PowerPC Support in Mac OS X 10.6 After All?

[tomjleeds]

The speculation is that 10.6 will be out by next year so its well within the time frame. I don't see why I shouldn't receive the "full luxury treatment" just because I buy a refurb. Every customer should be entitled to the same Apple experience and that includes the traditional long support of hardware.

Did you even read my post? Yes, it's well within the time-frame for 10.6, and I've consistently said that I think it would be unwise and somewhat unfair for 10.6 to drop PPC support.

The reason you shouldn't receive the 'full luxury treatment' is two-fold. One, you make up a very small percentage of customers and two, refurb products are likely to be out-dated compared to the main product range, hence why they're sold in the refurb store rather than be salvaged and repackaged as new.

 

[flopticalcube]

Did you even read my post? Yes, it's well within the time-frame for 10.6, and I've consistently said that I think it would be unwise and somewhat unfair for 10.6 to drop PPC support.

The reason you shouldn't receive the 'full luxury treatment' is two-fold. One, you make up a very small percentage of customers and two, refurb products are likely to be out-dated compared to the main product range, hence why they're sold in the refurb store rather than be salvaged and repackaged as new.

Sure I read your post. You said PPC support until August 09 when the last AppleCare agreements for PPC customer run out. I said those will be mid-2010 due to refurbs. You then said "but even then that's probably not going to be within the time-frame of the next release", but it is.

I still disagree with your argument that refurb customers should be treated differently. They are not sold in the refurb store because they are more likely to be outdated, they are sold there because they have been used previously.

 

[macjunkie999]

At the point of 10.7 which I assume would be a features version, probably the only PPC macs that would be able to handle it would be the very late G5s so at that point I would not be surprised if Apple were to drop support for PPC right then and there. As for the AIM alliance (apple ibm motorola) which developed the PPC architecture Apple really wasnt the betrayer, it really was more of the gaming industry all jumped on PPC type processors which made Apple no longer the biggest customer therefore not tailored to in the way Apple likes, not to mention more efforts were driven towards making to game platform procs than the desktop procs which is partly why the G5 processor was not on the schedule of enhancement apple wanted. I see the switch to intel more about the benefits of virtualization ,being posix compliant (sadly but true posix compliance demands intel architechture) and being able to run linux and bsd apps without needing to recompile to ppc (much less to port if same proc type), the second rate treatment from ibm and motorola was the catalyst/excuse to do so.

 

[Eric5h5]

if they want to advance, they must forge legacy support. that's what killed the real advancement in the windows world.

Keeping PPC support doesn't slow advancement in any way, shape, or form. PPC isn't "legacy" anything, it's just a different CPU architecture, which is in widespread use, just not in Macs anymore. Keeping the codebase endian-clean (which is what PPC support requires, aside from Altivec stuff) is a good idea anyway, PPC or no PPC. Because you never know what CPU you might want to run OS X on next...since OS X isn't just for laptops/desktops anymore....

--Eric

 

[TwinCities Dan]

Keeping PPC support doesn't slow advancement in any way, shape, or form. PPC isn't "legacy" anything, it's just a different CPU architecture, which is in widespread use, just not in Macs anymore. Keeping the codebase endian-clean (which is what PPC support requires, aside from Altivec stuff) is a good idea anyway, PPC or no PPC. Because you never know what CPU you might want to run OS X on next...since OS X isn't just for laptops/desktops anymore....

--Eric

Excellent point! I was just thinking, wasn't that PA Semiconductor company that Apple snatched up recently mainly working on the PPC architecture? Perhaps Apple really wants to expand the OS X over different architecture (Not in Macs, but other future products)

 

[tomjleeds]

Sure I read your post. You said PPC support until August 09 when the last AppleCare agreements for PPC customer run out. I said those will be mid-2010 due to refurbs. You then said "but even then that's probably not going to be within the time-frame of the next release", but it is.

Yes, and by the next release I was referring to whatever follows 10.6, not 10.6 itself! Hence why I went on and on about how I think 10.6 should support PPC. If we're looking at mid-2009 for 10.6, we're not looking at mid-2010 for its successor.

I still disagree with your argument that refurb customers should be treated differently. They are not sold in the refurb store because they are more likely to be outdated, they are sold there because they have been used previously.

OK, poor wording on my part. However, the simple fact of the matter is that many items in the refurb store are outdated and/or no longer part of the main product range. Refurb customers are surely aware that they're less likely to get the full regal treatment...then again, maybe I'm just an optimist.

 

[flopticalcube]

Yes, and by the next release I was referring to whatever follows 10.6, not 10.6 itself! Hence why I went on and on about how I think 10.6 should support PPC. If we're looking at mid-2009 for 10.6, we're not looking at mid-2010 for its successor.



OK, poor wording on my part. However, the simple fact of the matter is that many items in the refurb store are outdated and/or no longer part of the main product range. Refurb customers are surely aware that they're less likely to get the full regal treatment...then again, maybe I'm just an optimist.

Ahhh! Ok, I assumed you where talking about 10.6. I completely agree and as a further point, I don't even see AppleCare as a necessary reason why Apple needs to backward support older hardware, it just seems like a reasonable timeline to me. To be honest, if they do cut PPC support short in (even early) 2010, I don't think there would be much complaining....at least not from me.

 

[JAYGEE]

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

Agreed. One more PPC update to make the OS stable, then after that, 10.7 should be just Intel.

 

[HyperZboy]

While I want PPC support and am very unhappy with Apple's current poor PPC support in 10.5, this debate sort of borders on somewhere between the senseless to the neurotic because we all know there is ONLY ONE person who will make this decision and that is Steve Jobs himself, potentially the most neurotic Mac user of all time!

And of course Apple will ALWAYS keep internal PPC builds of 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 11, etc., etc., etc., so it would be no surprise that 10.6 would have PPC info/drivers, etc. along with it for the ride in testing.

Otherwise, Steve Jobs wouldn't have been able to pull a Bill Gates named shivering rabbit out of a hat like he so enjoys doing during Keynotes like when the Intel switch was announced.

All in all though, the rumor really tells us nothing about future PPC support.

And one more thing... For those with last generation iMac G5s and tricked out Powermac G5s, I would think Apple would be stupid to drop PPC support so soon for ONE simple reason...

The Mother of All Class Action Lawsuits against Apple, Inc.

Sure, we'll all get just $9.75 and a couple Apple store coupons as a result, but you would surely hope that when Steve Jobs visits the zoo, he at LEAST knows NOT to feed the LAWYERS! They do bite.

 

[macjunkie999]

Ahhh! Ok, I assumed you where talking about 10.6. I completely agree and as a further point, I don't even see AppleCare as a necessary reason why Apple needs to backward support older hardware, it just seems like a reasonable timeline to me. To be honest, if they do cut PPC support short in (even early) 2010, I don't think there would be much complaining....at least not from me.

Well I think there actually might be a substantial amount of moaning and groaning mainly from the creative artist customer base, (whice just so happens to be a large portion of apples customer base)

Many of those men and women spent a ton of money to buy high end machines/clusters that were supposed to last them a good 5-10 years ie quad G5s xserve g5, if apple were to dump PPC support in 10.7 major brand creative applications would soon follow suite and drop universal binares, leaving those creative artists in the dust with a very bitter and rotten taste of apple in there mouth possibly so bad to send them running in droves back to the windows platform.

Sadly the windows platform has had far better legacy support of applications for older architectures and os variants, until the inception of vista a person could run a program all the way from the dos 1.0 era with official compatibility environment for dos applications. If I remember correctly the lowest app era that can be used in vista officially is from the windows 95 era which is still pretty darn good. You wont EVER see apple having a compatibility environment for the APPLE (6502 architechure ie //gs) line of computers in OS X (this didn't exist in the classic os either).

 

[AidenShaw]

With the Introduction of the Intel chip (X86), there have been various problems, from lawsuits, to certain bad decisions.

The class action lawsuit that Apple lost because OSX didn't really run right on the Bondi IMacs predated the Intel transition.

On the whole, Apple never "does the right thing" until they lose a lawsuit - and it's been that way for a long time.

 

[HyperZboy]

If I remember correctly the lowest app era that can be used in vista officially is from the windows 95 era which is still pretty darn good. You wont EVER see apple having a compatibility environment for the APPLE (6502 architechure ie //gs) line of computers in OS X (this didn't exist in the classic os either).

I owned several Macs with a 6502 Apple ][e Compatibility card and 1 Mac with a Pentium PC Compatibility card. So Apple has historically supported older Apple machines and even Windows as best they could during big transitions.

Some of those decisions were made when Steve Jobs was NOT at Apple however, so who knows.

OH, I should mention, some of these Macs and Compatibility cards are actually STILL functional and to some extent can even get on the internet, albeit quite slowly.

I really need to clean out my attic though! LOL

 

[FightTheFuture]

what about supporting 10.5 & 10.6 simultaneously?

i'll have to agree at some level that Apple should drop PPC support for 10.6. but only with a featureless 10.6. if they could continue support for both 10.5 & 10.6 by the time 10.7 comes around, then that would make the October 2005 G5s almost 5 years old and PPC owners won't be missing out on any new features. the same people who bought those machines for the speed of the hardware would definitely be willing to upgrade by then. just an idea.

sure it seems odd to support 10.5 while supporting 10.6. but dropping support on machines that will be only 3 and a half years old while Tiger ran on G3s and iTunes 7 runs on Panther is even more odd.

 

[Bregalad]

I agree that they should drop PPC support soon. To whatever degree they have to maintain currently 2 codebases, dropping PPC support would make sense.

As everyone's aware, the thing about PPC machines, irrespective of age, is that the transition from PPC to Intel was major. It's not like changing wireless cards or memory specifications, where the amount of the code affected is considerably smaller, even in the worst case scenario.

And no one needs further reminder also that a new OS doesn't somehow automatically break old OSes running FINE on older hardware.

While I certainly believe dropping PPC now would simplify matters greatly for Apple I have two serious reservations.

1. Leopard doesn't run FINE, as you put it, on any hardware right now. Not only does wireless networking remain an open sore, it does thoroughly unsafe things that should immediately disqualify it from being called Unix. Try reading the blogs at Rixstep for comment from people much more knowledgeable than me in that area.

2. Dropping support for 3 year old hardware is the kind of thing that will prevent Apple from gaining any traction in the enterprise. Right now I feel they have an opportunity to make major inroads into the corporate world. Telling the world's IT departments and CIOs that they have to replace all their hardware every 3 years will prevent Apple from ever being taken seriously.

Let's make the last release for PPC a good one. Then we can all rejoice when SJ announces that 10.7 will be pure Intel.

 

[Stridder44]

most of my PPC machines can handle leopard and I would rather they not drop support just yet.

With Leopard certainly not, but with 10.6 yes.

 

[Eriamjh1138@DAN]

My comments:
Apple typically supports machines for about 5 years. That hasn't changed in MANY years. Tiger actually worked on 7 year-old Pismos until Leopard finally came out.

Apple slammed M$ for having multiple versions of Vista. It will NOT do the same thing with OSX. There will NOT be an Intel-only version for another few years.

Apple claimed that supporting PPC was just a click away in XCode. It's not a huge burden to support them for another few years. You are using the dropping of PPC argument that PC SW writers have used for years not to support the Mac: small market share.

My 2-year-old CD iMac runs very well. It out performs an equivalent G5 PPC. It also runs everything very well. I do not need a new machine just to get 64-bit any more than a 2GHz G5 owner needs to.

There's a great article on Cult-of-Mac about Jobs seemingly deliberate slow transition of OSX to the revolution it is. Snow Leopard is not going to be what the unsubstantiated rumors are claiming. It doesn't fit.

 

[commander.data]

I'm kind of curious where all this talk of 3 years of support and/or AppleCare comes into OS decisions. I don't think there are any statements in the warranty, OS X license agreement or AppleCare support that guarantees that the computer must be supported by any OS released in that period.

In any case, in terms of PPC support, even with a 3 year window, by January 2009, it'll really only be some PowerMac G5 owners that could complain, since the Mac Pro was the last to be launched. If x86 support is dropped than I suppose they would fit into the 3 year window as well.

However, this is all assuming that 10.6 replaces 10.5. The point I think is that it may not be the case. Based on the name Snow Leopard, I really think that 10.6 will supplement 10.5 rather than replace it. So unlike Leopard and Tiger where Tiger stop receiving 10.4.x updates when Leopard was released, both Leopard and Snow Leopard will continue to be sold alongside each other and Leopard will continue to receive 10.5.x updates. Both 10.5 and 10.6 will then be replaced by 10.7 together.

This way, whether 10.6 is Intel only, 64-bit PPC and Intel only, or 64-bit Intel only, it doesn't really matter to unsupported computers since 10.5 will still be marketed, sold, and supported. The question then is whether 10.6 will cost something over 10.5.

EDIT: In terms of Steve Job's statements on the Vista multiple version thing, I don't believe that this is the same thing. Vista is the same operating system with different features and the point is that they charge different amounts for them. If 10.5 and 10.6 are shipped side-by-side, they would have the same price point. Existing 10.5 owners could probably then trade up to 10.6 for free, like the 10.0-10.1 transition. Only new 10.6 buyers, who didn't have 10.5 before would have to pay.

 

[jragosta]

If they drop PPC support, what am I going to do with my PowerBook G5?

 

[commander.data]

If they drop PPC support, what am I going to do with my PowerBook G5?

Convince someone inside Apple to leak you a copy of their internal PPC builds?

 

[jragosta]

Now look I think that Apple should drop PowerPC support but I think that you are forgetting Apple was selling eMac with PowerPC processors to school's well into the end of 2006. There would be an uproar from schools if Apple just said "No upgrades for you" and walked off. It would be the equivalent of Microsoft dropping most PC's because they did not fit the high requirements of Vista.

King Mook Mook

How many schools regularly update their OSs? Probably not very many.

That's the key issue. How many PPC users would pay to buy 10.6? Especially considering the rumors that 10.6 wouldn't have many new features but would essentially be a streamlining effort.

Under that scenario, I wouldn't expect many PPC users to bother. And I would expect the price to be lower than $129.

But it's all just guesswork at this point.

 

[shigzeo]

i am also a ppc user: but i find tiger to be fine and no reason to upgrade to leapard and certainly to snow leapard on the g4. really, ppc users should not slow down progress in the os just for continuing to support legacy hardware.

 

[Kinsella217]

Speaking only for myself, please note that in my contribution, I specifically declared my philosophical issue with the timing in relationship to AppleCare. It was never my assertion that Apple explicitly or implicitly assured users otherwise.

"In any case, in terms of PPC support, even with a 3 year window, by January 2009, it'll really only be some PowerMac G5 owners that could complain, since the Mac Pro was the last to be replaced."

Actually, in very few cases would anyone's three year window expire in January of 2009. The iMac and MacBook Pro were announced at January's MacWorld Expo, but most did not ship until February. That nit-pick aside, of course the MacBook wasn't introduced until May and as you mentioned, the Mac Pro followed late that summer. The xServe, to be thorough, didn't ship until November.

Now this is all a matter of timing. We certainly don't -know- anything (as I write this, it's Sunday night) about 10.6, it's release date, or virtually anything at all.

My point is only a matter of opinion... Apple doesn't -owe- me compatibility contractually... I just believe that, as a matter of good business, they should afford me the ability to upgrade what I still feel is a "new" computer, even if that term is purely subjective.

 

[BlakTornado]

There are no PowerPC Macs in my house, so I could care less about it.

Would be nice for PowerPC users, but I'm not gonna complain if they drop it.

 

[rhett7660]

I know I would be mad if I was a PPC user and the next update didn't support what I was using, but my question is, at what point do you stop supporting the PPC platform? This is a serious question.....

I do think apple should get there act together and make a product that is reliable. If we are still seeing threads with people complaining about loss of wifi or wifi drops etc... they need to step up and fix this problem before moving on.

 

[SkyBell]

I see it happening like this.

10.5 dropped G3

10.6 will drop G4

and 10.7 will eliminate all PPC code.

Does that make you guys happy?