Exactly. That is just some very sloppy support from Mozilla. Which is why I'm going to delete the FF 3.6 and not look back. A dual G5 with Leopard is still a very capable machine. It's unfortunate thats not what developers look when deciding on what their software will run on. FF 4 can run on Windows 2000, as in circa 2000, yet not on a very capable machine from 2004 with an OS from 2007.
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Exactly. That is just some very sloppy support from Mozilla. Which is why I'm going to delete the FF 3.6 and not look back. A dual G5 with Leopard is still a very capable machine. It's unfortunate thats not what developers look when deciding on what their software will run on. FF 4 can run on Windows 2000, as in circa 2000, yet not on a very capable machine from 2004 with an OS from 2007.
But the hardware Windows 2000 runs on is virtually the same as hardware as we have now. It's basically the same architecture so it's easy for Mozilla to support. Plus Mozilla get millions of users due to the fact that Windows 2000 users are stuck with IE6 (they can't upgrade to a later version of IE) so it's in Mozilla's interests to support 2000.
I would hazard a guess that they dropped PPC support based on the percentage of people still using PPC machines vs Intel machines. OSX is a smaller platform compared to windows first off, and the number of people still using PPC percentage wise it is going to be ever decreasing, from what is most likely a already small percentage.
It is also most likely the reason Adobe stopped developing flash for PPC, the number of users probably doesn't justify supporting it.
Windows 2000 being supported has already been explained, same processor architecture and very similar to XP as a operating system.
No, I think it's Apple's fault. They are the ones that dumped PPC support in their developer code and dropped it out of Snow Leopard willy-nilly a whole darn YEAR after going to all that bother to make "Universal binaries" and all that pure BS NONSENSE only to dump it a freaking year and a whopping half later.
Yes, we KNOW that they don't make PPC sales anymore. The problem is some of us expect to be able to use a $3000+ Quad G5 for more than 3 years before getting dumped to the curb. It's not the hardware that is bad. It's the maker of the hardware that is bad... the same one that brought us to PPC in the first place, touting how fantastic it was, etc. etc. only to dump it in a lightning flash and then scold us for not wanting to shell out thousands for a computer that isn't much faster (but gets support...for a year or two at least and then suddenly the new graphics cards don't work in that brand NEW $3000+ Mac Pro so you should buy ANOTHER *newer* Mac Pro that the card will work in....
No, I think it's Apple's fault. They are the ones that dumped PPC support in their developer code and dropped it out of Snow Leopard willy-nilly a whole darn YEAR after going to all that bother to make "Universal binaries" and all that pure BS NONSENSE only to dump it a freaking year and a whopping half later.
Yes, we KNOW that they don't make PPC sales anymore. The problem is some of us expect to be able to use a $3000+ Quad G5 for more than 3 years before getting dumped to the curb. It's not the hardware that is bad. It's the maker of the hardware that is bad... the same one that brought us to PPC in the first place, touting how fantastic it was, etc. etc. only to dump it in a lightning flash and then scold us for not wanting to shell out thousands for a computer that isn't much faster (but gets support...for a year or two at least and then suddenly the new graphics cards don't work in that brand NEW $3000+ Mac Pro so you should buy ANOTHER *newer* Mac Pro that the card will work in....
Dropping PPC support from Snow leopard was maybe a bit to early to drop it, it was only 3 years after they were fully switched to Intel.
But didn't the G4 macs already start to show their age with Leopard and doesn't Snow Leopard need more resources. This is the problem, if Snow Leopard could only run on G5 machines with any sort of decent speed you end up with a small user base after 3 years.
Apple is a business, they most likely ran the sums and worked out they may lose X amount of customers. But the cost of developing Snow Leopard to support PPC would cost X amount more than the profit X amount of lost customers would provide.
Apple's decision to drop PPC support can only be defended financially. Apple also has shareholders to answer to, and they can be some of the biggest drivers behind a companies decisions when it comes to financial based choices.
That would depend on your G4. My 1.8GHz 7448 G4 runs Leopard quite fast.
It wouldn't have taken much work at all to support PPC through Snow Leopard. After all, it was just a "tweak" upgrade. IMO, it's a strange one given it runs slower than Leopard. The only "improvement" it has is hard drive space savings by dumping PPC. A reasonable time frame would have been to dump PPC with Lion. That would have resulted in things like Firefox 4 being available for PPC, etc. Because it's not the speed of certain G5s that hinders them, but a lack of software support when Apple drops PPC out of their development kit.
I'm pulling the BS card. Apple doesn't even run off dividends. PPC either way would have been completely and utterly negligible in cost terms compared to the big picture and had zero effect on their stock price and it would due their reputation a lot more good to keep their long time customers happy instead of just the new smart phone crowd.
Apple has been enjoying a high level of "customer satisfaction" compared to the PC world, but if they keep on doing things to cheese their base off (dumping support for hardware 2-4 years after its introduction, right after the AppleCare expires, they're going to find those numbers dropping in the future. I know I'm not as happy with them as in years past and it is already affecting my buying decisions. My next computer will not be from Apple (neither was my last one, which was a netbook I hacked to run OSX). I will continue to run Hackintosh in the future. Apple hardware is not a good value for the dollar and you cannot count on it being supported for a reasonable length of time anymore. I can always turn a Hackintosh into a PC or Linux box again if Apple dumps support for something its using. I cannot do jack squat with a PPC machine (seeing Windows doesn't run on it and Linux is dumping support for Firefox PPC as well. It eventually becomes a big door stop. Its use as a server could go on indefinitely except that iTunes and/or Safari will eventually dump it as well at which point I'm left with few options short of not adding any newer iOS devices and running older versions).
It just irks one to have to buy a new server for software reasons when the hardware is clearly capable of doing its own thing. In fact, if Apple would just get with the 21st Century and support NSA/UPnP from AppleTV, I wouldn't NEED "iTunes" period on the server. In fact, I would no longer need the server. I could just plug my 3TB drive straight into my router and it let it serve it up. Heck, if XBMC ever supports M4V tagging, I might just use it all the time and achieve the same effect.
I stand corrected.
When it comes to OSX and Macs Apple seem like a company from the past in certain areas. One that is not consumer orientated but product orientated.
Wasn't part of the OSX team relocated to working on IOS for iphone. Maybe that is the reason, less developers working on OSX, why not cut out PPC and save the required development and testing time.
Must be annoying having a PPC mac, considering what they cost at the time. Also considering that a PC from that time at half the cost, in many cases can still run current software and with little tweaks (such as RAM + HDD upgrades) can have many years left in them.
Never bought anything new from Apple apart from this Apple keyboard. Mainly because I couldn't justify spending £1000 odd on computer that lacks features a comparable PC in the same price bracket would have, and because some nice software was left on this imac.
Isn't Apple TV a bit of lame duck as a product when looking forward 2 years. What will Apple TV be able to do that any Blu ray player or new TV won't have built in. Netflix's and all that.
It depends on your equipment and what you're using it for. Given my upstairs 46" TV sitting 10' away cannot resolve better than 720p no matter what (physics of the human body), I bought a 720p plasma for a cool $499. AppleTV is perfectly suitable there and always will be. My 93" screen downstairs at 9' could resolve 1080p, but at the time I bought my projector they were $5000+ so I bought a 720p model there. It still looks darn good (one of the best 720p models ever made) so until something goes wrong on it, I don't plan on replacing it just for the heck of it. In other words, I cannot currently view 1080p regardless here, so AppleTV works fine for now.
There's some question of whether XBMC will eventually be able to enable 1080p output on AppleTV2 (quite affordable at $99), but if/when I need 1080p, I can always throw a $25 crystal HD card in it and install the Linux XBMC hack to get true 1080p output for the TV downstairs (AppleTV2 can decode 1080p video into 720p output for the 720p set upstairs).
Either way, all my DVDs have been converted to M4V. All my photos are scanned (either via negative or prints). All my music is available and so even if I replace the end unit (i.e. AppleTV), the future is still server/front-end for me. I don't miss DISCS a single bit! I just browse my menus, select something good and it starts playing (no menus, no boring FBI warnings, no movie previews...it just PLAYS). There is no way I would want to go back to a miserable disc menu setup again. I'd rather convert Blu-Ray movies to 1080p MKV (probably via the Windows side of a Hackintosh given the lack of BD support in OSX) in the future and still watch them off the server. Currently I have probably a hundred movies in HD 720p on the existing system, another 400 in SD and a lot of TV shows. Between ATV and XBMC, I can play them all.