Mac OS X 10.6 to Drop PowerPC Support?

[brianus]

By late 2009, it would have been 4 years since the last new PPC mac was sold.

Not so; new PPC Macs were still being sold at least as late as August 2006, when the Mac Pro was introduced. Plenty of 17" and 12" PowerBooks and iBooks were also sold in '06, too, to say nothing of the XServes, which remained G5s until less than a year ago.

In any event, since Tiger will have been out for 2.5 years when Leopard ships (assuming it's still on time, as now appears the case), shouldn't we be expecting Cougar (or whatever) to be coming around April 2010 at the earliest?

 

[Queso]

It ought to be pointed out here that a large amount of software available to buy today runs on 10.3.9, and Apple are still supporting that with security updates.

So even if they do cut PPC support in 10.6, they'll probably continue supporting 10.5 for a further two years. If I haven't replaced my last-gen iMac G5 by 2011 I'll be extremely surprised.

 

[Silencio]

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Apple dropped all PPC support in 10.6. They've always been about drawing a firm line against over-supporting legacy hardware and software. Microsoft, on the other hand, is greatly encumbered by its efforts to accommodate legacy products in Windows.

It doesn't make much sense to me to drop G4 support, but go through the effort of compiling and bundling PPC code just for the G5s. By 2009 or whatever, the installed base of Intel Macs will completely overshadow all the old PPC Macs.

I imagine plenty of G5-class machines will still be doing productive things in Leopard long after 10.6 is out the door.

 

[maccam]

Maybe Mac os 11.0.0 Shark will drop Power PC.

 

[alljunks]

sounds like what MS is doing......

 

[QCassidy352]

More than enough time to warrant dropping PPC support, IMHO.

I agree. 4 years of support is not bad at all, especially when it's an entirely different architecture.

 

[0098386]

If Apple gives me reason to upgrade my PowerBook (aka, a 12" aluminium laptop) then I'll be all for this! PPC's are getting on a bit. If it saves development time, cost and reduces bugs and stuff then w00t, and the likes.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

Huh?

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?

 

[hvfsl]

I only have PPC Macs at home and don't have a problem with this. Plus there were rumours floating around that Mac OS X for Intel isn't as optimised as it could be because they are also building with PPC in mind. So going totally Intel should mean Apple can get a bit more speed out of their x86 machines.

 

[Yvan256]

As a Mac mini G4 owner...

I say, forget G4 support in 10.6 without hesitation. The less backward-compatible code there is, the more bug-free and faster the result should be.

After seeing comparisons between the G4 and a Core 2 Duo, I'm only waiting for Leopard to buy a new Mac mini!

 

[CalBoy]

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.

Agreed, except for the 2 year thing. Jobs said Apple was going to extend the time betwee successive releases...I don't know what that means, but maybe we can expect 3 years now instead of two.

More than enough time to warrant dropping PPC support, IMHO.

Agreed. Most of the people who have PPC these days bought theirs a little before the Intel announcement, which was mid 2005. Seeing as how we can expect 10.6 sometime after October 2009, I'd say that's plenty of time.

sounds like what MS is doing......

You mean releasing an OS that bricks two month-old computers? This is not even close to what Microsoft did. G4s will still run Leopard, and those machines are going to be 4 years old by the time 10.6 is out.

 

[powderblue17]

Now we're getting rumors for a product which doesn't even exist and is probably 3 years out. We don't want to turn into Microsoft by talking about vaporware here now do we?

 

[viper002060]

10.6?

I thought leopard is supposed to be the last version of osx before os11. i mean seriously, how long can they possibly drag out osx.

 

[notjustjay]

Well, I guess the (few) who bought the quad G5s maybe expected them to last longer than 4 years...

Sad for them.

It's not like they'll have to stop using their quads the day 10.6 is released.

I ran on Panther (10.3) until about 3 weeks ago, when I finally made the switch to Tiger (when I had to buy a new Mac to replace a dying PowerBook). I could probably have gone on with Panther even longer. Yes, I was starting to feel the pinch for a few apps that were Tiger only, but everything I could do before, I could still do.

I'd love it if Apple could continue supporting everything ad infinitum, but at some point they have to let go of the old if they intend to continue innovating. That was the big downfall with the Wintel architecture -- they were so hung up on maintaining legacy support for everything back to the oldest 8088 chips that new features were grafted on in ways that didn't make much sense (memory addressing "interleaving" comes to mind). At some point the Rosetta emulator will hit its limits, and I'd rather Apple let go and keep going rather than twist everything new around the need to maintain the old.

 

[pohl]

do the math

How many G4's and G5's (for arguments sake, say 1Ghz or faster) are out there in the world?

Say that 10.6 is $129.

Say that the costs of maintaining the PPC port are negligible. (And we know they are.)


Now multiply. If you were Apple, would you leave that much revenue on the table if it were so easy to pick up?

 

[macenforcer]

Now watch the prices on PPC macs drop to the ground on ebay.

 

[JFreak]

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

 

[MorzillA]

Let's get 10.5 on store shelves before we even start pretending rumors about 10.6 are relevant to our lives.

I agree 100% let's really see and test Leopard to the fullest and then after all the bugs have been worked out and see what systems are not getting any support for 10.5 then MAY be we can speculate these rummors.

But all in all, really my 10.3 PMG4 runs major Fn circles around the PC (XP) at work and the one my G/F (XP too) uses put together!!!

 

[Markleshark]

Now watch the prices on PPC macs drop to the ground on ebay.

Score. Leopard compatible machines for peanuts.

 

[gugy]

I have hard time believing that.
Steve said that PPC Macs would be supported by upcoming software releases for years to come. I would say maybe after Leopard and the next OS there is a chance that then the following revision will be Intel only. So we are talking 3 to 4 years down the road.
There is a huge base of customers that still on the PPC machines, including me. So Apple will not suddenly just drop-it.

 

[Kelmon]

I can understand dropping support for the G4 systems but dropping support for the G5s, particularly the Power Mac line, would be bonkers. Those systems are plenty powerful enough to run pretty much anything and I'd fear for my own MacBook Pro if a G5 Power Mac wasn't enough to run the next OS revision.

I can understand why they'd want to do this but I don't agree with the proposal and I'd expect a lot of people to be unhappy. Too early in my opinion.

 

[Genghis Khan]

now i'm pretty sure 10.5 was to be the last of Mac OSX

so will people please rename this thread to Mac OS XI or something


and also...powerpc needs to be outdated pretty quickly so that the apple software engineers can concentrate on intel unfourtunately

 

[guzhogi]

Whenever Apple stops support for PowerPC, that should help speed up the development cycle since they have less architectures to work on. This means that Apple can shorten the time between upgrades and keep the same # of new features), or take the same amount of time they are now, but add even more/bigger improvements. Like Leopard is said to have 300 new features. For whatever comes after 10.5 (assuming Apple drops PowerPC in the next version), the next version can either ship in less time than Leopard took, but has 300 features. Or take the same amount of time to develop, but have more than 300 new features.

 

[chumsdock]

Well, Apple is not a big big company, the more compatibility, the more time will be taken to kill bugs. You still remember how iPhone delays Leopard?

So dropping support for old platforms is definitely reasonable, as for the powerpc platform, it's such a pity that there is just nothing new and fast.

 

[Butthead]

Let's get 10.5 on store shelves before we even start pretending rumors about 10.6 are relevant to our lives.

X2

LOL, given how long it's taken 10.5 to as yet make it to market, I think it's very optimistic/wishful thinking on the part of the Mac community/or Mac Zealots , to believe we'll see any 10.6 this decade.

Drop all PPC support, even G5s before 2010, I'd say very unlikely. Drop G3 of certain frequency or graphics chips too slow/not enough mem, for sure; brop G4 support, perhaps...but it's too far out in the future to even think about, even for the pro shops that really need to consider.

Overall, a dumb/useless rumor at present, come back in a few years when it might be more relevant.