i'm disappointed to see my 2006 mac pro not being supported for mountain lion, but i guess all good things must come to an end sometime
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OS X Mountain Lion Officially Drops Support for Some Older 64-Bit Macs
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Support means it uses it, but doesn't take advantage of all the features. We'll use DX as an example here, since I'm a little more familiar with it. DX11 is an expansion to DX10, offering new features and streamlining old ones, while still maintaining compatibility. In other words, you can use an older card with the latest drivers, you just can't expect it to suddenly start firing off hardware SSAO and tesselators.
Like I can install a Geforce 7300 right now, and use DX11, but it'll only use the DX9 subset within it. That's what it means by being "supported", as opposed to "made for".
It's the same way with OGL and older cards on the Mac. There's no reason why Apple can't add support for Lion on an older Mac, it just won't support all the extra features inherit with the upgrade.
...which you won't be using on the desktop anyway, so it kinda doesn't matter much at all.
With OpenGL Core profile there is either support, or there isn't. It's emulated on the CPU or hardware accelerated. There is no backwards compatibility, you can't create a 3.2 core context, and have it draw to 2.1. That's the entire point of core profile.
Well hmmm. I guess this means I have to out and read something to figure out if you're right or not.
Damnit. I'll be back.
Damnit. I'll be back.
Acknowledgement of short-life hardware ?
Perhaps this lack of driver upgrade is an acknowledgement by Apple that their hardware is of very average quality and that they don't expect many machines of more than 3 years to still be fully functional?
(From a former MacBook Pro user 3 years , power card & HD failure (reverted to a PC), 2 x 2008 iMacs, 4 keyboards +1 HD failure within 3 years).
Perhaps this lack of driver upgrade is an acknowledgement by Apple that their hardware is of very average quality and that they don't expect many machines of more than 3 years to still be fully functional?
(From a former MacBook Pro user 3 years , power card & HD failure (reverted to a PC), 2 x 2008 iMacs, 4 keyboards +1 HD failure within 3 years).
Still don't understand why no MacBook 3,1 support
Maybe I missed this earlier in the thread, but I am struggling to understand why they are not supporting the MacBook 3,1 models. It has a 64-bit processor with a 64-bit EFI. Is it that there are no drivers for the Intel GMA X3100 graphics?
Maybe I missed this earlier in the thread, but I am struggling to understand why they are not supporting the MacBook 3,1 models. It has a 64-bit processor with a 64-bit EFI. Is it that there are no drivers for the Intel GMA X3100 graphics?
I suppose they could write drivers for the GMA X3100.
But then they can't force you to buy a new Mac once they drop 10.6 and 10.7 support
Older Hardware Petition
I've created a petition for Apple to support older hardware. a 4 year support cycle is way to short for their premium computer hardware.
http://www.change.org/petitions/apple-inc-support-older-apple-hardware-on-osx-mountain-lion#
Please signup and lets see if we can get them to at least add support.
I've created a petition for Apple to support older hardware. a 4 year support cycle is way to short for their premium computer hardware.
http://www.change.org/petitions/apple-inc-support-older-apple-hardware-on-osx-mountain-lion#
Please signup and lets see if we can get them to at least add support.
I think it can. I can say that Windows 7 seems to run better on this machine than OS X Lion.
And based on Windows 8's system requirements, anything that can run 7 should and be able to run 8.
I suppose they could write drivers for the GMA X3100.
But then they can't force you to buy a new Mac once they drop 10.6 and 10.7 support
The X3100 doesn't support OpenGL 3.2.
This is why I am not interested in going beyond Snow Leopard.
The whole focus of osx since then has been on making it iosx.
Their obsession with cheap gimmicks doesn't impress people who want a computer to do more than play on facebook or watch videos.
Yeah. Well. Depends if you thought Lion was actually an update. It came on my MBA but I don't much like Lion, even though I like the idea of iCloud, and so I did not "update" my workhorse MBP. I'll take the MBA to Mountain Lion and see what I think. Meanwhile the MBP and 10.6.8 are staying put. I'm leaning towards waiting awhile and seeing how iCloud evolves.
As far as expectations and computing devices are concerned, I generally try to limit them to the timeframe of my point of purchase. Does it do what I need it to do when I buy it? Great. That's what I bought it for.
When the next round of hardware shows up on the horizon, my first question is this one: how much have my own needs changed since I got the setup I'm running now? My next question is this: how attractive do I find any new features? Same for major OS releases.
That approach doesn't prevent me from upgrading my stuff, but it does sometimes cause me to skip one or even two generations of any generic device type that I find useful. Still love my original iPad, use it all the time, see no requirement for the iPad 2 or the newest one either. If I didn't have an iPhone with a camera then probably i would want the later iPad. Have found exactly zero use for the cam in any of my laptops. But, by now I could not work without a cam in my iPhone. It has pretty much supplanted daily use of a separate digital camera.
In the end it comes down to what you have in mind for the devices you buy when you're buying them. Like a lot of people, I find myself with computing setups that essentially function in parallel universes. This doesn't bother me in the least! There's nothing wrong with my ancient G4 Titanium powerbook setup with its ancient OS and all the ancient drivers for some equally ancient keyboards. The setup "just works" and so I don't break it. I also don't attempt to surf the net with it or for that matter even connect it. When it croaks, maybe the MBP will become the next boss of my audio gear, and maybe I will update some of that. The advantage of these "parallel universe" setups is largely budgetary; they don't all need updates at the same time.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, since some of my own hardware has been jettisoned from the supported list, however the Mac Pro 1,1 is 6 years old now. The 2,1 about 5 years and some months old. If you're going to start a petition the least you could do is place accurate information there so that it has some merit.
As far as my own situation. In this case I'm not sure how long I'll keep from updating but a big part will probably be browser support. After some years of running just about every one I settled on Safari a while back since it seemed good at everything instead of one being great at something and poor or marginal at another. I have heard the newer Safari may not support 10.6 and if that's the case then I may have to look around. Like previous posters have mentioned, sometimes what I have suits my needs fine and there's no reason to update for the sake of updating.
so much for loyalty
Thank you Mac for rewarding my years of loyalty with this betrayal. It looks like I will goto purely linux instead of mac and linux.. Oh yeah, I will jsut patch your stupid mountain lion iso and put it on my "build@home hackintosh" looks like all you have managed to do is insure i dont buy your hardware anymore
Thank you Mac for rewarding my years of loyalty with this betrayal. It looks like I will goto purely linux instead of mac and linux.. Oh yeah, I will jsut patch your stupid mountain lion iso and put it on my "build@home hackintosh" looks like all you have managed to do is insure i dont buy your hardware anymore
Exactly.
People don't understand that Apple does this all the time. Heck, in Leopard the 12" PowerBook doesn't have a translucent menubar because the graphics card doesn't support the shader they used. Same thing applies here. It's hardware not driver support they're dropping.
Could they have dumbed down the graphics to support older machines? Maybe but Apple has never been shy about dropping support for older machines so they can have the OS look and act as they wish.
* I have a white MacBook which won't run ML... good thing I use my iPhone most of the time these days.
It is accurate.
You could buy the 1,1 or the 2,1 in December 07 - less than 5 years ago. The clock of dropping support should end the day they stop selling those models, not the day they go on sale. If they stopped selling them 6 years ago the argument would be mute.
Those machine have only really seem 2 upgrades. Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion are nothing more than glorified service packs.
wont buy another mac
when you spend $1400 on a laptop, desktop, you shouldnt have to scrap it 5 years later, i didnt mind paying the high price but now?? all i can say is goodbye mac and hello osX86.. they wouldnt have had to dumb down the graphic to include older machines, they would have just needed to include a dumbed down driver that the installer detected which one to install. with the programmers they have, they could have had it done in half a day or less. they just want us to buy new hardware.. and i will, just not from them, i can build a mac for half the cost and maintain the high quality hardware
when you spend $1400 on a laptop, desktop, you shouldnt have to scrap it 5 years later, i didnt mind paying the high price but now?? all i can say is goodbye mac and hello osX86.. they wouldnt have had to dumb down the graphic to include older machines, they would have just needed to include a dumbed down driver that the installer detected which one to install. with the programmers they have, they could have had it done in half a day or less. they just want us to buy new hardware.. and i will, just not from them, i can build a mac for half the cost and maintain the high quality hardware
Problem is unlike windows, Third party programs drop support for older version of mac os quite quickly. Apple also drops support even quicker. Talk to all the people stuck on snow leopard who can't use icloud even though someone with there 2001 xp machine technically could use icloud.
The powerpc people couldn't even get a modern browser like 2-3 years after they bought their machines. You could by a powermac g5 almost into 2007. In 2009 support was over.
I have a 2003/2004 dell optiplex that I got for free that runs windows 7 beautifully with full aero and everything. Its still very usable for web browsing and even stuff like photoshop and some games. You can use the latest browser and OS. Try that with a g4 or g5 from the same time. I have one, you have to use outdated browsers, outdated flash, and outdated versions of office.
In fact, other than apple crappy windows trackpad drivers (the acceleration is really strange), I think my macbook runs better in windows 7 than it does in mac os. The motion of the trackpad is actually better with the driver installed but then you can't right click or scroll. Wish there was a way to turn off apples weird extra acceleration.
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Lucky376. There are several machines that are less than 4 years old on the list. In any case, even 5-6 years is a short lifespan for "high end" workstations paid at a premium price. You do have a point about only listing two machines that are 5-6 years old. I have added all the machines listed in the original post from this forum in hopes that it avoids more confusion.
Okay well in looking at this, here are the machines that didn't make the cut, the last updates before the "supported" models.
iMac- September 2006
MacBook Pro- October 2006
Mac Pro- April 2007
Mac Mini- August 2007
MacBook Air- January 2008
Xserve- January 2008
MacBook- February 2008
If we look at these dates it actually looks better than the list they released in terms of age of the machines dropped. With that having been said, some of the machines are a few ticks past 4 years old.
So the Mac Pro. Apple should rewrite the EFI. They could then sell some crazy "approved" video card to owners that would update them to the newer standard required for full support of Mountain Lion. Win-win there. Users win on the machine end still being able to use their machine, Apple cashes in on the card by essentially returning their investment on rewriting the EFI via sales of the video card. Xserve, same.
The stuff with built in video cards, SOL. Stinks as I have owned a number of these machines, and I would like to have an iOS 6 like situation where the 3GS can still run it just missing some features, however I think it might prove to be a far larger black eye than just eliminating certain systems altogether.
If you can run a 64-bit application, then they didn't lie to you; a 32-bit machine cannot run 64-bit applications.
What version of Mac OS X are you using right now? 10.7 Lion? If so, then you absolutely are capable of running a 64-bit application, because you are capable of running Finder. Finder was compiled as a 64-bit-only application in Lion.
The bit-ness of the kernel does not necessarily impose insurmountable limitations on the bit-ness of the applications you run.
I have a significant investment in multiple 2008 8-Core Xeon Xserves in my studio control rooms, installed in silent racks, running Logic Pro. I currently run Lion and it works well. These are still powerful systems by today's standards, and there are no alternate 1U rack mounted systems that can run Mac OS X. These systems have 64-bit EFI but the ATI X1300 graphics on the Mezzanine Card only has 64MB of Video RAM. Why wouldn't these qualify for Mountain Lion? Is the graphics card the problem?
Perhaps if I install a better/faster mac compatible video card in the one of the empty PCIe slots, and remove the Mezzanine Graphics card, I'll be on the same level as 2008 Mac Pro models (wishful thinking).
Apple will undoubtedly update Logic in the future, ultimately requiring ML, abandoning older OS versions. What alternative do I have in moving forward. I do not like the idea of moving over to a Windows-based rack mount systems and ProTools, but it may be where I have to go!
re: ProTools servers
Well, speaking to your specific issues here?
1. I don't see any reason Logic Pro would need to go "Mountain Lion only" any time soon? Typically, when you see music or recording (or video editing) packages for OS X start requiring a newer release of the OS to run, it's tied to some sort of low-level functionality they're interested in taking advantage of. Once they implement the new functionality, it quickly becomes a losing proposition to keep coding backwards compatibility into new releases, vs. just telling people to keep using the old version with the older systems and OS X versions. In the past, such new features as "Audio Units", "Core Audio" and "Core Video" support in OS X drove these changes, as well as elimination of Rosetta for PPC support. With Mountain Lion vs. Lion? I can't think of a single meaningful "low level" change that would drive Apple to require Mountain Lion for a package like Logic Pro?
2. By the time you'd feel forced to "move to a Windows solution", I'm pretty confident Apple will have alternatives available for you to address your needs. I think it's pretty clear they're uninterested in selling 1U rack-mount dedicated servers, moving forward. But there were rumors flying about people inside Apple working on redesigning the Mac Pro tower's case so it would be the proper height to fit perfectly in a standard rack when turned sideways. I can't imagine why they WOULDN'T pursue such an idea by the time a major revision to it is completed? And even Apple's CEO claims such a revision is scheduled for next year. A Mac Pro would likely take up 4U of rack space, BUT you'd also have a machine arguably as powerful as 4 of the old XServes....
Well, speaking to your specific issues here?
1. I don't see any reason Logic Pro would need to go "Mountain Lion only" any time soon? Typically, when you see music or recording (or video editing) packages for OS X start requiring a newer release of the OS to run, it's tied to some sort of low-level functionality they're interested in taking advantage of. Once they implement the new functionality, it quickly becomes a losing proposition to keep coding backwards compatibility into new releases, vs. just telling people to keep using the old version with the older systems and OS X versions. In the past, such new features as "Audio Units", "Core Audio" and "Core Video" support in OS X drove these changes, as well as elimination of Rosetta for PPC support. With Mountain Lion vs. Lion? I can't think of a single meaningful "low level" change that would drive Apple to require Mountain Lion for a package like Logic Pro?
2. By the time you'd feel forced to "move to a Windows solution", I'm pretty confident Apple will have alternatives available for you to address your needs. I think it's pretty clear they're uninterested in selling 1U rack-mount dedicated servers, moving forward. But there were rumors flying about people inside Apple working on redesigning the Mac Pro tower's case so it would be the proper height to fit perfectly in a standard rack when turned sideways. I can't imagine why they WOULDN'T pursue such an idea by the time a major revision to it is completed? And even Apple's CEO claims such a revision is scheduled for next year. A Mac Pro would likely take up 4U of rack space, BUT you'd also have a machine arguably as powerful as 4 of the old XServes....