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Tell us, what kind of important work are you still doing on this PowerPC Mac that requires you to run the latest software?

I don't have a G5, other people do and they are not happy to be stuck with Leopard.

I have a G4 with Leopard and what I want are security updates for the OS. That's said, I'm not sure Snow Leopard would run worse, so maybe it should still be installable there.
 
I don't have a G5, other people do and they are not happy to be stuck with Leopard.

I have a G4 with Leopard and what I want are security updates for the OS. That's said, I'm not sure Snow Leopard would run worse, so maybe it should still be installable there.

I'm sure they are, and I'm sure you do. But do you really don't see how spending time and money on ongoing support for these older systems isn't going to work in the long run? Time and money better spent on new software and systems that the majority is using and are actually paying for? It's not like these people with their G5 and you with your G4 are paying Apple to keep updating Leopard. People buy new software, and thus they spend their time creating and updating this new software.

By now you've gotten everything out of the $129 you paid for Leopard. If you want more: upgrade. If you don't want to upgrade: deal with it.
 
The architecture change was a sudden Apple decision. As such, they should take better care of their legacy customers.

I wrote "for ever" in quotes meaning "for a long time", but I didn't write that precisely because when the Intel switch was announced, SJ said the PowerPC was going to be supported "for a long time".
Apple's support for PowerPC isn't fantastic, but they haven't entirely abandoned the architecture yet, like many companies already did. You can still use Safari 5, iTunes 10, iWork '09, iLife '09... and have a good and quite up-to-date experience. I find the lack of support for great software like Office 2011, Firefox 4, Google Chrome, Transmission, MS Messenger 8, Adobe Flash 10.3 a lot more problematic. And obviously the situation isn't ever going to improve...
 
I'm sure they are, and I'm sure you do. But do you really don't see how spending time and money on ongoing support for these older systems isn't going to work in the long run? Time and money better spent on new software and systems that the majority is using and are actually paying for? It's not like these people with their G5 and you with your G4 are paying Apple to keep updating Leopard. People buy new software, and thus they spend their time creating and updating this new software.

By now you've gotten everything out of the $129 you paid for Leopard. If you want more: upgrade. If you don't want to upgrade: deal with it.

I have an MBP with Snow Leopard, which I don't want to "upgrade" to Lion unless there's an install DVD.

I don't want to switch off my Cube forever just because there would be no more security updates.
 
I have an MBP with Snow Leopard, which I don't want to "upgrade" to Lion unless there's an install DVD.
Then you burn the installer you download to a DVD. Don't you get tired of yourself?

I don't want to switch off my Cube forever just because there would be no more security updates.
And what kind of terrible security flaws are there that can't be patched on the OS your Cube is running? And what kind of things are you still doing with your cure that could be affected by this?
 
Then you burn the installer you download to a DVD. Don't you get tired of yourself?

And what kind of terrible security flaws are there that can't be patched on the OS your Cube is running? And what kind of things are you still doing with your cure that could be affected by this?

It seems one cannot burn an installer anymore.

I said "would", if Apple stops supporting Leopard when Lion is out, according to their custom (unless they keep Leopard as a special case because it's the last PPC release).
 
People need to stop expecting total operating system overhauls between versions. It's not realistic, especially once said operating system has matured; most of the necessary features are already in place, leaving only much more minor, less game-changing things to implement.

In other words, Apple is going to have a really hard time pushing out something as drastic as 10.1->10.2 or 10.3->10.4 with newer versions unless they skip two or three releases and take 4-6 years between releases...

Also, don't forget that while some may want radical changes of some sort, there is a much larger crowd of less technically literate people who would rather not have to relearn computer usage every time a new OS comes out.
 
People need to stop expecting total operating system overhauls between versions. It's not realistic, especially once said operating system has matured; most of the necessary features are already in place, leaving only much more minor, less game-changing things to implement.

In other words, Apple is going to have a really hard time pushing out something as drastic as 10.1->10.2 or 10.3->10.4 with newer versions unless they skip two or three releases and take 4-6 years between releases...
.
For me, 10.7 is just as significant as those previous releases. And you could have included 10.5 in the list (QuickLook is HUGE).
Resume and Versions in particular are tremendous features that will profoundly change the way we interact with computers.
 
I agree. A "huge" update doesn't necessarily mean a completely new way of doing things. Windows 8 might look completely different with their touch UI for touch devices, but who cares when the rest for desktops, which is still basically Windows 7 as far as we know at this point, is still the same and hasn't changed much.

I don't want to see a sudden complete overhaul of OS X where everything is different. Look at these boards. Everyone is already freaking out because Missing Control is a new kind of Exposé. Not that big of a change, as far as "complete overhauls" go, but still big enough to change people's work flows, and thus effecting them in an important way.

And the same can be said for all the little upgrades in Lion; it simple takes what's already there, and keeps improving it. That's the beautify of user interface design: there are so many little things you can change to make things easier, simpler and better.

Apple is constantly striving to do just that, and they're giving developers the means to do the same thing. A new shortcut for this, a new gesture for that, and a whole lot of new functionality to make everything more and more seamless. In the end the whole of Lion is greater than the sum of its parts, and all these "little" changes will have a huge, and I believe for the most part very positive, impact on how you use a computer.
 
I agree. A "huge" update doesn't necessarily mean a completely new way of doing things. Windows 8 might look completely different with their touch UI for touch devices, but who cares when the rest for desktops, which is still basically Windows 7 as far as we know at this point, is still the same and hasn't changed much.

I don't want to see a sudden complete overhaul of OS X where everything is different. Look at these boards. Everyone is already freaking out because Missing Control is a new kind of Exposé. Not that big of a change, as far as "complete overhauls" go, but still big enough to change people's work flows, and thus effecting them in an important way.

And the same can be said for all the little upgrades in Lion; it simple takes what's already there, and keeps improving it. That's the beautify of user interface design: there are so many little things you can change to make things easier, simpler and better.

Apple is constantly striving to do just that, and they're giving developers the means to do the same thing. A new shortcut for this, a new gesture for that, and a whole lot of new functionality to make everything more and more seamless. In the end the whole of Lion is greater than the sum of its parts, and all these "little" changes will have a huge, and I believe for the most part very positive, impact on how you use a computer.

Posts like OP's happen every time a new version of OS X is released. When Leopard was released they said they're sticking with Tiger. When SL was released they said they're stick with Leopard, etc. Meanwhile everyone migrates to the new OS anyway

Same thing all the time.
 
Posts like OP's happen every time a new version of OS X is released. When Leopard was released they said they're sticking with Tiger. When SL was released they said they're stick with Leopard, etc. Meanwhile everyone migrates to the new OS anyway

Same thing all the time.

Yup :)

I do think some people seriously don't see the bigger picture at first though. If you look at every separate update apart, it's very easy to dismiss it as "just a different way of doing x" or "just another gesture for doing y". And for some it's just hard to see how they can benefit from all these updates until they're actually using it.
 
I find the lack of support for great software like Office 2011, Firefox 4, Google Chrome, Transmission, MS Messenger 8, Adobe Flash 10.3 a lot more problematic.

I am asking this seriously since I do not know, but are these cases of Apple leaving those apps and the tools for developing them behind, or that the developers have dropped them from being able to run on older versions of OS X?
 
The architecture change was a sudden Apple decision. As such, they should take better care of their legacy customers.
The architecture change was out of necessity and we should all thank our lucky stripes that they chose to go Intel. From what I read over the years, PPC wasn't going anywhere.
As far as I'm concerned, it's been almost 7 years, I'd say it's been long enough.
I'm sure any company invested in Macs could have conjured up the necessary funds to upgrade from somewhere during those 7 years. If you haven't concocted a migration plan after all this time, you haven't been on top of things.
As a company these days, you have to be nimble; if a move like Apple dropping support for PPC puts your company in a tough spot *after all this time*, I cannot help but wonder how your company reacts to new moves from their competition.
@emaja: no-one bothers anymore with PPC, that's the simple truth of it. It's simple economics, no-one sees any added value in still supporting PPC, be it Apple or other software manufacturers. I don't even think you can still write PPC code with the latest XCode, but I'm not sure.
 
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The architecture change was out of necessity and we should all thank our lucky stripes that they chose to go Intel. From what I read over the years, PPC wasn't going anywhere.
As far as I'm concerned, it's been almost 7 years, I'd say it's been long enough.
I'm sure any company invested in Macs could have conjured up the necessary funds to upgrade from somewhere during those 7 years. If you haven't concocted a migration plan after all this time, you haven't been on top of things.
As a company these days, you have to be nimble; if a move like Apple dropping support for PPC puts your company in a tough spot *after all this time*, I cannot help but wonder how your company reacts to new moves from their competition.

What company? I'm talking about consumers who spent thousands on a PPC Mac.
 
I think that could be properly described as "bad luck".
If you think Apple would support customers with 7 year old computers, you've got another thing coming... Frankly, I would start to question their judgement if they actually did so after Lion.
Let's drop the legacy and move forward shall we; after 7 years, those consumers will also have been able to find funds somewhere for a new Mac. If they chose not to for whatever reason, I feel for 'em, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
By the way, you could see it this way: because of their sacrifice, we can now buy Macs that only cost "thousands of dollars" in the more extreme cases. My first entry-level MacBook Pro was over 2000€. My second, mid-level MacBook Pro was 1600€. I like it when stuff becomes cheaper; such things would not have happened if they had stuck with PPC.
 
I think that could be properly described as "bad luck".
If you think Apple would support customers with 7 year old computers, you've got another thing coming... Frankly, I would start to question their judgement if they actually did so after Lion.
Let's drop the legacy and move forward shall we; after 7 years, those consumers will also have been able to find funds somewhere for a new Mac. If they chose not to for whatever reason, I feel for 'em, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

It's not about not having money for new Macs. It's about Macs being nice objects which are not crap after 3 years like PCs.
 
Apple announced at WWDC 2005 that the transition would happen, so for argument's sake, we'll say 6 years. So not 3 years, but 6 years.
These things happen from time to time, one buys a product just before it becomes obsolete. Such matters are unfortunate, that's about all that can be said about it.
 
Apple announced at WWDC 2005 that the transition would happen, so for argument's sake, we'll say 6 years. So not 3 years, but 6 years.
These things happen from time to time, one buys a product just before it becomes obsolete. Such matters are unfortunate, that's about all that can be said about it.

The G5 was discontinued in 2006. Snow Leopard was released in 2009. So Apple just took 3 years to make it obsolete.
 
It's not about not having money for new Macs. It's about Macs being nice objects which are not crap after 3 years like PCs.

When Lion comes out, and doesn't run on an older Mac, it doesn't mean this older Mac suddenly stops working. Or that you can't do everything with it that you have been doing with it for years. The same goes for PCs. Many people still use 10 year old PCs running XP and they can do everything they need just fine. Windows Vista, Windows 7 and 10 years of newer hardware don't change that fact.

You say you're concerned that you don't get new security updates. But I'd like to know which specific security problems these might be. Usually these updates are for patching the current OS, not an older one where this problem might not even exist. Also, without talking about something specific, this whole "I don't want to be forced to turn off my Apple Cube forever because it doesn't get updates anymore" is rather pointless and shortsighted.

I'd imagine a Cube is still perfectly capable of browsing the web, emailing, office work and playing music. I don't see how Lion not supporting this system changes that in any way. And as far as I know there are no security holes in Leopard or even Tiger that'll blow up your Cube when you connect it to the internet.
 
The G5 was discontinued in 2006. Snow Leopard was released in 2009. So Apple just took 3 years to make it obsolete.
Oh right, I forget to account for the foolhardy who bought PPC Macs after WWDC 2005, knowing full well that their thousands of dollars would eventually yield them an obsolete relic of IT history.
The first Intel iMac was launched in the beginning of 2006, the other product lines followed suit soon after. That's more than 5 years ago.
So basically, you want the entire Mac community to suffer, albeit indirectly, for people who could not wait a small half year?
Granted, some of those people may have needed to buy one in that timeframe just because their old one broke down, so I'll grant you that.
But you'll have to come to terms with reality and economics, if you feel justified in demanding extended legacy support, at no extra charge no less, for a group of people who were either unfortunate of foolhardy.
As the saying goes: take one for the team (and buy a new Mac).
Apple has already proved they're willing to compensate people for buying something which just became obsolete, like with certain MobileMe subscribers, or with those people who bought an iPhone just before Apple cut the prices. But not 5-6 years after the fact.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Don't forget that Leopard still receives security updates. So technically, support is still ongoing for ppc users.
 

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The only thing I don't understand is the need of the previous OS to install the new OS. Beside Leopard, to upgrade to Snow Leopard you need Leopard; To upgrade to Lion you need Snow Leopard, which needs Leopard. I just don't understand why is not a stand alone OS.

That's not necessarily true, you can install SL over older OSs, but you'd need to install as new and use Time Machine to install all your folders and settings back into the correct places.
 
I agree with OP.
Lion brings a handful of new features, none of witch are groundbreaking or incredibly important.
It also drops Rosetta, fail.

Look at Windows 8 videos, looks awesome. The tiling scheme (same implementation as on their new phones, which I am currently trying to get and sell my IP4) makes the OS feel fresh truly new.

Windows 8 I have a feeling is going to destroy OSX in terms of what changed from version to version this time around.

Very soon I won't be an iPhone user (been once since a week after the first one arrived) and if Windows 8 really nails it, a mac user either.

Windows 8 isn't real yet. Lion is. Plus, all we've seen of Windows 8 is an iOS-like skin. Windows 8 will undoubtedly be better than Windows 7, but I just have a hunch it's not going to be the killer next-gen OS people are making it out to be.
 
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