How long does everyone think ilife and other mac applications will support G4. I just bought a powermac g4 dual 500 and I was wondering if I could get a few more years out of it? I think because apple still retails g4 today, I think it will still be universal on their software for about 2 more years. I know there has already been threads about this, I'm just wondering, kinda mad I bought the powermac. Thanks
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Powerpc How Long?
- Thread starter crazyfortech
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you can probably get a at least a year out of it if not more. Apple still makes the g4 ibook and mini. i think i remember reading somewhere that apple signed something to keep the g4s coming for a couple more years. dont quote me on that.
EDIT: post #100!!!
EDIT: post #100!!!
yankeefan24 said:
The agreement they signed was with Freescale. It stipulates that Freescale must fulfill any G4 orders that Apple places with them until 2008. Conversely, Apple can only purchase G4 chips from Freescale. It doesn't mean Apple actually has to buy any G4s...just that Freescale is obliged to make them available to Apple in case they want them. Apple would presumably need a guaranteed supply of G4 CPUs for spare parts and repairs, and probably also as a safety-net.
With regards to the original post in this thread, I can't see why developers would rapidly drop support for G4 chips. The whole point of Universal Binaries is that it's a (supposedly) simple procedure to compile an app which runs equally well on a PowerPC or an Intel. Apple provides ready-built libraries of vector functions which developers can use, thus abstracting away all of the specifics of either Altivec or MMX/SSE coding from the developer and making their code portable across architectures. What's more likely I believe with a system like a dual 500MHz G4 is that the raw CPU speed will fall below the minimum recommended requirements for new software (if it doesn't already) long before the software becomes incompatible with the G4 per se. There have already been examples on these forums of software (such as Aperture) which has a stated CPU requirement of a G5, yet with some very minor tweaking of program parameters in the Finder, will run fine on a G4 (albeit slowly).
Of course that could all be a load of crap and we'll see Steve Jobs up on stage at MWSF 2007 launching the G5/Intel only version of iLife '07, but I highly doubt it
yankeefan24 said:
In my mind forever
But realiscally only for as long as they need to, to make there customers happy. Which is probably about 5 years . By then every one will have a intel machine or 2
If you bought a Powerbook G4 in December, you had the option of AppleCare for another three years, so you have to figure that for the most part, G4s will be supported by applications for about that long.
And, um, there's still the "everything that works now will work in five years" approach. Our recording studio runs on a G3 (well, now a G4, with a ZIF upgrade, but still) using Cubase 5 on OS 9. And it tracks audio just as clearly and flawlessly as my friend's G5 quad studio using OSX and ProTools. The only difference is the compression time, which really isn't that important (at least not in the way our studio is set up). So yeah, feel good about your purchase, it will work as long as you want it to.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one running OS9 in the studio! Mine is on a 2001 Quicksilver 733 which I recently upgraded to a 2GHz Powerlogix. Still using the same OS9 build as the day I installed it, and I think I've defragged the audio drive once, maybe twice in 4 years. Don't plan on changing it - they're so cheap second hand now that if it dies I'll probably just get another one