Mac OS X 10.6 to Drop PowerPC Support?

[iQuit]

Not suprised.

The Intel Macs are reasonably affordable and by the time they end support there is no reason why you couldn't have saved enough for one. Even if it is refurbished you should be able to afford an x86 Mac pretty easy. It's only the wisest thing to do so they can get to the level they were with optimiztion for the PPC. It's time to optimize support for all the new computers they have released! Long live Intel!

 

[winterspan]

Originally Posted by Cleve View Post OSX will have to be multi processor to keep support for the upcoming iPods and iPhones which run (quite well) on Samsung ARM processors

What does that mean? There have been multiprocessor PowerPC Macs for years and years. Quad G5s anyone?

he means "multiprocessor" as in supporting multiple processor architectures...
I know, its a misleading way to phrase it.

 

[Masquerade]

why apple wont launch a light-weight mac os x and make an optional expansion pack (like ms plus!) to put dashboards,genies,butterflies and all etc..

remember konfabulator? err.. kaleidoscope?.. the icon-drag with gravity? they used to be awesome 3thrd parties at the mac os 9 years..

 

[gnasher729]

let assume there are 8 million G4 and G5 machines out (lots of mac mini's, powerbooks, ibooks, imacs, powermacs). lets assume about 25% would legally upgrade to 10.6. that is 2 mio times $129. for ~250 mio dollars they could easily come up with a PPC version of OS 10.6 i would think. or are my numbers off?

Your numbers are off, but not to the side you think of.

When I buy a Macintosh, I except to have a machine with a very long useful life. Especially if I buy a top of the range Mac, like a dual core or quad core G5 was not very long ago, I except that machine to be useful for very long. It may be rotated to a user with lesser requirements at some point as new, more powerful machines are bought, but I expect it to work.

Lets say in October 2009, 10.6 is released and I still have four G5 machines running.

Scenario 1: Leopard runs on G5. I say fantastic, Apple is a company I can rely on, I throw these four old machines out and buy four eight core Intel boxes as replacement.

Scenario 2: Leopard doesn't run on G5. I say bugger, can't count on Apple to support old machines, we have a look who delivers machines that last longer, meanwhile we make do with our existing Macs (G5 and Intel) on Leopard as long as we can.

So which one makes more money? Lots of people are posting here and they don't give one second thought to what customers want.

 

[milo]

Just to get our numbers straight... by August 2009, it will have been exactly 3 years since the last new G5 machines were sold.

True, but at that point, intel macs had been selling for 7 months and they had been anounced well over a year. If you buy at that point, you know what you're getting into and obviously don't care about having the latest and greatest. Anyone who's OK with getting hardware on the way out is likely not going to care that much about staying on an OS after a newer one is out.

Yes, but not everybody (outside MR) changes computer every 4 years (or less)...

Yes, and not everybody needs the newest OS either. Those with older computers can just stick with the older operating system.

I purchased a BRAND NEW 1.5ghz Mac Mini G4 in SEPTEMBER of 2006.

Wow, what were you thinking? Are you posting this in an attempt to get pity from us?

I expect at least seven years of updates as needed on my computer purchases. I expect Apple to support my PPCs until 2013, sorry.

For your sake, I REALLY hope you're joking. If not, you're going to be extremely disappointed. Sorry. If you wanted long term support, you should have bought an intel machine - were those refurbs? Intel versions of those models had been selling for months, you bought machines that had been discontinued and probably had to jump through hoops to even find new versions of those models at that point.

I used my 145b Powerbook (PURCHASED NEW in July 1994) until August 2001 and the Powerbook was still great -- it was the Kingston memory upgrade chip that failed and I had lost the original four mb chip. That was seven great years.

And what OS did you end up with on that machine? OSX 10.0? 9? Even 8? Nope, not supported by apple. So you used it for seven years and THREE major OS releases happened in that time that you couldn't use. And yet this time around you expect support that long? Did you just forget that you went years being multiple OS updates behind?

It's not forced obsolescence, it just means you can't always have the newest OS on an old machine. That doesn't mean the old machine can't still be useful.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Yeah but how much of a computer do you need to run Vista. A lot of the computers being released today can barely run it. While you can install Tiger on Macs going back as far as the Blue & White G3. What year were those released? Like 1999.

I'm running it on my 4 year old T40....Granted I had to jack up the RAM and get a 7200RPM drive, but it runs just fine on a 1.4Ghz Pent M. This crap I keep hearing about today's computers not being able to handle it is pure FUD. Sure if you buy a system with 256MB of RAM (Which you can do.) it won't run worth a dang. (Nor will 512MB but neither will OS X.) You get a computer with 1GB RAM/64MB VRAM\7200RPM drive\1.5Ghz CPU and it runs fine. That being said there is greater overhead then on XP. Simply put its doing more.
I'd liken XP vs. Vista's requirements to OS9 vs OS X's.

 

[TigerPRO]

It seems like a logical step to me. If Apple releases 10.6 in 2 years then the last Power PC computers will be 4 years old.

And that in my opinion is long enough to abandon support for PowerPC. Those computers are going to be to slow for the new technology that will be out by then.

 

[F.D.]

...Long live Intel!

Ahhh... you weren't one of the tiny minority of Mac users who booed te Intel switch then, eh.

And I was joking about sending the cheque. I'm talking about the principle of the damn thing.

 

[RacerX]

This story is designed to create page hits and has no basis in fact.

If you guys want to hear a credible possibility in Mac OS X support for future systems, I'll tell you right now it isn't PowerPC that will be first on the chopping block, it is any 32 bit processor (PowerPC or Intel) that is going to be dropped first.

If you have a G5 or 64 bit Intel processor in your Mac, your in good shape moving forward into the future. If you have a G4 or 32 bit Intel processor in your Mac, you're most likely going to be left out of the next major revision of Mac OS X.

But beyond that, please people, don't support this type of misinformation being distributed as news. Don't go to the linked story, and stop talking about it. People will stop making up this type of stuff if it stops working to get page hits. There is no real story here, just talking heads making a living on a slow news day.

 

[zap2]

If you don't know what a 68000 processor is, you're not a true Mac fan and should be dragged out into the street and shot.

Calm down there...its only a computer!

 

[segfaultdotorg]

I thought they made it pretty clear when they said that Leopard would still run on PowerPC machines. By way of implication, the next version will probably require a Mactel. PowerPCs are legacy hardware, and I think it's pretty generous of them to continue to support them in their OS update, and give a rough timeline of when they will no longer be able to run the latest OS (10.6), for those who are interested in such things.

A machine is still useful for most people even if it won't run the latest OS--it will continue to do everything it did before the new OS was released.

Being a tech person, I upgrade about every three years, so I seldom run into these situations, but I know plenty of people who were shut out by the 10.4 upgrade (no bulit-in FireWire and/or no DVD drive), and they're still happily running 10.3.

 

[Pooldraft]

The Crappy Electronics God Has spoken!!!

I am still waiting for the China knockoff, with more features for less price.

 

[twoodcc]

That sucks. There's a lot of life left in the PPC Macs.

i agree. i really don't think it will happen this soon. at least support of G5's

 

[gnasher729]

The fact that you say it costs Apple nothing to maintain a PPC version is just wrong. Its not like they can just make an update and then port it over. This is a lot of hard work. Originally, OS X has over 86 million lines of code. With Intel its a lot more. So when you start making a major release (Mac OS 10.6) then you have to put a TON of engineering into making your OS work for TWO entirely different processor architectures. If you don't think that doesn't cost Apple a lot of extra time and money you're surely mistaken... Plus, every time you make a small update (10.6.1) you have to make sure it works for both processor architectures. It no longer makes any sense to continue to do 2 processor architectures.

MacOS X is portable. You don't write code for Intel or for PowerPC, you write portable code. Once your developers know how to do it (and all Apple developers would know by now), it is no problem at all to write code that runs equally well on each processor. Supporting two processors doesn't add any significant amount of code at all. You have more testing effort, but certain bugs are easier to find if you run with two different processors, using two different compilers.

And supporting two architectures has real advantages. One is, you never know what will happen in ten years time. Quite likely x86 will be dead. Instead of continuing with the old brain-damaged x86 architecture, Intel could come up with something completely new. If that happens, Apple is laughing; they have no problem whatsoever running on a different platform. How do you think did Apple manage to get OS X running on an ARM processor? Because it is portable. And it is portable because it runs on two different processors. Nobody has a chance to add any code that is not portable, because it will get noticed.

 

[winterspan]

Its not just about "putting" ppc code on the install DVD

I don't believe it. Because one has to ask: WHY? Delivering PPC code on OSX install DVD costs Apple nothing.

If somebody who owns older hardware should want to upgrade to newer OS, then that would only be plus for Apple if they can sell the new system to the old customer. If there is no PPC support, then bigger chance is the owner of the older system just simply will not upgrade anything. Not software, not hardware, no money for Apple.

Officially dropping G3 support on Leopard makes sense because there is no Altivec in it and they're slow macines by today's standards. G4/G5 has Altivec so many apps fly compared to G3. It is far more likely that they're saying one needs "1GHz" or faster to run 10.6 but I just don't believe in Apple dropping PPC code before "nobody" uses them anymore (or once they run out of spare parts and therefore drop the hardware support first).

No. Apple needs to give full support for the PPC platform for at least 5 years after the last PPC hardware was sold. Therefore I'm sure PPC support will not be dropped before 2012

You're not getting the point that alot of people (probably developers too) are making. IT IS NOT A SIMPLE MOUSE CLICK TO PORT AN OPERATING SYSTEM.
Especially creating a port that works as intended and is optimized for the architecture.

If Apple has to continue to support the PPC, they will have quite a struggle to build new advanced features into the OS WITHOUT CRIPPLING THEM by having to wrap them around support for the old architecture. Many have seen the DISASTERS this has caused Microsoft, the most recent being the 6-7 YEARS it took for Vista, which is only a marginal improvement.

G5 PPCs can and will continue to run 10.5 Just fine. As said before, there will be a point where application updates will start to break, and force an upgrade to the new OS and new architecture. However, by that point you are looking at 5-7 years old. Thats PLENTY of time to upgrade. If I were apple, I would move even faster to get the x86 really rocking.

Based on how Intel is moving, In 3 years time their AVERAGE NEW NOTEBOOK processors will be at 32nm running between 3.4-4.0gz with 4 cores and an advanced new architecture. for gods sake they'll be running CIRCLES around any G5.

 

[cecemf]

Come on guy's ! Leopard 10.5 is not out yet that you are all screaming and complaining about something that is not even in developpement yet ! and that Apple as not even annonced yet !

So people calm down take a deep breath and relax !

 

[Masquerade]

my 2cents that iTunes will be the next OS from Apple

 

[winterspan]

just in case PPC

I doubt it's really that much of a drain on resources. They've been doing it for 7+ years, I'm sure they have things downpat.

Unless they do some really wild stuff, there is no performance-based reason to drop PPC support, at least for G5s. All it would do is satisfy the Thurston Howells of Intel Mac users.

Its VERY DIFFERENT just maintaining an alpha version of an OSX that runs on intel "just in case" with no real optimization and alot of bugsVS wrapping ALL the new features of future OS's around an old architecture compatibility core. And yes IT IS A LARGE DRAIN ON RESOURCES TO DO THIS. The other option is to only devote minimal resources to a ppc version. But it would NOT be fully developed, bug free, and optimized. Thus it would not be a regular OSX PPC release. It would only be a "just in case" version.

 

[SiliconAddict]

exactly.. its a HUGE waste of resources. I want the latest and greatest that Apple can bring out. I don't want them to get bogged down having to support 4-5 year old computers! UPGRADE PEOPLE!

So you are willing to donate the money to get those people to upgrade?
It really truly amazes me at the arrogance of some people on this board. You do realize that the cheapest Mac laptop is 4 figures...right and in many cases the G4 Powerbooks could run rings around even the cheapest Macbooks that are missing all kinds of features that are on the Powerbooks.
Yep just upgrade. Because all Mac users have a couple grand laying around. Gah.

And that in my opinion is long enough to abandon support for PowerPC. Those computers are going to be to slow for the new technology that will be out by then.

And what technology would that be? A transparent dock? At the current rate of advancement I don't really expect anything earth shattering until OS 11. If you want to drop support that would be the place to do it.

 

[shawnce]

...right and in many cases the G4 Powerbooks could run rings around even the cheapest Macbooks that are missing all kinds of features that are on the Powerbooks.

To be fair two+ years in the future the low-end laptops from Apple will easily run circles around any G4 based laptop (like the already do for many common use cases currently).

 

[offwidafairies]

What's 10.6 going to be called? Lion?

or cougar?

 

[California]

Wow, what were you thinking? Are you posting this in an attempt to get pity from us?

It's not forced obsolescence, it just means you can't always have the newest OS on an old machine. That doesn't mean the old machine can't still be useful.

The 12" Powerbook 1.5 and Mac Mini G4 1.5 Silent Upgrade, both last gen. PowerPC machines, were both bought brand NEW (not refurbs) at local Apple shops about one year ago in Aug and Sep 06.

I run a Cube G4 500mhz, originally purchased from Apple in year 2000, on Tiger as well. I think it is latent anti Windows feeling about the Intel Macs, not anything else.

 

[offwidafairies]

Come on guy's ! Leopard 10.5 is not out yet that you are all screaming and complaining about something that is not even in developpement yet ! and that Apple as not even annonced yet !

So people calm down take a deep breath and relax !

we need someting to talk about. otherwise we might get bored and wander to other forums

i personally dont really care. im buying a mbp in the next month so woop woop!!

 

[p33]

Lots of people are posting here and they don't give one second thought to what customers want.

Lots of people don't give one second thought to anything... So, what do you expect? MacRumors posters being any better...

 

[DeathChill]

I know this point has been beaten into the ground but I don't think it'd be wrong for Apple to stop supporting PowerPC by 10.6.

Regardless of what many of you believe it costs a lot more money to support PowerPC in regards to bug fixing and testing. It's not just compile and assume it works; hell, even the Leopard release notes state bugs that show up on PowerPC hardware only.

As for the iPhone and iPod Touch running OS X, it's a subset of OS X. It's not the normal OS X just compiled on ARM, it's a completely different operating system that uses some of the OS X codebase for specific functions. However, it's nowhere near the regular OS X.

For those saying that Apple should continue to maintain the PowerPC port in secret: yes, that's a possibility. They did it with x86, but it wasn't to the extent most people seem to believe. Everything was compiled for x86 and stuff was tweaked to make it work but it wasn't as if Apple had an entire team that made sure OS X was functioning perfectly on x86. The programmers just made sure that if they needed to do an architecture switch it'd be fairly easy.

I spoke with a former Apple employee who worked there well before the Intel swtich and he said that every piece of software came off of the build server in two versions: PowerPC and x86. When he asked why the official answer was "Just to see if it'll compile on x86."