PowerPC Support in Mac OS X 10.6 After All?

[!¡ V ¡!]

So you expect Apple to bring out new Operating Systems that support PPC and Intel forever?

Never claimed that, they can however support PPC till 2011, this would give those PPC customers enough time to adjust and absorb the cost. Companies and households have budgets too, they do not buy something new released by just to be graced with the "cool factor" similar to many of the fan club here.

They buy something for a set period of time and 2-3 is too short considering that Mac are a bigger investment.

 

[FJ218700]

You do realize that is walking a thin path, if they ignore they PPC base (including many many companies) those customers will finally say to hell with OS 10.6 and , lets just finally make the move to Linux and not deal with .

are you serious?

while your statement may hold some weight for the Pro and plain Geek base, you might possibly have a skewed view of the technical abilities of the Apple consumer population and the reason that they are using OS X.

 

[kprf]

are you serious?

while your statement may hold some weight for the Pro and plain Geek base, you might possibly have a skewed view of the technical abilities of the Apple consumer population and the reason that they are using OS X.

It would still be pretty damn sad that a G4 Cube was able to run every OS X release until 10.5 but the 2006 G5's would only live with Tiger and Leopard.

 

[centauratlas]

PPC too...

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that it is highly likely that Apple will continue PPC builds (even if only internal builds) for the foreseeable future as insurance. Just as Apple kept Intel builds going for a long time, I believe they will do so with the PPC. That does not mean it will be released after 10.6, just that they will keep the code up-to-date for the major functions with a limited number of configurations. Consequently, they will be doing some of the work regardless.

My opinion on a few things:
1. Disk space is pretty irrelevant for the vast majority of users. Even if it is a 4GB build with large drives, doubling it to 8GB isn't that big a deal with big hard drives. To some people of course it is.
2. DVD space is somewhat relevant, but at worst they would add a 2nd DVD to include everything. It was done that way with the 400k disks, 800k disks, CDs etc. Obviously it is preferable to have everything on one disk, but not required.
3. I agree that it is unlikely they would sell different PPC/Intel versions, it is not user friendly.
4. I think that PPC support in 10.6 is important to engender customer loyalty. (I have 3 Intel and 3 remaining PPC makes, plus an old (working???not sure) 128k Mac). I have a dual G5 that is still on 10.4 because I have classic on it so don't intend to upgrade plus an older PPC iMac with 10.5, so personally I probably wouldn't be running 10.6 on any of the PPCs out there, but there are a lot of them and Apple would be smart to support them.
5. I don't believe it would take a lot of EXTRA work to do a PPC version, particularly if it is a performance and stability release as hinted. It is a re-compile and a re-test with some (albeit limited) specific coding. Most of the code is written in higher level languages. The kernel, drivers etc (e.g. lower level items) are the parts that require the most work and would most likely require some CPU specific code. My guess on the marginal extra work is maybe 10% based on my experience, it won't continue indefinitely, but one more release would be appropriate.
🙂

 

[iBunny]

The only people who want to keep PPC support are those who still own PPC Machines.

I say just buy a new Machines. Stop being such tight wads people and get with the times. Macs are PC's with the ability to run OSX. Thats all... and in the PC world, if you own a computer for any longer than ~2 to ~3 years, your out of date. SO get with the times.

I have owned 2 Intel Machine already... a Intel iMac Core Duo, and Now a MacBook Pro. PPC is long gone, and was dead when Apple announced that they were switching to Intel... They told us in the Summer of 05! Its already the Summer of 08! So if you still are on PPC you should be happy enough with 10.5 and keep it until your PPC dies.

I vote for 10.6 to be Intel Only.

 

[MacinTek]

Perhaps, perhaps not...

The internal seed may indeed support PPC. That means absolutely nothing come GM time.
You may recall as I do the notorious "Public Beta" of OS X (10.0)... it worked on machines that the final version wouldn't... I had a WallStreet power book at the time and had gotten used to that Public Beta of OS X. I was shocked when, came March 24 (or whenever it was), the Retail version wouldn't install on it.

Of course, I was so mad, I ran out and bought a TiBook... which I'm sure Apple was counting on me (and a few million others) doing when they encountered the unpleasant surprise.

 

[easy4lif]

The only people who want to keep PPC support are those who still own PPC Machines.

I say just buy a new Machines. Stop being such tight wads people and get with the times. Macs are PC's with the ability to run OSX. Thats all... and in the PC world, if you own a computer for any longer than ~2 to ~3 years, your out of date. SO get with the times.

I have owned 2 Intel Machine already... a Intel iMac Core Duo, and Now a MacBook Pro. PPC is long gone, and was dead when Apple announced that they were switching to Intel... They told us in the Summer of 05! Its already the Summer of 08! So if you still are on PPC you should be happy enough with 10.5 and keep it until your PPC dies.

I vote for 10.6 to be Intel Only.

some people still see the value in the old PPC machines. If all you do is email, web surf, and some minor photo editing, a PPC iMac is all you need.

 

[cpujockey]

PowerPC machines were sold through the end of 2006.

To drop PowerPC OS support at the beginning of 2009 would mean less than 2.5 years of OS upgrades worth, which includes only 1 major OS revision (Leopard).

Folks, that would be worse than Microsoft as far as support goes. Apple can move forward and still support existing customers for a more reasonable time period.

I define reasonable as around 3 years, which coincidentally is how long AppleCare lasts. Once 3 years is up, then the "upgrade" argument holds more weight, but right now it's a little too early to be singing that tune.

This is why psystar and cloners may become very popular very quickly. the hackintosh guys are gunna be on 10.6 like flies on ****.

Dr. D

 

[dukebound85]

some people still see the value in the old PPC machines. If all you do is email, web surf, and some minor photo editing, a PPC iMac is all you need.

and for that you dont need 10.6 lol

 

[chris200x9]

am I the only one who thinks apple can't handle success well? they just released an OS some say too early now theres already talk of a new OS to focus on "reliability" and "performance" so how much is this *service pack* going to cost us🙄

 

[One Ohm]

I think the installer should decide.

 

[avigalante]

I posted on this yesterday in the following thread: Mac OS X 10.6 Called 'Snow Leopard', All Cocoa?

My post:
Click here

PowerPC machines were sold through the end of 2006.

To drop PowerPC OS support at the beginning of 2009 would mean less than 2.5 years of OS upgrades worth, which includes only 1 major OS revision (Leopard).

Folks, that would be worse than Microsoft as far as support goes. Apple can move forward and still support existing customers for a more reasonable time period.

I define reasonable as around 3 years, which coincidentally is how long AppleCare lasts. Once 3 years is up, then the "upgrade" argument holds more weight, but right now it's a little too early to be singing that tune.

But say they officially announce 'Snow Leopard' at MWSF '09 and then deploy the OS in the usual October time frame - meaning October 2009, would it then be OK to drop PPC support? It would be potentially three years after the fact...​

 

[belisle]

The only people who want to keep PPC support are those who still own PPC Machines. I say just buy a new Machines. Stop being such tight wads people and get with the times.

I'd love to, but do you have $40k I can borrow? We got quite a few G5s here.

 

[csimon2]

Its amazing how clueless so many of you are. Apple needs marketshare. And Apple needs this marketshare to continue rising. One of the easiest ways they can determine this marketshare is by total volume sales of major OS releases. Leopard has been incredibly successful for Apple. "Snow Leopard" needs to be even more successful from a sales and marketing standpoint to prove that they are definitely continuing to move forward on the marketshare front. But if they drop PPC support this soon from the release of the last G4 notebooks and G5 desktops, that is a significant portion of their installed base who will not be buying the new OS. And I can guarantee you that the vast majority of people who are left behind because of a totally arbitrary switch to Intel are not going to just go out and immediately buy a new computer (and who says that this would be an Apple computer even if it they did; I know that if they dropped PPC support in 10.6, that would probably be enough for me to look into "other" options of running 10.6 so that I could most economically replace my dropped system). Yes, maybe those left behind will eventually purchase a new mac, but it certainly won't happen in a mob-like immediate upon-release movement, enough so that Apple would be able to market Snow Leopard as "the fastest and best selling Mac OS ever" (including new hw sales). Believe it or not, Apple still needs these types of marketing opportunities and press releases.

Of all the rumors I have read regarding 10.6 and machine support, the only one that I could half see really happening is a move to 64bit-only machines. This would still leave a significant number of users in the cold, but certainly wouldn't be as bad as no PPC support at all. Afterall, the G5's are still very capable machines. I have four macs running Leopard today: Dual G4 1.25GHz, C2D MBP 2.16GHz, Quad G5 2.5GHZ, and XServe Octal 3.0GHz. I find the G4 runs Leopard pretty well, as long as you have a decent GPU (I have a 7800GS in it). From a performance standpoint, my MBP certainly beats the G4 hands-down, but then again my MBP is pretty much trounced by my Quad G5. And of course the XServe trounces the G5... But as far as "running the OS", all four of these systems run Leopard very well, its the applications that primarily separate the four.

If 10.6 is all about performance tuning, then I could easily (unfortunately) see the G4 being left behind, but I can't see the G5's being left in the dust this soon simply because of its relative performance to even today's currently shipping macs and due to how many professional users they will be leaving behind (pros who use macs for their business are the most common G5 tower owner, and for Apple to abandon those machines now would be a slap in-the-face considering all the years pros were practically the only ones keeping Apple in business). The counter argument that these G5s will still be usable after a switch to an Intel-only OS is laughable. As soon as Apple drops PPC support, so will third-parties. The big developers are only going to follow Apple's lead on this one, and while I agree that this is going to have to happen eventually, I can't fathom it happening before 2010. Plus, even if there are no enhancements or tuning updates whatsoever for PPC in 10.6 and the PPC support is the same as it was in 10.5, this would still be a whole lot better than "officially" dropping PPC with this release.

 

[coolfactor]

IMO, it would have been a smart move to drop PPC support.

Intel is the new way to go. Either upgrade if you want a new OS, or stick with Tiger or Leopard. It's called progress people.

Vote NO on PPC support for 10.6!!!

You sound like a new Mac user that came along when Intel support was added, and you have very little or no experience with Macs on PPC. PowerPC is a great architecture. I'm currently on a 2.2MHz MacBook Pro, and it's only slightly faster than my old 1.5GHz PowerBook. Nearly twice the CPU speed, but very little performance improvement. That means something to me.

Apple would be smart to retain a universal view on architecture support so they can be as flexible as possible as new technologies emerge. They have that now, and it would be backwards to drop such support.

 

[coolfactor]

But say they officially announce 'Snow Leopard' at MWSF '09 and then deploy the OS in the usual October time frame - meaning October 2009, would it then be OK to drop PPC support? It would be potentially three years after the fact...

October is not the usual timeframe. 10.5's release was delayed because of the iPhone.

 

[dicklacara]

Those G5s available less than two years ago are really having a tough time with Leopard. 🙄

I have 3 G5 iMacs and a G4 AlBook-- al run Leopard fine!

 

[bplein]

I hear lots of people talking about disk space, DVD counts, and OS stability. There's a lot more to it than that.

Apple currently supports 64 bit, 32 bit, Intel, PPC. That's a lot of QA that needs to be done AFTER the hard work of developing the OS to work on all platforms. Multiply that by the hardware/driver support of the older PPC platforms. One reason why Vista is such a bloated hog is that legacy support, and support for a billion different vendor's hardware.

BUT.... buyers of G5 equipment certainly deserve a longer OS upgrade path than 2.5 years. 3 years is a typical business amortization of hardware, and 4 years is certainly a reasonable minimum time to expect a vendor selling expensive equipment to support the hardware.

I work for a manufacturer/vendor of high end enterprise storage. We have a similar problem: How many different OSes, different HBAs and different FC switches can we support? One has to have a clear and effective plan for end-of-support/end-of-life. In our case, it's not only for our hardware but for the hardware that we interoperate with.

Apple has the same challenges. You should expect the end-of-support for G5s to occur somewhere beyond 3 years. Major corporate purchasers of hardware will have a greater influence on Apple than individuals in forums. Given that Apple' core (no pun) audience is not large corporate sales of thousands of machines, I don't know how much corporate customer influence there is on Apple's decision making process.

 

[Ludde]

I was kinda liking the whole "optimized" talk, but supporting PPC is probably a wise idea.
But this calls for new features too, if OSX 10.6 had turned to be some kind of "speedy Intel-only" version of Leopard I guess it would've made sense to drop PPC.

I still hope they drop Carbon somehow though, I'm sorry - I don't really like the way it feels 😛


I don't think that's bound to happen unless 10.6 introduces new APIs the developers are interested in, a lot of apps have gone 10.5 only because they use stuff like Core Animation and brand new APIs, but if 10.6 introduces nothing or almost nothing new there would be no reason not to support 10.5.

Why on earth you'd like them to drop Carbon is beyond me.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/06/07/wwdc-2008-is-mac-os-x-106-the-death-of-carbon/

 

[belisle]

The internal seed may indeed support PPC. That means absolutely nothing come GM time.

Of course, but all we have to go on for anything are internal builds and rumors. One rumor says yes, another says no. The data are inconclusive.

I had a WallStreet power book at the time and had gotten used to that Public Beta of OS X. I was shocked when, came March 24 (or whenever it was), the Retail version wouldn't install on it.

The installer didn't stop me from installing Mac OS X 10.1 on a Wallstreet PowerBook. Sure, it sucked, but it got me through the time that my Pismo was in the shop getting a 500 MHz G4 upgrade.

 

[dukebound85]

YI'm currently on a 2.2MHz MacBook Pro, and it's only slightly faster than my old 1.5GHz PowerBook. Nearly twice the CPU speed, but very little performance improvement.

you must have a defunct mbp.......

my 2.0ghz cd mb is immensly faster than my 1 ghz g4 emac

and remember you have a 2.2 DUAL processor in the mbp vs a single core 1.5ghz pb

then again, there would be no real difference if you just browsed the internet but for any "work" the mbp is a ton faster lol

 

[Digitalclips]

I'd like to see them release one more PPC OS, especially if its one that focuses on stability and performance.

My Quad G5 (the only PPC Mac that I have left... i also have MacBook C2D and the latest MacBook Pro) feels sluggish sometimes, which is crazy because I know it's not the hardware.

If 10.6 is Intel only, there is nothing to prevent Apple updating Leopard PPC 10.5 with fixes and patches to improve it for years to come parallel to 10.6 for Intel. As a user of a PPCs and Intel Macs, I hope this is the case. Better still would be continued full support of at least G5s till OS 11.

 

[chas0001]

hmmmn I'd much rather have a more stable leopard than PPC support, I don't think any of my PPC machines would be able to handle 10.6 as they can barely handle 10.5

I have Leopard on a Powermac G5 and PowerBook G4 and it runs fine. In fact its better than fine. 10.6 is going to be a speed and stability release so there is no reason not to expect PowerPC support.

 

[avigalante]

October is not the usual timeframe. 10.5's release was delayed because of the iPhone.

I see - I was basing it off of Tiger and Leopard. I believe Tiger launched in October as well...

EDIT: I meant Panther and Leopard... sorry

 

[shahr04360]

is it clear enough?... have wait till final word from Steve's mouth himself on WWDC keynote... hope that will become true...