How much truth is in this doomsaying?

[obelix]

Was just reading through some posts and was wondering what everyone thought about this persons opinion...

The only aspect I hate about this is all the PPC machines becoming legacy junk in a year. Apple may support them, but developers will toss support real quick. Any apps people buy or have now will run like turds or not at all on a new mac if they buy one after the switch. No matter what Apple says, rossetta is not going to be very fast. I bought my Powermac to last a long time, and it surely could, but while i try to keap going on it for a long time, the world will pass it and leave it behind.

The next year or two will suck for apple. Their hardware sales are going to tank massively, same for software unless they start selling all their apps right now as being intel ready too. It would be nice if developers can ship software designed for intel macs now, so people know it will run as it should when they upgrade hardware, but odds of this happening are low.

It had me a little concerned because I wasn't planning on buying a new system for a couple of years... but if no one is developing for the PPC architecture anymore...

 

[7on]

I think it would mostly be like the move from Classic to OSX. People still made classic apps but when OSX matured enough then people started making for OSX. Apple did provide a way to produce for both through Carbon, but o my knowledge not many took advantage of that, especially smaller developers.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Horse poop, basically.

First, anybody who claims to know how this transition will work out to this level of certainty is blowing smoke.

Second, the applications you have on your Mac will not stop working. Everything that works now will still work in two years. Unless you're the kind of person who has to have the very newest version of everything the moment it comes out, you'll be fine. And even if you do, you'll still be in good shape. I don't think this transition will be any worse than the 68k to PPC transition, and most people didn't even notice that one.

 

[nagromme]

Fear not.

Current Macs are in no danger--they will keep selling PPC Macs right through the end of the year after next!

And that means the market of PPC users will be MUCH larger than the Intel Mac market for a long time. Developers want to sell to those people, and their apps ALREADY run on PPC, so why throw out that work?

Apple has given them the tools to make their apps KEEP running on BOTH platforms.

There are lots of reasons to buy a PPC Mac before the transition:

1. ALL your current apps will run great. No worries about what Rosetta will or will not run. No worries about what is or is not optimized for the new platform.

2. Future apps too will run--at full speed. Universal binaries. For years.

3. You avoid the growing pains any new product line has. Let others be the guinea pigs.

4. If you want Classic, you've got the option.

5. You get a new Mac now instead of in 1-2+ years

 

[MisterMe]

...
It had me a little concerned because I wasn't planning on buying a new system for a couple of years... but if no one is developing for the PPC architecture anymore...

Apple will support PPC-based Macs for five years after the transition is complete. This means that 2007 + 5 = 2012 will be the last year that Apple supports the PPC. As for third-parties, a quick click to Versiontracker.com will reveal that some developers are still actively supporting Classic, MacOS 9, and even MacOS 8. And, of course, your computer and its applications will not suddenly stop working in 2012.

 

[dotdotdot]

Universal Binaries are MUCH easier to use than the carbon app for classic + OS X.

You CHECK OFF Intel or PowerPC. Its not that hard.

And ship it on a CD or DVD.

PERFECT.

PowerPCs will be supported until 2010 MINIMUM as I said in another thread, by Apple and most of the other companies.

You have NO IDEA how many people still make Windows 95/98 ONLY Applications or still sell them.

Microsoft dropped support for Windows ME already - how many NEW apps are being written for ME? A MILLION!

 

[sbb155]

Resale value will be very poor compared to the past
There is no compelling reason to buy expensive macs (PMs, PBs) right now
If you absolutley need one, your best bet is a used ibook ior imac, and update in a year or two.
I dont care what anyone says, G4s are dead in the water. G5s will be soon.
I own a new 15 PB 1.67, and I know now that it has no real future.

 

[cr2sh]

Resale value will be very poor compared to the past
There is no compelling reason to buy expensive macs (PMs, PBs) right now
If you absolutley need one, your best bet is a used ibook ior imac, and update in a year or two.
I dont care what anyone says, G4s are dead in the water. G5s will be soon.
I own a new 15 PB 1.67, and I know now that it has no real future.

Apple doesn't want to hurt it's users... and they certainly do not move so quickly. It's going to be a while before we see pentiums in an Apple... a year or so. In that time we will see a g5 update.. I think. In the next six months we may see dual core, who knows... whatever happens, it'll be a long slow painful transition... until all the kinks get worked out.

Mac OS 10.0 was pretty at the time, but looking back it feels so clunky and big. I hope that the transition is smoother... but I doubt it. I hope Intel is to IBM, what Panther was to Puma.

 

[Cybernanga]

I'm a small developer, and I will be supporting PPC Mac's for a long long time.

I'll also be supporting the new Intel Machines.

Why? Because the more people that can run my software, the more sales I'm likely to make. I think most developers will feel the same way.

Don't worry too much about this. Like Steve said at the keynote, this is Apple's third* "transition". They've done this type of thing before (more times than any other computer company) and they know what they are doing! Your machine is no more obsolete than it would have been if they had "stayed" with PPC.


* Actually this is Apple's Fourth Transition. Steve missed out the very first one when they moved from the Apple || series to the Macintosh.

Extremists might want to include the introduction of the Macintosh II series as another transition, but I think that's taking things a bit too far

 

[MisterMe]

....
* Actually this is Apple's Fourth Transition. Steve missed out the very first one when they moved from the Apple || series to the Macintosh.

Extremists might want to include the introduction of the Macintosh II series as another transition, but I think that's taking things a bit too far

I don't know that I would lump Apple ][ history into the history of the Mac. However, I count the Mac II as a significant transition. Here is my list:

1. Closed box compact Mac > Macintosh II (expandability)
2. System 6 to System 7 (Pascal assisted 68k assembly language gives way to object oriented C++. Also, the OS becomes a retail commercial product.)
3. 24-bit addressing gives way to 32-bit clean addressing
4. 680x0 gives way to the PPC
5. NuBus gives way to PCI bus
6. PowerPC gives way to Intel

 

[Applespider]

Resale value will be very poor compared to the past.
I own a new 15 PB 1.67, and I know now that it has no real future.

It will work perfectly for the next 3 years (guaranteed if you have Applecare) and given that in 3 years, we'll only be 6 months from the last PPC PowerMac, it will still work on the majority of software. It may not run applications which have higher processor requirements but that would have been true whether it was an x86 or a G5 in the next Powerbook revision.

Resale value? You'll still get more for your PB than you would for an Intel based PC that you bought at the same time. Believe it or not, there are a lot of cost-conscious consumers who don't need the lastest/greatest and will happily keep purchasing G4s. Look at how many G3s at what I consider crazy values are still on eBay.