanent advantage provided the clock speeds could stay within earshot of the x86 chips. Well, Motorola failed miserably to keep up (the Megahertz Myth could be sold as long as the PPC chip maintained a minimum fraction of MHz (now GHz) as the competing Intel offering.) IBM gave us hope for a while, but they fell behind as well. In 2003, my PowerMac was an impressive machine, but the future versions became less and less impressive.
PowerPC only belonged in part to Apple (it was part of the AIM, Apple-IBM-Motorola consortium) so we Apple users have two laggard partners to blame for its demise. If you want to be bitter about a technology that was exclusively Apple's, but became surpassed by inferior technology by Apple's failure to maintain its lead, consider FireWire. . . or HyperCard.
I'm a G5 user, but I won't complain. (I will complain if CS4 leaves G5's behind, however.) But I am a bit surprised. After all the trouble to make the OS more chipset-agnostic, why bother to leave the G5s behind so quickly?
Making the OS hardware-agnostic is so Apple can move the OS to another platform, with minimal disruption for developers, not run the OS on many platforms. How much sense does it make for Apple to spend the time and energy making 10.6 support PowerPC and then drop it for 10.7?
im not sure what all the complaints are for. if it's just like a SP, 10.6 will be useless to most people and in their eyes, not worth the 130-150 dollar price tag.
im sure by the time 10.7 comes out, most everyone will have updated their computers.
It is bloody annoying how people compare 10.6 to an SP. Service packs are patches on patches on patches. It's all bloatware. In contrast, Windows users would any windows OS for a more secure and leaner OS without the bloody bloat.
...unless you consider that Apple was still selling G5's as recently as 2 years ago. Yes, Apple has over the years abandoned old hardware as new OS'es were released. But I cannot think of a time when the gap between hardware sale and OS abandonment was this short. Heck, Tiger still booted G3's. Leopard still booted 867Mhz G4's. Both of those were WAY more than 2 years old. This is unprecedented and as such is bound to set a few more people off than past releases.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alansky
Agreed. There must be a very substantial installed base of PowerPC's that are still humming along quite nicely. At first glance, it doesn't make a whole lotta sense for Apple to forego all those upgrade dollars. But perhaps their decision is related to memory requirements, as Snow Leopard is said to support unheard-of amounts of RAM, which opens the door for all kinds of things that today's older Macs would be completely incapable of taking advantage of anyway.
You seem to be making the typical all-or-nothing assumption that to support a new OS means that you aren't supporting an older OS. There is no reason that Apple can't keep updating Leopard with point releases for a year or two after Snow Leopard is released.
Sure, it's unprecedented but so is a major release that offers no new bells and whistles or contains the same codename as a previous major release.
Now watch as all the complaints from G5 users stream in.
I agree with the move, however.
I also agree. There shouldn't be any whining and crying about it though. Snow Leopard only offers better optimization and is really not much of a new OS over Leopard. Big deal. PPC users shouldn't expect to get support for the next decade or so.
It's time to save up those pennies and get a new Mac. Beside that, PPC users can use 10.5 for at least 4 more years. I have a new MacBook but after considering the pain involved in upgrading to a new OS, I've decided against 10.6 even though I'll probably just purchase the box to own a part of Apple history.
I'm a PPC user and I am NOT bitter about the death of PowerPC (and, thus, am not clinging to my guns or my religion.) My main machine, a Dual 2GHz PowerMac, is about to celebrate its 5th birthday and it can't even match the benchmarks of today's Mac mini. I need a good excuse to upgrade to a current Intel-based machine. The boss doesn't care if I could be enjoying my computing experience more, but may be convinced by obsolescence!
Also, if Snow Leopard just improves the speed and stability of Intel-based Macs, then I won't be missing out on the whizz-bang features that usually drives OS updates. Of course, as software starts to require Intel chips, then my purchase of a new machine may be hastened.
PowerPC had its day. It solved problems that x86 had inherently and apparently seemed to have a permanent advantage provided the clock speeds could stay within earshot of the x86 chips. Well, Motorola failed miserably to keep up (the Megahertz Myth could be sold as long as the PPC chip maintained a minimum fraction of MHz (now GHz) as the competing Intel offering.) IBM gave us hope for a while, but they fell behind as well. In 2003, my PowerMac was an impressive machine, but the future versions became less and less impressive.
PowerPC only belonged in part to Apple (it was part of the AIM, Apple-IBM-Motorola consortium) so we Apple users have two laggard partners to blame for its demise. If you want to be bitter about a technology that was exclusively Apple's, but became surpassed by inferior technology by Apple's failure to maintain its lead, consider FireWire. . . or HyperCard.
I agree that from a technical standpoint Apple had to draw the line at some point and drop PPC. I don't think 2009 is the right time because quad G5s were still being sold in August 2006, but we can agree to disagree on that matter.
I have two big problems with 10.5.x as the last PPC OS:
1. According to the people at rixstep.com Leopard sucks. Apple made serious under-the-hood mistakes that affect the very foundation of the OS and I know that 10.5.5 or even 10.5.65 won't fix that. Those in the PowerPC camp are going to be left with crappy OS for the rest of time.
2. Apple is making big steps toward market share in enterprise with the iPhone, Exchange support and push technology. Telling the business world that 3 year old computers are obsolete is an insane move that will further convince CIOs and their IT departments not to take Apple seriously. Real enterprises use 6 year old hardware and it runs the same OS as their 6 day old hardware. Apple's game of abandoning older hardware, something they've been doing their entire history, is going to hold them back big time.
While they might not support PPC with consumers I think they will support it internally. As we know from the Intel "surprise", Apple always keeps another processor platform handy in case a switch is needed.
I'm not surprised at this development at all. I have a maxed-out Dual-1GHz G4, and since installing Leopard, my machine's response has become appallingly sluggish. Running iTunes, Mail, Safari and iPhoto will slow the machine to a crawl, especially when changing apps. In addition, my 2GB of RAM is almost always running about 1200-1300MB used. Pre-Leopard OS X didn't every use this much RAM, even with a dozen apps running simultaneously.
Leopard appears to be quite disk-intensive on the PPC platform; maybe the code to run Leopard on PPC is not at all efficient, not to mention the processors simply don't have the firepower of the Intel chips. I suspected that Leopard would be the last gasp for the PPC. Guess I'll pass my current machine to my Dad, and I'll be looking for an iMac and/or MacBook Pro.
While they might not support PPC with consumers I think they will support it internally. As we know from the Intel "surprise", Apple always keeps another processor platform handy in case a switch is needed.
I predict they aren't doing that this time. If Intel drops the ball, then they have AMD to fall back on.
While they might not support PPC with consumers I think they will support it internally. As we know from the Intel "surprise", Apple always keeps another processor platform handy in case a switch is needed.
Isn't that exactly the reason why Snow Leopard should support at least the quad G5s?
I agree that from a technical standpoint Apple had to draw the line at some point and drop PPC. I don't think 2009 is the right time because quad G5s were still being sold in August 2006, but we can agree to disagree on that matter.
I have two big problems with 10.5.x as the last PPC OS:
1. According to the people at rixstep.com Leopard sucks. Apple made serious under-the-hood mistakes that affect the very foundation of the OS and I know that 10.5.5 or even 10.5.65 won't fix that. Those in the PowerPC camp are going to be left with crappy OS for the rest of time.
Don't pay attention to rixstep. It has never been considered a reputable source of Mac information, in fact, they are known to rip off reputable sources of information. Why do you care what rixstep says anyway? Don't you have your own opinion? For me, Leopard has been great and it's an improvement over Tiger, Jaguar, Panther, etc.
Quote:
2. Apple is making big steps toward market share in enterprise with the iPhone, Exchange support and push technology. Telling the business world that 3 year old computers are obsolete is an insane move that will further convince CIOs and their IT departments not to take Apple seriously. Real enterprises use 6 year old hardware and it runs the same OS as their 6 day old hardware. Apple's game of abandoning older hardware, something they've been doing their entire history, is going to hold them back big time.
People in the enterprise who surf the web, check e-mail and use MS Office can get away with using 6-year-old hardware, but anyone who does anything more computationally intense needs much newer hardware. I find it funny that you criticize Apple for making 3-year-old hardware "obsolete" (and hardware doesn't become obsolete until a critical app won't run on it anymore), but you apparently give Microsoft a pass for releasing an OS (Vista) that makes one-year-old hardware really obsolete.
Comments
I'm putting my money on Apple not releasing 10.6 until September 2009. This way, anyone who bought a G5 in August of 2006 will have run out of support and Apple wont have to deal with you. This will also exclude first gen macbooks running 32bit only.
I love Apple, but I think they would have no problem treating you and your three year old computer pretty poorly. They are the cutting edge of technology, so I'm never surprised at the decisions they make regrading it.
Tiger running on an eeePC.
Greetings and byebye.
Yours "next big thing"
...unless you consider that Apple was still selling G5's as recently as 2 years ago. Yes, Apple has over the years abandoned old hardware as new OS'es were released. But I cannot think of a time when the gap between hardware sale and OS abandonment was this short. Heck, Tiger still booted G3's. Leopard still booted 867Mhz G4's. Both of those were WAY more than 2 years old. This is unprecedented and as such is bound to set a few more people off than past releases.
Agreed. There must be a very substantial installed base of PowerPC's that are still humming along quite nicely. At first glance, it doesn't make a whole lotta sense for Apple to forego all those upgrade dollars. But perhaps their decision is related to memory requirements, as Snow Leopard is said to support unheard-of amounts of RAM, which opens the door for all kinds of things that today's older Macs would be completely incapable of taking advantage of anyway.
The other question is whether or not Snow Leopard will run on 32bit Intel Macs. I think it would be a good time to drop support for them too.
So were likely looking at 2011 before an OS with new features that the PPC can't run will be out.. That still gives the last of the PPC machines a 5 year lifespan.
Pretty reasonable.
...and since 2012 marks the end of the world as we know it why even stress? Save your cash for a kegger.
I seem to remember Steve Jobs saying PPC Mac would be supported for 5 years after the intel ones arrived. The lawyers must be rubbing their grubby hands in glee - can anyone say "class action"?
Just because 10.6 may be Intel only, it doesn't mean Apple will quit "supporting" PPC. I'm sure there will be security updates, etc. There just won't be a new optimized Snow Leopard for it. I hope the software developers continue to support PPC for those who rely on it. But supporting PPC is different than actually developing new software (or a new OS) to run on PPC.
I'm in favor of this direction (assuming it happens as we believe). Snow Leopard is for the future - an optimized, lean and mean, secure OS that can use more RAM, is better with multicore processors, etc. People writing new software for it should be able to really make improvements. Adding support for PPC would only slow down the process of developing an incredibly efficient OS. If you have a newer Intel Mac, Snow Leopard may be a good improvement, but the real improvement will be with new computers that are built with Snow Leopard in mind.
I think many of us feel bitter about the death of PPC for two reasons.
First, it's a defeat or sorts. PPC was something Apple had a personal investment in. It was made, to some extent, for us (though, obviously not exclusively). x86 never felt good enough for Macs because it wasn't custom, it wasn't something made specifically with us in mind. The move to x86 just marked this feeling of mediocrity, and the failure of PPC: the great hope.
I don't like to see Apple at the whims of someone like Intel who has so many other interests. Not to say the situation was any better with Motorola and IBM. Perhaps this acquisition of PA Semiconductor will bring us back to the glory days when a 400mhz G3 beat the pants off a Pentium II. That's what a lot of us wish for.
We have the upper hand the OS arena, and even in the design arena -- but when it comes to hardware, we have the same stuff the generic PC folks have. It's so similar, that the PC folks are throwing OS X onto any old beige box. A lot of us want to go back to the days when everything about Mac was better -- period, not just the OS and looks of the machines.
I'm a PPC user and I am NOT bitter about the death of PowerPC (and, thus, am not clinging to my guns or my religion.) My main machine, a Dual 2GHz PowerMac, is about to celebrate its 5th birthday and it can't even match the benchmarks of today's Mac mini. I need a good excuse to upgrade to a current Intel-based machine. The boss doesn't care if I could be enjoying my computing experience more, but may be convinced by obsolescence!
Also, if Snow Leopard just improves the speed and stability of Intel-based Macs, then I won't be missing out on the whizz-bang features that usually drives OS updates. Of course, as software starts to require Intel chips, then my purchase of a new machine may be hastened.
PowerPC had its day. It solved problems that x86 had inherently and apparently seemed to have a permanent advantage provided the clock speeds could stay within earshot of the x86 chips. Well, Motorola failed miserably to keep up (the Megahertz Myth could be sold as long as the PPC chip maintained a minimum fraction of MHz (now GHz) as the competing Intel offering.) IBM gave us hope for a while, but they fell behind as well. In 2003, my PowerMac was an impressive machine, but the future versions became less and less impressive.
PowerPC only belonged in part to Apple (it was part of the AIM, Apple-IBM-Motorola consortium) so we Apple users have two laggard partners to blame for its demise. If you want to be bitter about a technology that was exclusively Apple's, but became surpassed by inferior technology by Apple's failure to maintain its lead, consider FireWire. . . or HyperCard.
I'm a G5 user, but I won't complain. (I will complain if CS4 leaves G5's behind, however.) But I am a bit surprised. After all the trouble to make the OS more chipset-agnostic, why bother to leave the G5s behind so quickly?
Making the OS hardware-agnostic is so Apple can move the OS to another platform, with minimal disruption for developers, not run the OS on many platforms. How much sense does it make for Apple to spend the time and energy making 10.6 support PowerPC and then drop it for 10.7?
im not sure what all the complaints are for. if it's just like a SP, 10.6 will be useless to most people and in their eyes, not worth the 130-150 dollar price tag.
im sure by the time 10.7 comes out, most everyone will have updated their computers.
It is bloody annoying how people compare 10.6 to an SP. Service packs are patches on patches on patches. It's all bloatware. In contrast, Windows users would any windows OS for a more secure and leaner OS without the bloody bloat.
Ahh, glad that's out of my system
...unless you consider that Apple was still selling G5's as recently as 2 years ago. Yes, Apple has over the years abandoned old hardware as new OS'es were released. But I cannot think of a time when the gap between hardware sale and OS abandonment was this short. Heck, Tiger still booted G3's. Leopard still booted 867Mhz G4's. Both of those were WAY more than 2 years old. This is unprecedented and as such is bound to set a few more people off than past releases.
Agreed. There must be a very substantial installed base of PowerPC's that are still humming along quite nicely. At first glance, it doesn't make a whole lotta sense for Apple to forego all those upgrade dollars. But perhaps their decision is related to memory requirements, as Snow Leopard is said to support unheard-of amounts of RAM, which opens the door for all kinds of things that today's older Macs would be completely incapable of taking advantage of anyway.
You seem to be making the typical all-or-nothing assumption that to support a new OS means that you aren't supporting an older OS. There is no reason that Apple can't keep updating Leopard with point releases for a year or two after Snow Leopard is released.
Sure, it's unprecedented but so is a major release that offers no new bells and whistles or contains the same codename as a previous major release.
Wow! Its official.
Now watch as all the complaints from G5 users stream in.
I agree with the move, however.
I also agree. There shouldn't be any whining and crying about it though. Snow Leopard only offers better optimization and is really not much of a new OS over Leopard. Big deal. PPC users shouldn't expect to get support for the next decade or so.
It's time to save up those pennies and get a new Mac. Beside that, PPC users can use 10.5 for at least 4 more years. I have a new MacBook but after considering the pain involved in upgrading to a new OS, I've decided against 10.6 even though I'll probably just purchase the box to own a part of Apple history.
I'm a PPC user and I am NOT bitter about the death of PowerPC (and, thus, am not clinging to my guns or my religion.) My main machine, a Dual 2GHz PowerMac, is about to celebrate its 5th birthday and it can't even match the benchmarks of today's Mac mini. I need a good excuse to upgrade to a current Intel-based machine. The boss doesn't care if I could be enjoying my computing experience more, but may be convinced by obsolescence!
Also, if Snow Leopard just improves the speed and stability of Intel-based Macs, then I won't be missing out on the whizz-bang features that usually drives OS updates. Of course, as software starts to require Intel chips, then my purchase of a new machine may be hastened.
PowerPC had its day. It solved problems that x86 had inherently and apparently seemed to have a permanent advantage provided the clock speeds could stay within earshot of the x86 chips. Well, Motorola failed miserably to keep up (the Megahertz Myth could be sold as long as the PPC chip maintained a minimum fraction of MHz (now GHz) as the competing Intel offering.) IBM gave us hope for a while, but they fell behind as well. In 2003, my PowerMac was an impressive machine, but the future versions became less and less impressive.
PowerPC only belonged in part to Apple (it was part of the AIM, Apple-IBM-Motorola consortium) so we Apple users have two laggard partners to blame for its demise. If you want to be bitter about a technology that was exclusively Apple's, but became surpassed by inferior technology by Apple's failure to maintain its lead, consider FireWire. . . or HyperCard.
I agree that from a technical standpoint Apple had to draw the line at some point and drop PPC. I don't think 2009 is the right time because quad G5s were still being sold in August 2006, but we can agree to disagree on that matter.
I have two big problems with 10.5.x as the last PPC OS:
1. According to the people at rixstep.com Leopard sucks. Apple made serious under-the-hood mistakes that affect the very foundation of the OS and I know that 10.5.5 or even 10.5.65 won't fix that. Those in the PowerPC camp are going to be left with crappy OS for the rest of time.
2. Apple is making big steps toward market share in enterprise with the iPhone, Exchange support and push technology. Telling the business world that 3 year old computers are obsolete is an insane move that will further convince CIOs and their IT departments not to take Apple seriously. Real enterprises use 6 year old hardware and it runs the same OS as their 6 day old hardware. Apple's game of abandoning older hardware, something they've been doing their entire history, is going to hold them back big time.
I'm not surprised at this development at all. I have a maxed-out Dual-1GHz G4, and since installing Leopard, my machine's response has become appallingly sluggish. Running iTunes, Mail, Safari and iPhoto will slow the machine to a crawl, especially when changing apps. In addition, my 2GB of RAM is almost always running about 1200-1300MB used. Pre-Leopard OS X didn't every use this much RAM, even with a dozen apps running simultaneously.
Leopard appears to be quite disk-intensive on the PPC platform; maybe the code to run Leopard on PPC is not at all efficient, not to mention the processors simply don't have the firepower of the Intel chips. I suspected that Leopard would be the last gasp for the PPC. Guess I'll pass my current machine to my Dad, and I'll be looking for an iMac and/or MacBook Pro.
While they might not support PPC with consumers I think they will support it internally. As we know from the Intel "surprise", Apple always keeps another processor platform handy in case a switch is needed.
I predict they aren't doing that this time. If Intel drops the ball, then they have AMD to fall back on.
While they might not support PPC with consumers I think they will support it internally. As we know from the Intel "surprise", Apple always keeps another processor platform handy in case a switch is needed.
Isn't that exactly the reason why Snow Leopard should support at least the quad G5s?
I agree that from a technical standpoint Apple had to draw the line at some point and drop PPC. I don't think 2009 is the right time because quad G5s were still being sold in August 2006, but we can agree to disagree on that matter.
I have two big problems with 10.5.x as the last PPC OS:
1. According to the people at rixstep.com Leopard sucks. Apple made serious under-the-hood mistakes that affect the very foundation of the OS and I know that 10.5.5 or even 10.5.65 won't fix that. Those in the PowerPC camp are going to be left with crappy OS for the rest of time.
Don't pay attention to rixstep. It has never been considered a reputable source of Mac information, in fact, they are known to rip off reputable sources of information. Why do you care what rixstep says anyway? Don't you have your own opinion? For me, Leopard has been great and it's an improvement over Tiger, Jaguar, Panther, etc.
2. Apple is making big steps toward market share in enterprise with the iPhone, Exchange support and push technology. Telling the business world that 3 year old computers are obsolete is an insane move that will further convince CIOs and their IT departments not to take Apple seriously. Real enterprises use 6 year old hardware and it runs the same OS as their 6 day old hardware. Apple's game of abandoning older hardware, something they've been doing their entire history, is going to hold them back big time.
People in the enterprise who surf the web, check e-mail and use MS Office can get away with using 6-year-old hardware, but anyone who does anything more computationally intense needs much newer hardware. I find it funny that you criticize Apple for making 3-year-old hardware "obsolete" (and hardware doesn't become obsolete until a critical app won't run on it anymore), but you apparently give Microsoft a pass for releasing an OS (Vista) that makes one-year-old hardware really obsolete.
I predict they aren't doing that this time. If Intel drops the ball, then they have AMD to fall back on.
Steve Jobs is smarter than to rely on AMD and you can bet there will at least be an internal build running on some Power PC machine.