iMac G4 limitations?

[JUiCEJamie]

Hi Guys,

I'm thinking of buying an iMac G4, just because it's a little retro and cool!
But, I don't want it if I can't do anything with it..

One I've really got my eye on is the 2003 G4, 800Mhz, 512Mb, running 10.4.11.
Which iTunes could this run? Will it be 10.5/6? AirPlay?

Having this along side my other stuff would like great.. But I don't want it to gather dust..

Any help?

 

[ezramoore]

10.5 at the latest. You would need to find a browser that is still supporting PPC, or it would be more or less useless for what I would consider 'normal use.'

 

[GimmeSlack12]

It will gather dust. If you have other more modern Macs then you'll play with this thing for a few hours until you realize its slow.

I say pass.

 

[brucewayne]

It will gather dust. If you have other more modern Macs then you'll play with this thing for a few hours until you realize its slow.

I say pass.

I'd agree. I have a similar vintage PowerBook G4 (a bit faster at 1.25ghz) in great shape, and it just doesn't have the horsepower to do anything really useful, especially since PPC software really hasn't been developed for 5 years or so.

That said, that series iMac is my favorite one (I miss my 17"), and not as well known (since it's before the iPod driven surge of interest in Macs). So it has use as a conversation starter (art object), background music machine, maybe an occasional use photo frame, a DVD player for the kitchen?

 

[JUiCEJamie]

Well, my only use for it would be to act as an extra speaker for AirPlay in my kitchen.
It's a thing of beauty I think. So having it for AirPlay would be ideal!

If I was to browse the web, I'd be walking round the house using my iPad.
So it'll be solely for music[AirPlay].

Yeah, - I could buy an AirPort Express.. But it just doesn't look as cool!

 

[robgendreau]

That's an EXCELLENT use for an old machine. Don't let them harsh your mellow

I've got Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil Speakers running on 10.4.11 on an old G3 iMac; with Airfoil on another machine I can stream music to the old beast from any application: Pandora, Spotify, rdio, etc. Look into that; way more useful than Airplay.

Old machines are great for file serving as well; Air Video and other iOS-serving applications can run on some old software as well.

I also use the old one as a fax machine since it has a modem. New machines can't even do that, and Apple discontinued its modem.

And it'll still run word processors, some stuff better than the new stuff (WriteNow anyone?).

Rob

 

[JUiCEJamie]

Great!! Does anybody else have any examples?

I'm still unsure whether to buy it or not?!

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Great!! Does anybody else have any examples?

I'm still unsure whether to buy it or not?!

Give it a shot. Can't hurt.

 

[Southern Dad]

I have a G4 eMac in my kitchen. Safari works fine on OS X 10.4 Tiger. I use it to watch Netflix, play music in Pandora, print coupons and look up crockpot recipes. It works fine.

 

[dervmonkey]

I've got an old iMac G4 that I keep in the holiday home where there's no phone line and no TV signal (by design)

I fitted a large HDD and filled it with my own DVD rips of TV shows and movies I own, using VLC - as long as the files are a sensible resolution it plays them faultlessly.

Still turning in an excellent service all these years on. I just need to find a use for my eMac now