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Mac OS X Snow Leopard Drops PowerPC Support
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Funy, I thought the late 70's to present were called the Unix years? What is "Windows"? I must have missed something.
seriously, I went through a lot of OSes over the years, SunOS, AIX, IRIX, Solaris, Linux and now Mac OS. Even used aux and xenix (Apple's and Microsoft's early versions of Unix) They all are pretty much all of the same family
Supporting PPC is not supporting "ancient" hardware. It's not fair to compare Mac OS X/Vista because Mac OS X has a limited number of configurations. The reason why Vista/XP is so bloated in the first place is Windows attempts to support every piece of hardware out there and attempt to glue everything together. On Mac OS X, you have a few certain sets of hardware and most of those pieces are either pretty similar or minor (different graphics, etc).
We can all agree dropping PowerPC at some point is a good idea, but it seems premature yet. I can see the end of Universal binary though as a way to start moving forward. I still see developers (eg Adobe) asking which Mac you own (Intel or PowerPC) and giving you a PPC only version or a Universal Binary (which has both). That never made any sense to me, which just adds bloat to x86 users.
I think people are overestimating the amount of work supporting both platformsmost of the work is already done in Leopard. Now they're going to throw all of that away? I can't see Apple ever dropping PowerPC support internally... so there's at least going to be a build for itthere's no reason not to support it on the consumer side as well.
"Universal" apps, probably copied over from Leopard and not modified much yet.. they've been working on the core of the OS first
See above.
Why would they take PPC support out of a developer preview and then re-add it later on? That wouldn't happen.
1. You don't take out a huge thing like that and add it back in later, it takes time and money.
2. Adding something that big later would have a ton of bugs.
3. It would just be stupid.
PPC is dead.
Huh? How was it sold as "brand new top-o-the-line 7.5 months ago"? I think you're confusing "Refurbished" (read: outdated) with "Brand New". The PowerMac G5 line was discontinued in August of 2006, nearly two years ago. Any G5 sold after than was most certainly not billed as top of the line, nor was compatibility promised.
jW
While Apple has never officially stated this, SJ has said in past interviews (what I know from memory, sorry can't find references quickly) that he believes that the average lifespan of a mac is about 3 years. In actual real world experiences I see many people hold on to their macs for about 4 to 5 years. Me personally, I usually buy a new computer every six years. However I usually upgrade a lot of stuff on it that makes it more useful.
Back then SJ wanted to reassure that there loyal customers would be set if they bought a PPC back then. For the most part Apple has done a good job in that respect. But the situation has changed a lot since 2005. Right now the intel mac base represents more than half (probably more) of the total mac base. By 2009 it probably represent less than 20% of the total mac user base. Third party developers will continue to write PPC until Steve Jobs says to abandon the PPC platform. This will most likely not occur until 2010/2011
Quad-core G5's (which were the subject of the post) were still sold new less than 2 years ago. And if you think they're going for $250 on eBay, you better do some investigation.
On the other hand, if Apple drops PPC support in 10.6, we might start to see some good G5 deals.
What version? Because, technically, Mac OS X 10.1 is OS X you know
/edit:
You dont add features in on the last build. Thats how you create bugs and cause problems that people complain about. So i doubt they're going to magically add PPC support during retail release. There's more to it then checking a box.
Well put.
I think it's a very bold yet wise choice to hit the pause button on new features and focus all efforts on stability and performance. I only wish that software companies would do the same, they tend to accumulate a back log of ancient bugs that live on from version to version while they're busy cramming new features in.
It's also something that Apple really needs to do now because they need to put the money where their mouth is. Leopard was one of the dodgiest releases in the history of MacOS and even in 10.5.3 there are many issues left unattended. The irony of adding a Windows server icon featuring a BSoD just when OS X got a BSoD of its own is priceless... and this is not a good time for that. The iPod/iPhone halo effect is ensnaring more switchers by the minute, the market share is on a steady rise and they're spending $$$$$$$$$$ on TV ads to tell everyone how horrible Vista is. They last thing they want is for switchers to discover that the grass was just as brown on the other side of the fence. MacOS sorely needs to return to its stability of old...
The people who buy 10.6 (assuming they don't give it away). Same as the people who pay for the intel side of development.
In terms of cost, the question is whether the amount of cash raised by selling copies to PPC owners is more than it costs to update the PPC version.
Nope, you can tell they are new builds from the version numbers and dates shown in screenshots. It's odd they left the PPC compile turned on for a build that only installs on intel.
Well then maybe instead of being lazy you should read the thread. That question has been asked and answered dozens of times.
If PPC is dropped, here's how I feel... Sleopard won't really have any new features... If not, why even upgrade a PPC machine? If Sleopard comes out mid-late 2009, you'd think the next big-change OS would be sometime in 2011, giving PPC users about 5 years from the intel switch until the first MAJOR upgrade that won't include them. Even after that, it'd be OK to continue running Leopard until the following big-change version which could be another 2 years. So the options for PPC owners isn't that bad. Even if you bought yours in mid-late 2006, it may be 7 years till you really start to feel outdated, and that's pretty good in PC terms. At the same time, if you upgraded to Vista and Leopard around the same time (assuming you have both), your next machine will be able to upgrade to the next MacOS when the next iteration of windows comes out... Sweet! I own a PPC and feel I'm going to get another 3 good years (8 total out of it). It'll still be totally usable at that point, but I'll want an upgrade. Again, 8 years is great for a computer
Apple hyped and defended EDGE when the iPhone was announced, and on Monday proceeded to make a mockery of it trumpeting 3G.
Apple is in the business of selling products. If you buy into their hype they've done their job.
Anyone else got any hurt they'd like to share?
Sorry, but come on.
It's not about the speed of PPC at all. It's about having to make a single code stream compile successfully on two platforms and remain optimized. I'm sure that there are extra developers required to maintain both code streams (even if some code is common and just compiled in place). Once you eliminate PPC, you can further optimize the Intel builds because you can make changes that would be otherwise detrimental in a PPC environment. You can also drop support for hardware that never shipped in an Intel Platform.
The reason they may be dropping PPC is to make THEIR life's easier, which in turn can increase the satisfaction of the owners of supported platforms. This is done at the expense of the owners of non-supported platforms.
This is analogous to the question of "why not support standard x86 systems?" Because it would increase the size of the delivered code, make it harder to maintain, and tie them into supporting old hardware for longer.
I still think early 09 is too early to drop support for PPC, but I am pretty sure it's not because they think your G5 is slow.
This is precisely why Windows is a bloated piece of crap. Windows tries to be everything to everybody and fails miserably. Legacy support is the boat anchor around Microsoft's neck. Just look at the bitching over compatibility issues in Vista. Apple has no such albatross to deal with. They can move on quickly. The faithful will scream and holler but they will fall in line.
However, all of this flexibility will come to a screeching halt if Apple goes for the enterprise market. The enterprise expects legacy support for eternity. Hell, the company I work (at&t) for still orders laptops with RS-232 serial ports for legacy hardware access.
It's a good thing for Snow Leopard to be Intel only (and I'm a Dual 2.5/G5 owner). It will be very bad for innovation if Apple makes a go at the enterprise market. Then Apple WILL be just another Dell/Microsoft
Quad-core G5's (which were the subject of the post) were still sold new less than 2 years ago. And if you think they're going for $250 on eBay, you better do some investigation.
On the other hand, if Apple drops PPC support in 10.6, we might start to see some good G5 deals.
Plus, do people seriously think that the release of snow Leopard is going to instantly brick all their PowerPC machines? It's called Snow Leopard because its a very close relative of OSX 10.5. I can almost guarantee everything that works on Snow leopard will work with Leopard. Snow Leopard is an opportunity to clean out outdated legacy code for future versions of OSX.
Actually, skate to where the puck will be.
As a noob, this is a snow leopard, a singularly beautiful creature.
Maybe snow is used in the context of 'snow job'?
What version? Because, technically, Mac OS X 10.1 is OS X you know
/edit:
You dont add features in on the last build. Thats how you create bugs and cause problems that people complain about. So i doubt they're going to magically add PPC support during retail release. There's more to it then checking a box.
Tiger 10.4 Getting kinda nit-picky aren't ya?
Apple hyped and defended EDGE when the iPhone was announced, and on Monday proceeded to make a mockery of it trumpeting 3G.
Apple is in the business of selling products. If you buy into their hype they've done their job.
Anyone else got any hurt they'd like to share?
Sorry, but come on.
And let's not forget the Intel switch. Prior to the switch they showed all these impressive graphs claiming that the G-series machines blew anything from Intel out of the water. After the Intel switch they suddenly announced that the new machines were 3 to 6 times faster than the old.
It's not APM, it's TPM (Trusted Platform Module). And that was dropped in Macs produced after October 2006. See: http://www.net-security.org/article.php?id=1026
Anybody getting a PPC mac in '06 (certainly second half of '06) should have been aware PPC was dead. (By anybody, I mean people frequenting this site).
ergo - you knew it was on the way out.
But not updates to those apps, if the devs start using the new features. Is that really so hard to understand?
The G5 quad is plenty fast and productive. The issue here that the apple apologists keep either missing or ignoring is that the G5s are plenty capable of running the latest OS and apps, but they are getting shut out prematurely before they have lost their usefulness - their inability to run 10.6 will be completely unrelated to their speed. That whole "loss of productivity" thing is BS considering that apple will be supporting many machines SLOWER than the ones they are dumping.
First, apple has NOT said that there are "no new features". Features are a lower priority, but they have absolutely not said there will be no new features, on the contrary, they have listed a few already.
Second, PPCs have multicore and GPU in the hardware, so they would benefit from the updates.
And the same thing can be said for 32 bit hardware and software. If they're cleaning house, why not dump those too?
In short, no. You really think that mac users either buy a new machine every couple years or stay on the same OS indefintely? Who do you think they're selling OS upgrades to?
