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10.6 - Definitely no G4 Support.

Mr. Dee

Mr. Dee

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 4, 2003
5,990
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Jamaica
Since we are on the subject of 10.6, I might as well restart the topic on processor support in future versions of the Mac OS. Well, its pretty much evident that officially, Apple will not support the G3 with Leopard, that doesn't prevent someone from getting it installed on such a system though. Persons have successfully reported doing so on the Insanely Mac forum.

The G5 will be supported under 10.6, I see the strategy of dropping support with each new release as a way to conveniently move all PPC Mac Users to the Intel platform without the purchase of the G5 seeming in vain. So, the Mac OS release after 10.6 will definitely be Intel only. The top to bottom support of 64 bit with Leopard is also another example of Apples breaking ties with the past although the technology will be available to the G5.
 
Mr. Dee said:
Since we are on the subject of 10.6, I might as well restart the topic on processor support in future versions of the Mac OS. Well, its pretty much evident that officially, Apple will not support the G3 with Leopard, that doesn't prevent someone from getting it installed on such a system though. Persons have successfully reported doing so on the Insanely Mac forum.

The G5 will be supported under 10.6, I see the strategy of dropping support with each new release as a way to conveniently move all PPC Mac Users to the Intel platform without the purchase of the G5 seeming in vain. So, the Mac OS release after 10.6 will definitely be Intel only. The top to bottom support of 64 bit with Leopard is also another example of Apples breaking ties with the past although the technology will be available to the G5.
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I will say no you are wrong. Especially if they do a release each year. I mean the last g4's were being sold only a few months ago

Besides, whats the point speculating close to 2 years ahead anyways in the world of computers????
 
Mr. Dee said:
...Apple will not support the G3 with Leopard...
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I've read reports that it will be supported, and didn't Jobs say that Leopard will be supported from G3 though to Woodcrest?

The only real difference in the G3 and G4 chips is Velocity Engine. Other than that, they are very similar chips. If it works on G4, chances are it will work in G3. They have to make it work on G4, because the iBooks were EOL'd only a few months ago, and as painfully slow as they may be, they still have to be supported.

G5 will be supported for many years to come, as it is still a comparatively fresh and powerful chip. The Quad 2.5GHz PowerMac is still a beast of a machine, and still plays very well against its bigger Intel brother.

PPC won't go away in a hurry. Last quarter, a good percentage of the Macs sold were PPC; namely PowerMacs and XServes. Apple can't afford to have these machines obsolete within a few months of their sale.
 
I'd bet we still see G4 support in 10.6.. and i bet we still see G3 support in Leapord(it said so earlyer on Apple.com but i think Apple took it down).. perhaps 10.6 will drop G3 support, but i'd expect 10.7 and 10.8 to still have G4 support
 
I can say definitely that you definitely don't know what will definitely be in 10.6. Apple doesn't even know at this point. (Of course, I could be wrong and you could have been in one possible future and have seen 10.6 not running on a G4 but I seriously doubt it.)
 
It used to say on the Leopard page that Leopard would support G3s, but that has been changed by Apple. Wonder if they will support G3s or not... it's not a sure thing they won't.
 
pknz said:
I'm pretty sure Leopard supports G3 processors.
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Actually, no "at the moment", it was noted on the Apple Leopard page that from the G3 to the XEON, there is only one Leopard. But this was rephrased so, G3 support right now is speculation. But as I noted, Apple "might not" support it officially, but nothing prevents anyone from installing it through thirdparty means such as XPOSFACTO or simple hacks such as those mentioned on the Insanely Mac forum. Although persons have reported Leopard being very unstable on G3's.

Yes, I admit I am speculating about 10.6 processor support, but I am sure Apple would like to maintain only one codebase regardless future versions of OS X are Universal, they must still be compiled for both PPC and Intel platforms, and ensure that old and new apps run on them, which requires lots of time and resources.

If you look at the fact that 10.5 is not coming until Spring 2007, it puts the release of 10.6 way out, probably around the end of the decade or sometime around 2011 or 2012. OS X is a very mature OS, which means, there is less need for constant releases, ie. Tiger and Leopard themselves.

I haven't posted in a very long time(relatively), but I feel the need to say that you are wrong. The G4 will definitely be supported.3
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Just like me, you are speculating also.

Of course the non support for G3 right now might just be an artificial system requirement.

I'd bet we still see G4 support in 10.6.. and i bet we still see G3 support in Leapord(it said so earlyer on Apple.com but i think Apple took it down).. perhaps 10.6 will drop G3 support, but i'd expect 10.7 and 10.8 to still have G4 support
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Again, you are speculating, the farthest we have seen them go with the decimal point is 8.6, although OS 9 was orginally suppose to be 8.7 so there is a slight possibility of 10.7.

Regardless of all this, we just have to wait until Spring 2007 to find out the truth.
 
Mr. Dee said:
...

Yes, I admit I am speculating about 10.6 processor support, but I am sure Apple would like to maintain only one codebase regardless future versions of OS X are Universal, they must still be compiled for both PPC and Intel platforms, and ensure that old and new apps run on them, which requires lots of time and resources.

...
Click to expand...
That is just the point. It is just one codebase, the fact that there are two ISA's notwithstanding. Apple has gone to great lengths to ensure that its code is processor-neutral. MacOS X is based on OpenSTEP, which ran on multiple ISAs--not just two. Maintaining processor-neutrality gives Apple the option to switch to another processor or to expand the reach of MacOS X beyond personal computers and servers whenever the need or opportunity arises. Understand that Intel will abandon the x86 ISA at some point in the future. Why should Apple tie its OS to that creaky old kludge?
 
MisterMe said:
That is just the point. It is just one codebase, the fact that there are two ISA's notwithstanding. Apple has gone to great lengths to ensure that its code is processor-neutral. MacOS X is based on OpenSTEP, which ran on multiple ISAs--not just two. Maintaining processor-neutrality gives Apple the option to switch to another processor or to expand the reach of MacOS X beyond personal computers and servers whenever the need or opportunity arises. Understand that Intel will abandon the x86 ISA at some point in the future. Why should Apple tie its OS to that creaky old kludge?
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I am not talking about making OS X processor agnostic, its about the current platfroms and the future of the Mac OS on them - PPC and Intel. If Apple decided to move to Sparc or another RISC based processor such as the Itanium from (Intel), it would "have to be" compiled to support those platforms. Yes, OS X is based on OpenSTEP, I am not questioning that, but the fact is, they had to port it to support both x86 and - (Sparc which it was supported on at one time.)

Is Apple secretly maintaining a copy of OS X for Sparc, Itanium? Maybe, maybe not.
 
What a dumb title for a thread. At least phrase it as a question.

Here's what we know:

1. Folks at Apple don't even know what 10.6 is and when it is coming out.
2. Apple has historically supported older computers better than any manufacturer
3. Apple being the little guy needs to support as much of their existing customer base.
4. People said the same thing about the G3 processor for 10.3
5. People said the same thing about the G3 processor for 10.4
 
G4 support will definitely be there in 10.6 simply because Apple used them in a LOT of products less than a year ago, and Apple traditionally supports hardware for ~5 years in OS upgrades. 10.7, MAYBE on the chopping block, but G5 support will be there till OS 11 probably, whenever that happens to land.
 
Scarlet Fever said:
The only real difference in the G3 and G4 chips is Velocity Engine.
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... and almost all machines that Apple sells today come without Velocity Engine, so absolutely every application needs to be able to run without it! No reason why G3 wouldn't be supported in the future.

ReanimationLP said:
Take it from the guy who actually tried to install Leopard on a Powermac G3 and a iBook G3. It does NOT support the G3 processor.
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Well, the guy who actually tried to install it either used a pirated copy (doesn't count) or who is in breach of an NDA, therefore a scumbag and doesn't count either. And anyway, there is no released version of Leopard, so it doesn't count anyway.
 
I am also guessing that G3 support will be dropped. While it may be _possible_ to install and use Leopard on a G3, it will most probably not be practical to do so. The latest iLife already is way too crippled with anything less than a speedy G4, so that might actually be a hint.

But the G4 support will be there for three more years at least. Apple has committed to service 3yr old computers that have AppleCare, so they're not going to shoot themselves on their own foot by dropping support too soon. that's for sure. There is also zero reason to drop the G4 in the foreseeable future; it has a very good vector unit, and Leopard does not actually require 64bit cpu. It is a good chip and there is a large installed base that will be in perfect working order in 2010 or so. That's why I don't think Apple drops G4 support before that.

And the G5, yes, that will be supported even longer. It is still a very advanced chip and if not for anything else, Apple will want to keep the PPC support alive as long as they can. That's like saying "we dont fear you" to Intel. Processor agnostic OS is playing FOR Apple, not against.
 
While it's true that technically neither we nor Apple know anything specific about 10.6, it's pretty obvious that the G4 is going to be supported.

It wasn't even a year ago that you could drop $2k - $3k on a PB G4. Imagining that support would be dropped for them within 3-4 years is ridiculous. Pending on how fast 10.6 rolls out, it might even come out while some of the G4 machines are still even under Applecare support.

Now if 10.6 were slated to come out later than 2 years after 10.5, then maybe support for G4 would be dropped. But dropping it before then is going to piss out a lot of customers. Even though the intel Macs are great and all, the vast majority of Apple's user base is still using PPC, and not everyone upgrades every 1-2 years.
 
since we are speaking of Future releases of the system. anyone ever thought of what OS 11 would be like? I mean who knows if apple will go beyond OS 10.5. Taking a look at the previous versions of Mac OS. the highest I have ever seen was .6 or .7. just a though...
 
iGary said:
The G4 was still a current chip until January of this year - thay aren't axing it in two or three years time. Get real.
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Actually, it was a current chip until about May, when the MacBook replaced the iBook G4.

I think that Apple will support the G4 for a few more updates. The G3 wasn't as widely used as the G4 was, and the G5 wasn't used much at all. The G4 was the processor that was sold the most, and because of that, they'll support the G4 for quite a bit longer.

The G3, on the other hand, is probably going to see it's last OS in Leopard. I think that Leopard isn't fully developed yet for the G3 and they don't want people to try to test it yet on that processor, but it will be supported when Leopard is released. But this will be the last OS upgrade for that processor.
 
Mr. Dee Again said:
Seeing how in a past keynote, Jobs said they will be using OS X for 20 yeats, i'd bet we see 10.7 and 10.8.. and yes Apple worked on OS X for about 5 years before we saw it, and they will likly use it 5 years after OS 11 comes out(to work out some of the problems between OS X and OS 11) but still thats 10 years of the public using it(and we will be on year 6 when 10.5 comes out) its likly we will see atleast 10.7 and possible 10.8 depening on the time between OS updates
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the G3 had better be supported by Leopard, I have a G3 iBook 900MHz that can run circles around my early G4 Powermac, so logically you'd think it would handle Leopard better as well. The system is from late 2003, so less than 3 years ago, which is well within the usual time frame of system support for Apple, and still under Applecare no less.
 
gnasher729 said:
... and almost all machines that Apple sells today come without Velocity Engine, so absolutely every application needs to be able to run without it! No reason why G3 wouldn't be supported in the future.
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True, but my point was that if 10.5 can be made to run on G4, whats to stop it running on G3?

This thread should have been a poll :p
 
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