Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Nobody seems to be asking this about Leopard...

S

Space Moose

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 5, 2006
32
0
So, nobody seems to be asking, but there's definitely going to be people screaming about this on Monday PM:

What's Leopard going to de-support?

- Panther de-supported non-built-in USB machines.
- Tiger unsupported macs that had no FW.

Surely Apple will drive the hardware upgrade with Leopard as well, but what's going to be the cutoff?

Perhaps, only installable on G4/G5/Intel machines?

Space
 
Yep, they all needed to go out and buy an IDE DVD-ROM ($19.99) or a USB/Firewire DVD-ROM ($49.99).

Damn them!

They just can not write concise code any more! Think about the time back when a whole OS could fit on a floppy with a GUI. Those days are gone.
 
Space Moose said:
Perhaps, only installable on G4/G5/Intel machines?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't count on it, the last G3 wasn't actually that long ago (900 MHz iBook in 2003). Apple seem to wait about 5 years before dropping support for hardware. In some cases it's longer, for example my 1999 Power Mac G3 is supported with Tiger (even Tiger Server!)
 
projectle said:
They just can not write concise code any more! Think about the time back when a whole OS could fit on a floppy with a GUI. Those days are gone.
Click to expand...
I trust you're kidding...
 
Yep, I absolutely was. It was implied by the fact that the most anyone needed to pay to be able to use Tiger was $50, rather than screwing them over as Microsoft does and not letting it install based on the manufacturing date (as they are doing with Vista).

I have an old HP Kayak manufactured in 1998 (it has been pretty heavily upgraded since then, but it will not run the Vista beta test due to the manufacturing date of before 2001, even though it is fully ACPI compliant, has 2 1.4 GHz CPUs, 6GB RDRAM, 600GB of hard disk space and dual dual-layer 16x DVD recorders and an Nvidia Geforce 5950GX-256MB.

No one really thought that a 2.8GHz machine with 6GB of memory and a year old, formerly-bleeding edge graphics card from a year ago would not meet the Minimum system requirements.
 
Nermal said:
I wouldn't count on it, the last G3 wasn't actually that long ago (900 MHz iBook in 2003). Apple seem to wait about 5 years before dropping support for hardware. In some cases it's longer, for example my 1999 Power Mac G3 is supported with Tiger (even Tiger Server!)
Click to expand...

The big relevant bump at this point seems to be computers that can support QE2D and full CoreImage, but that would place the carat very, very recently, since there were computers shipping at the close of the Panther days that didn't meet these requirements.

They could obviously stop supporting G3s for purely arbitrary reasons, but the only really non-arbitrary reason is the Velocity Engine, and that seems like a minimal concern at this point given the change to Intel.

I go with no substantial withdrawal of support vs. machines that could run Tiger....

And incidentally, yes, I also agree with the "FFS, get a DVD drive" issue. :eek: ;)
 
stoid said:
Leopard will not support machines that can not read DVDs. Apple made it clear with the release of Tiger that DVD incapable users are second rate citizens.
Click to expand...

Yup. I totally agree. The CD ROM drive is gone the way of the floppy.
 
projectle said:
Yep, I absolutely was. It was implied by the fact that the most anyone needed to pay to be able to use Tiger was $50
Click to expand...

Tiger requires a system with FireWire. It doesn't actually *need* FireWire, that's just used as the cutoff point - anything without FireWire is too old/too slow.

If Leopard requires a system that came with a DVD drive, then adding a drive won't change anything. Upgrading the drive won't upgrade the other components, and the system still won't meet the other minimum specs.
 
I really don't see why Apple will discontinue support for older Macs, they will simply state that some features (such as CoreImage features) will not work on older Macs. They did this before with Quartz and QuartzExtreme. So, I would venture to say it will be something to that affect again.
 
spencecb said:
I really don't see why Apple will discontinue support for older Macs, they will simply state that some features (such as CoreImage features) will not work on older Macs. They did this before with Quartz and QuartzExtreme. So, I would venture to say it will be something to that affect again.
Click to expand...

I could see this as being the path that Apple takes. :)
 
spencecb said:
I really don't see why Apple will discontinue support for older Macs...
Click to expand...

Because Apple makes most of thier profits from hardware sales. They want to encourage people to upgrade their hardware (ie. buy a new computer). They just have to be careful not to anger too many too many "legacy mac" users in the process.
 
Yeah, i was thinking about this the other day...

I was thinking that if Apple does announce a support cut-off point, then it would be like, any B/W G3 and above would be fully compatible. I only say this because the B/W's were the oldest of the G3's that came with both a DVD-Rom, and Firewire.

But, then again, i agree that most Mac's could just be simply upgraded to meet the requirements. But, who knows what they will say at WWDC?
 
[START OF TRANSMISSION]
1> BREAKING NEWS:[STOP]
2> Apple Computers announces that Leopard will not be 10.5 but rather 11.0[STOP]
3> OS XI (Pronounced "Oh Sexy") will only support Intel Processors.[STOP]
4> On other news, a million voices suddenly cried out in unison and were suddenly silenced.[STOP]
[END OF TRANSMISSION]
 
I'd bet money that Leopard will be DVD-only, but other than that, I don't think we'll see a loss of support on any additional machines. There will probably be some new eyecandy that requires a decent graphics card, but I'm sure that users who lack the graphics requirement will still be able to run the OS.
 
Nermal said:
Tiger requires a system with FireWire. It doesn't actually *need* FireWire, that's just used as the cutoff point - anything without FireWire is too old/too slow.

If Leopard requires a system that came with a DVD drive, then adding a drive won't change anything. Upgrading the drive won't upgrade the other components, and the system still won't meet the other minimum specs.
Click to expand...

I think the install discs were on DVD. Tiger supported non DVD Macs but you had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get the OS on CD.
 
projectle said:
Yep, I absolutely was. It was implied by the fact that the most anyone needed to pay to be able to use Tiger was $50, rather than screwing them over as Microsoft does and not letting it install based on the manufacturing date (as they are doing with Vista).

I have an old HP Kayak manufactured in 1998 (it has been pretty heavily upgraded since then, but it will not run the Vista beta test due to the manufacturing date of before 2001, even though it is fully ACPI compliant, has 2 1.4 GHz CPUs, 6GB RDRAM, 600GB of hard disk space and dual dual-layer 16x DVD recorders and an Nvidia Geforce 5950GX-256MB.

No one really thought that a 2.8GHz machine with 6GB of memory and a year old, formerly-bleeding edge graphics card from a year ago would not meet the Minimum system requirements.
Click to expand...


I see your point and agree that your machine should perform fine with Vista, but isn't putting in a requirement that only allows systems that came with Firewire initially basically the saem thing, but rather than using a date, they use an item that came into use during a certain time period? Computer manufacturs need a way to weed out those with old machines, and this is the easiest way. And, you have to admit, your computer is a pretty odd machine in that sense.
 
Flowbee said:
Because Apple makes most of thier profits from hardware sales. They want to encourage people to upgrade their hardware (ie. buy a new computer). They just have to be careful not to anger too many too many "legacy mac" users in the process.
Click to expand...

But Apple doesn't exactly do too bad on software sales either, and Apple will want to see some return on the millions (literally) that it invests in developing a new release of OS X. As such, in addition to selling copies as part of a new hardware package, they have to sell to the widest portion of it's installed base that it possibly can. And just as important, it has to convince third-party software developers that writing software for it's flagship OS is a very profitable, worthwhile thing to do and will expose their efforts to millions of existing, active Leopard users. New intel machine sales will grow over time and join the party, but your software doesn't need to wait for that to happen.

Prediction: Hardware requirements will remain as they were for Tiger.

2nd Prediction: Apple has a reputation now for increasing OS performance on the same hardware compared with the previous OS X release. Leopard will continue that tradition.
 
Yep, it definitely was a whole lot easier to buy dual 1.4 GHz processors on ebay for $10 a piece, and then memory through a local computer shop that was going out of business for $60 per 2GB RDRAM stick, and then hard disks were on major sale over at Circuit City about a month ago ($69.99 after rebates), and then a final $150 3 months ago for the graphics card.

A little here and a little there on side projects helps me to buy my Macs.
 
DVD drive is a given...

Still waiting for G3s to get the boot (of course the last G3 iBook had a Apr. 03 intro date, and was replaced Oct 03) since they are probably the next machines on the delete from support bubble.
 
pincho said:
are they going to drop off the Classic support for PPC macs running leopard?
Click to expand...

You'd think they'd leave it on the disc, since it doesn't take any further development... but they should take it off the default install that the disc does.... I know I'd just as soon not have it on my Macs....
 
Of note:

Tiger would install off CDs that you order from Apple for a few bucks and your Tiger install DVD.

Also, currently the B&W G3 is the oldest desktop supported by Tiger. I own the very last of the beige G3s, so I know. It was unsupported by Panther.

G3 B&W has been the low man on the totem pole for 2 OS releases. I'm betting on it getting the axe at least.

Space
 
Space Moose said:
Also, currently the B&W G3 is the oldest desktop supported by Tiger. I own the very last of the beige G3s, so I know. It was unsupported by Panther.

G3 B&W has been the low man on the totem pole for 2 OS releases. I'm betting on it getting the axe at least.

Space
Click to expand...
Of course they will say a PowerMac with at least an AGP video card, kill off the CRT iMacs, at least have G4 PowerBooks, and don't know where the iBook will land.
 
There will be so much @$$ kicking if they kill off support for Powerbook G4's...

They would not like to alienate customers who bought top of the line in the past 9 months...

All the others, who gives a smeg. They are old.

(I say that because I am typing this message on a Powerbook G4 17"
5,9 - 1.67 GHz 2GB DDR2 667MHz, 100GB 7200 RPM HD)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back