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No Magic Trackpad for PPC?

T

tayloralmond

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Not that I'm that determined to buy a Magic Trackpad, but it still irritates me that Apple has left all PPC computers out in the cold on this new device.

"...compatible with Macintosh computers running Mac OS X Snow Leopard versions 10.6.4 and higher..."

I don't think it would take much effort for them to write drivers for Leopard on this one. The Magic Mouse is 10.5 compatible, so why not the Magic Trackpad? I really hope someone finds a way around this.
 
PPC is dead, guys. Just like they stopped supporting 6800 processors long long ago.

I'm not saying that they are bad computers. But the most recent is what... 5 years old? It's an eternity in computing.
 
lewis82 said:
PPC is dead, guys. Just like they stopped supporting 6800 processors long long ago.

I'm not saying that they are bad computers. But the most recent is what... 5 years old? It's an eternity in computing.
Click to expand...
While I agree, its just a little bit of software. My thinking is that Apple would not put the effort in for the small amount of sales (it would need Leopard and probably Tiger drivers to make any sort of numbers even closely worthwhile). Also, there is the planned obsolescence which helps drive sales of cash cows like Intel Macs.
 
Planned obsolescence is right. The days of Apple supporting hardware for 7-10 years are over. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple drops support for 32-bit systems (Core Duo, basically) with 10.7.
 
thats only apple , even microsoft offers support for older pc from the same age as the g4 , g5 Mac's , for example windows 7 has as a minimum requirement of a 1ghz 32 bit or 64 bit processor , and i def works on intel P3 processors and on the K6 from AMD which both are from ....1999 ? .... 2000? , so microsoft supports with his newest operating system from 2009 computers which are over 10 years old !!! and windows XP supports even lower spec so much much older systems PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family,which are computers from the mid end 90's of the last century aehm... do not start with what the different linux distros support as that would need to much space

but as i always compare windows operating systems with Mac osx versions i put osx tiger as a equivalent to windows xp , so and as i do not like osx leopard very much i put it always into the position of windows vista equivalent , as like vista osx leopard was just a stopgap for snow leopard , so it would have been nice from apple to bring full support to osx tiger , the reason for tiger is as it does run on the G3 processors too
and its just my opinion , transition to intel was bad , but unavoidable at that point , so i dont start about that again , but i find apple should care more about its heritage , because without the G3 and G4 powerpc Mac's Apple would not be here now , the iMac G3 rescued apple from going bankrupt and how does apple say thank you ....we stop support for ppc Mac's 🙁, so now its of my chest for a while 😀
 
a damn now i lost it what i actually did want to say , there is a way around that dilemma ...linux will support the trackpad ...dont know which distro first but i guess ubuntu and as for windows will have drivers too very soon i suppose , and as i know microsoft then their will be windows xp driver , so if ya got a
old pentium 2 pc with 233 mhz then the trackpad will work on it in theory ...on a pc from 1997 😀 and apple cant even be bothered to make it possible to use on a 5 year old Mac 🙁
 
While I generally agree with the thoughts in this thread - why can't Apple be bothered to write drivers for older machines? - this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone involved. Every Apple input device ever made in the OS X era has only supported the current OS upon it's release and up. Thus why you have the original Aluminum Bluetooth keyboards supporting Tiger, but not the second revision of them (10.5.8).

I don't want to turn this into another "PPC Kicks Ass!" debate, as we have a perfectly good one of those in a few other threads. It has to be said, however, that Apple is certainly in the business of making you buy their product. Five years on the market in computer terms may be an eternity, but does that matter if the equipment is still filling it's daily role? Why can Microsoft come out with new software (Office 2010 anyone?) that supports a 10 year old version of their operating system, and Apple completely snubs people who bought computers from them four to five years ago?
 
Bahh it really pisses me off when they do this. However, I hate trackpads...glass or no glass, and multi touch really doesn't do much for me. I can't see much use in having a desktop trackpad, my mighty mouse is fine. Heck, even my Logitech MX1000 is fine. I really don't need anything new, so I'm not going to rant specifically about the trackpad, just Apple dropping support for our computers in general.

It's annoying, to think you're buying into security, stability, and support, when all you get in the end is planned obsolescence.

Thanks Apple, you're great to your customers.

*end of rant*
 
MacHamster68 said:
thats only apple , even microsoft offers support for older pc from the same age as the g4 , g5 Mac's , for example windows 7 has as a minimum requirement of a 1ghz 32 bit or 64 bit processor , and i def works on intel P3 processors and on the K6 from AMD which both are from ....1999 ? .... 2000?
Click to expand...

No offense intended but Microsoft makes its living by selling software, not hardware, as opposed to Apple, so I sense a good reason Apple wants people to buy their most recent hardware releases.

What's the point of making PPC compatible hardware/software if you are not selling PPC hardware anymore?

And it's not like Apple stopped supporting it as I am still getting software updates for my PPC OS X Leopard on my G4 Powerbook, but let's admit it, PPC days are over.
 
Apple sells software too , but apple is known for just out of the blue stopping selling software discs , see leopard , see tiger, see panther ... and i mean retail disc's , whats the big issue with making disc's and selling them , the devellopment is done , no additional work needed , there are lots of people out there who still want these disc's , because the G4 and G5 Mac's are still the first step into Mac's ,for most its the Mac mini G4 , because not everyone on this earth is wealthy enough to buy a new Mac , and some might want to upgrade to leopard to get another couple years life out of their Mac's , but the only thing they get are scratched old 5th hand examples that sometimes dont even work
and the Mac mini G4 had bluetooth installed , so why not let these people upgrade to leopard and buy a magic trackpad if they want one ?
cant be that hard for a company like Apple to get a developer to write a driver for leopard or tiger , most of these developers apple has as employees would possibly only need a hour to do that , so the overall cost for apple would be marginal
 
Epsilon88 said:
Keep in mind that the Magic Trackpad costs just about half the value of many PPCs. 😱
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hmm good point, but then it is too not worth to buy a magic trackpad for the early intel's iMac , mini , which cost about the same as a iMac g5 isight here in the uk
if you see it that way , even the mighty mouse is not worth buying for your ppc Mac , not to mention the alu keyboard or even a wireless keyboard
to replace your broken one ...so once the keyboard and mouse are broken for one or the other reason , as they even cost used if they are still working nearly as much as a new one so only option then is..throw away the ppc Mac or ?
i mean i bought my PowerMac G5 2.3 dual for £10 ! ok scratched a bit on the outside and inside like a vacuum cleaner that was not emptied for 5 years , but working , i bought a brandnew alu keyboard for it and a mighty mouse both did cost me together more then 6 times what i payed for the PowerMac not to mention a new harddrive 1 TB , a osx tiger disc and a ilife 08 disc as i want to have for each Mac i own a set of disc's
and thats the point , if i want or need it i buy it , ok in case of the magic trackpad apple has decided i cant buy it for my ppc Mac's
 
iwork '09 works just fine on my first generation titanium powerbook. so looks like as long as your running tiger you will be able to keep using it for a while. the apple store still stocks replacement batteries and power adapters for it too.
 
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