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OS X Mountain Lion Officially Drops Support for Some Older 64-Bit Macs

Completely reasonable

Five years is the accepted life of a computer. Apple is developing up to that point...it's very acceptable. This is from a guy that has a 2007 Macbook that wont be supported. I understand and agree. A five year old machine shouldn't be.
 
I just make the cut off, with the 08 MacPro.

But Apples on Documentation for the 06 machine makes absolutely no mention of anything 32bit. Everything is 64bit.

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP30

I have noticed someone at Apple is going through all the old documents and 'updating' them. Now, nothing has changed on this machine since 2007. So there should be no need for the documents to be changed.

So yes people have a right to be p**sed. Unless you visit this place or other rumour sites, your not going to know you really bought a fake 64bit Mac.
 
apolloa said:
Are Apple going to offer driver updates for OSX older then a year? Or are we going to be stuck with the same old performance unless we buy the latest version?
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unless Apple changes policy.

Current OS release, plus 1 previous release.

thats all that gets support. Once Mountain Lion is released, Snow leopard and earlier no longer receives support
 
I don't think this is a new trend or planned obsolescence. The transition from 32 bit to 64 bit is huge, probably the biggest transition Apple has to make in the near future. The last time a transition like this was done in PCs was the 16 bit to 32 bit move which happened around the early 90's (roughly 20 years ago). Who knows when the transition from 64 bit to 128 bit will be, but it's safe to say that it will not be in the foreseeable future.
One thing I do wish is that Apple made OS-X on Intel 64 bit from the beginning. There were only a couple models that did not have 64 bit CPUs (Core Duos), and they were updated to Core 2 Duos less than a year later. There are probably other reasons they went 32 bit (easier porting of OS-X?), at least I hope so.
 
LordVic said:
unless Apple changes policy.

Current OS release, plus 1 previous release.

thats all that gets support. Once Mountain Lion is released, Snow leopard and earlier no longer receives support
Click to expand...

Good luck to those wanting to play games then! Whilst you can install Windows and get better performance with new graphics drivers, Apples attitude is going to be tough s***, you shouldn't play games on a Mac!
 
why left Macbook Air Rev A behind

I bought my Macbook Air toward its end of its refresh. During October 2008, so that is like just 4 years ago. Now I can't upgrade it to Mac OS Mountain Lion.
 
I just barely made the cut so I am worried about performance. I will be giving ML a try for sure. If I don't like it I may go back to SL. I currently am using Lion and have gotten used to some features, but I like efficiency and speed better than iCloud storage. Time will tell maybe ML will be efficient and speedy with the older machines. That would be great. I can hope.
 
what if...

what if an unsupported Mac Pro user were to upgrade their graphics card from the stock one built into their mac (one that has a 64bit driver). Would it be supported then?
 
unwinded said:
From an objective thinking standpoint, this is a good thing going forward. Unless I am mistaken, all the required hardware supports an opencl gpu. All hardware also requires at least a dual core 64-bit intel CPU. Thus the transition has been completed.
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Except that machines that include both of those are still excluded based on 32 bit EFI, particularly the early Mac Pros. And those machines CAN run ML by hacking around the EFI.

Fake obsolescence is hardly a good thing.


techsmith said:
The transition from 32 bit to 64 bit is huge...
Click to expand...

Read the article title, the machines being dropped ARE 64 bit. This is just about video drivers and EFI, neither of which has anything to do with having a 64 bit cpu or being able to run 64 bit OS or 64 bit apps.


bigj6360 said:
what if an unsupported Mac Pro user were to upgrade their graphics card from the stock one built into their mac (one that has a 64bit driver). Would it be supported then?
Click to expand...

Not supported, but it works with a hack, see the links earlier in this thread.
 
LordVic said:
unless Apple changes policy.

Current OS release, plus 1 previous release.

thats all that gets support. Once Mountain Lion is released, Snow leopard and earlier no longer receives support
Click to expand...

And I guess that this also applies to all Macs used for Photoshop etc, as as I understand graphics drivers do get updated for performance or compatibility improvements for that, but I gather that will no longer be the case either unless you pay Apple a yearly charge?
 
I'm interested with the GPU argument. I had a 24" 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo iMac with the notorious graphics card fault that got even worse when upgrading to Lion. Whilst Apple deny that there was an inherent fault in a certain line of iMacs it does make me wonder if there is a hidden agenda insofar as they don't want as yet unaffected machines that are totally able to run Mac OS X 10.8 to suddenly start showing graphical anomalies as a result of installing Mountain Lion.

I have written about my own experience regarding this issue (including correspondence from Apple and them 'sort of' admitting that they knew something was wrong) here: http://bit.ly/AazB2F
 
benwiggy said:
My Mac IIsi wouldn't run OS 8.5, because it wasn't a PPC.
Click to expand...
The IIsi was released in 1990 and ran up to System 7.6.1 (1997).

My PowerMac 7200 wouldn't run OS X, because it wasn't a G3.
Click to expand...
The 7200 was released in 1997. OSX first came out in 2001, but OS9 continued to be supported for how long after that?

My G3 iBook wouldn't run Leopard, because it wasn't a G4 867MHz.
Click to expand...
The original clamshell iBook G3 was released in 1999.
Leopard wasn't released until 2007.
 
So wait, it won't install on an older Mac at all? Wow, guess I should tell my dad it's time to upgrade.
 
Considering Lion still has serious memory issue (inactive memory not being properly collected and released as free memory), it's a shame that Mountain Lion will drop support for some of the older models. I guess these Macs need to be downgraded to Snow Leopard.
 
Well...

hobo.hopkins said:
People can't legitimately expect to receive the newest updates on machines that are 3+ years old.
Click to expand...

Oh, but they do. They always do.

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roadbloc said:
I dislike how early Apple drop support for Macs.
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They're not dropping support. The machines will continue to work, and the Lion and earlier will continue to run on them.

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miamialley said:
Wow, I just made the cut with my late 2008 Pro? So, I may not be able to run the next update after Mtn Lion?
Click to expand...

By then your computer will be at least five years old, if not six. That's a pretty good run to have the latest and greatest OS, no?
 
Planned obsolescence is not a dirty phrase...

Planned obsolescence is not a dirty phrase. Have any of you whiners who are screaming planned obsolescence run a business with support? You probably haven't thought of "life-cycle" costs, i.e. that invisible little stat, that every manufacturer has to consider when pricing products. Life-cycle costs are a percentage of the total product price and were factored into your Mac's sale price along with warranty and repair, etc. Now Apple could probably factor in a longer life-cycle cost, but the prices of their hardware would have to go up.

Microsoft can make an OS that supports 10 year-old PCs, because up until now, they haven't made PCs. Second, their profit is based on selling software so they have to support older hardware to keep selling software. Sell your Mac, buy a new one or keep it and be happy.
 
Sasparilla said:
Yes, this is a big problem actually - they're going from security update support for their OS X releases of 4 or 5 years to 2 years and for someone who has one of these machines - they have to update to Lion and then only have a year before they loose security updates (Snow Leopard looses security updates in a few weeks).

Apple should change their security update policy to reflect the time they supported previously (4-6 years depending on the release) - with a yearly OS release cycle, 2 years is not enough for security support.

To put it in perspective, Snow Leopard looses new security updates in a couple of weeks, Windows 7 was released at about the same time and will get security updates to 2020.
Click to expand...

I thought about the same. If you want (or are obliged) to have an acceptable level of security you are forced to upgrade Mac OS X at least every two years. Which is OK for the average user with his private computing - but an absolute no go in any professional environment. You don’t upgrade your whole OS every two years because this process is connected to some lengthy acceptance tests of your workflow and each piece of software that is part of your workflow.

There’s a reason why many Linux distributions offer LTS (long term support) or Firefox has ESR (Extended Support Release).
 
Hastings101 said:
That's unfortunate, especially for the Mac Pro owners. The original model is still pretty decent compared to the newest.

Also, Macrumors what did you do to my downvote button :mad:? I can't unleash anonymous justice on posts I disagree with now
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+5 for downvote button

(guess we have to go old school)

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icoffee said:
Planned obsolescence is not a dirty phrase. Have any of you whiners who are screaming planned obsolescence run a business with support? You probably haven't thought of "life-cycle" costs, i.e. that invisible little stat, that every manufacturer has to consider when pricing products. Life-cycle costs are a percentage of the total product price and were factored into your Mac's sale price along with warranty and repair, etc. Now Apple could probably factor in a longer life-cycle cost, but the prices of their hardware would have to go up.

Microsoft can make an OS that supports 10 year-old PCs, because up until now, they haven't made PCs. Second, their profit is based on selling software so they have to support older hardware to keep selling software. Sell your Mac, buy a new one or keep it and be happy.
Click to expand...

it sure sounds dirty...
 
makes sense, Macs or PCs that are 6+ years old i would prefer using a OS thats a few generations old, for instance a 6 year old PC i would install XP, not windows 8

all that going to happen is if they did make it "compatible" it would run slower and you would blame the OS not the situation the OS was being used
 
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