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Snow Leopard Security Update Kills PowerPC Apps Using Rosetta

katewes said:
Basically it takes 2 years for an Apple OS to become rock solid.
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Sadly, just about the time it becomes rock solid and you actually want to upgrade to it and just USE, they abandon all support for it, leaving you the choice of upgrade or risk certain software packages no longer supporting it as time goes on. When I bought a Mac, I thought I was leaving the endless Windows software update cycles behind. It's really starting to feel like I didn't. Worse yet, Apple forces you to keep updating your hardware too in order to keep software current (e.g. there's nothing wrong with my 1st gen IPod Touch except that I can't even get even the most basic software apps for it since even an App that just says "Hello" requires at least iOS 4.0 anymore and of course you can't get 4.0 for older devices, not even just a 'basic' version of it to keep those basic little apps running. That sucks. I don't want to throw out perfectly good hardware for something small like that. So much for being 'green'. :mad:
 
subsonix said:
What business owner doesn't upgrade their Word copy to a current version?

If you have a lot of your data tied to abandoned software with a company that refuse to update and maintain it. That's too bad but I don't see how that is Apples responsibility, you should direct that to the software vendor who refuses to support their own product, it's just not professional.
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You'd be surprised how old the software in some successful businesses is.

A knowledgeable business owner knows where to put the money: towards increased productivity and marketing.

Buying every update is not one of them. It's a fact and Apple needs to deal with this if they want more business users.

Only fans buy every update. Economically, it doesn't make sense.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
Problem is Apple failed to provide any warning on how long it would provide Rosetta. Apple should of also stated end of support for it that was a minimum 5 years out and an exact date for it to be phased out.
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Apple doesn't like road-maps and they certainly don't like announcing any future plans what-so-ever about their products. It's all paranoid super privacy (of course when it comes to your privacy, most big companies don't give a flying rat's hind quarter about it[/quote]. Just look at Google and Facebook right now. Welcome Big Brother!) The problem is that without road maps, businesses can't plan on or count on any support and many of them don't or can't afford to update their software times thousands upon thousands every other month. For example, many industrial level companies expect a life-span of their factory machinery in the decades-level of operational use and they don't need newer computers in many cases to function exactly the same as they were designed to. They need their software to be scaled up and easily move up to newer OS versions, etc. in many cases and that just wouldn't fly with Apple because they purposely seem to break (or at least don't care if they break) software AND hardware all the time. If a piece of machinery I bought in 2001 uses XP, it still works fine today even with newer hardware and no changes needed in software. If OS9 had been used back in 2001 or even early OSX, it wouldn't work at all and both hardware and software would have had to been replaced several times over by now (or else a large stock of computers and software would have to be kept in reserve to replace them).

Thus, the difference between Apple and Microsoft is that XP is still well supported while OS9, PPC and older versions of OSX are a complete JOKE today and deader than the dinosaurs as far as Apple itself is concerned. Apple doesn't support its hardware for more than a few years and regularly breaks software as well as hardware. They simply cannot be taken seriously by many industries and as far as I can tell, that will never change. They are a consumer grade company. That's where the money is for things like smart phones and laptops for the kiddies going to college, but it's not good for industrial level and other businesses that need their hardware to function for decade-long lengths of time, not just a couple of years. Not everything needs the latest hardware and/or software to do its job.

As time goes on, there are a LOT of cool games made that are still fun to play many years later (e.g. I still like playing many C64 games on an emulator), but just try playing certain games for the Mac that were made for OS9. If you have the PC versions, you're golden. Most still work over ten years later on the latest OS versions. You can argue the software developers should update their software, but that's not how gaming works. That's like telling the Eagles to go back and re-record Hotel California so that it can be sold on MP3 or AAC format or something. It's not necessary nor should it be necessary. Backwards compatibility modes make sense and Microsoft understands that while Apple just couldn't give a crap. So as much as I may like Apple products, there's a point where it makes more sense to buy the PC version of something (like games) because I know it will likely still work ten years from now and some games I will still want to play once in a while ten years from now. Thus, as well as Apple is doing business wise, it's never been and never will be a threat to Microsoft because they cater to completely different markets in many cases (with obvious overlap at the consumer level in some areas).
 
Nostromo said:
You'd be surprised how old the software in some successful businesses is.

A knowledgeable business owner knows where to put the money: towards increased productivity and marketing.

Buying every update is not one of them. It's a fact and Apple needs to deal with this if they want more business users.

Only fans buy every update. Economically, it doesn't make sense.
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My point wasn't that they would or should update to the latest and greatest. But that when they are ready to upgrade the hardware, an upgrade to MS Word would not be a hindrance. What could be, is if their software is not available on intel. Obviously talking about business using macs.
 
GenesisST said:
Oh, FFS! How the can I update my iMac 1.83Ghz to Lion? Get off your high horses!

I don't mind leaving that machine on SL, but, please Apple, don't break things with security updates. Just don't do security updates for that matter if you don't want to support it.

If its a bug that will be fixed, then fine, fix it.
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Exactly.

It's like in the of 2010, when the new iPods came out and they required the latest version of iTunes to be activated. That version of iTunes only ran on 10.5 or later. It's not as if there was anything special about those iPods that needed be activated with 10.5.8+ architecture. But whatever. Feel free to go on sucking Apple's teet.
 
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Official suggestion

Apple intentionally forsakes older compatibilities and does not update pretty much anything 2 years old or more even though it would be easy, very appreciated by the installed base, and even increase store revenues with increased device compatibility with spending and modern devices.

So since this is clearly marketing department driven and not technically driven, how about this. About 2 years after an OS has been forsaken, have a skunk division start sending out infrequent but targeted software updates so, for example OSX 10.3 and 10.4 (etc.) can at least recognize all devices up to 2012. They can buy whatever content is available even if it is only installable on later versions of software or hardware attached to the host device. Security updates.

This sort of thing would consume shockingly little Apple resources. Heck they could even charge $10 per download to fully recapture the costs associated.

The 2 year lag would mean early and mid adopters, Apple's bread and butter would continue to spend. Apple's trailing edgers would at least not have as much bricked or crippled hardware.

The alternative seems to have a bunch of older reliable Macs "upgraded" to Windows to "improve compatibility with Apple products". That's going to make news programs over the next few years, in a bad way for stockholders. Even though 90% of AAPL volume and sales will be iOS, a bunch of the news will be about those persons "victimized" by the "post-PC era".

Rocketman
 
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krzyglue said:
Seriously, I actually *really* like SL as an OS. In fact, I didn't even pay for Lion (free upgrade) and even still don't think the features were worth it! If it weren't for iCloud, I'd downgrade to SL in a heartbeat. It just never ever gave me problems.
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I would return my Mac Pro to Snow Leopard, except I don't want to install all the apps again and stuff like that. If it wasn't for that problem, I'd immediately do it.
 
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MagnusVonMagnum said:
Sadly, just about the time it becomes rock solid and you actually want to upgrade to it and just USE, they abandon all support for it, leaving you the choice of upgrade or risk certain software packages no longer supporting it as time goes on. When I bought a Mac, I thought I was leaving the endless Windows software update cycles behind. It's really starting to feel like I didn't. Worse yet, Apple forces you to keep updating your hardware too in order to keep software current (e.g. there's nothing wrong with my 1st gen IPod Touch except that I can't even get even the most basic software apps for it since even an App that just says "Hello" requires at least iOS 4.0 anymore and of course you can't get 4.0 for older devices, not even just a 'basic' version of it to keep those basic little apps running. That sucks. I don't want to throw out perfectly good hardware for something small like that. So much for being 'green'. :mad:
Click to expand...

Not just that. Why does the first gen iPhone not run iOS 4 but the 3G does? Unless iOS 4 needs the 3G chip I don't really see the reason, as pretty much everything else is the same.
 
I read about the problem with PowerPC yesterday. I ran system profiler to find all the PowerPC apps. I then threw them in the trash. Amoung the apps:

Quicken 2004
Canon Utilities
Appleworks
an old version of iWorks
(I purchased a family pack for iWorks 4 – it works fine, I use Sun’s Open Office because it’s compatible with Open Office on linux)
World Book 2004, I don’t use this anymore, and it’s 1 Gbyte
Setup Assisant – what’s that?
iPod Software Updater – I should test my iPod to see if it works!
EarthLink Total Access – what’s that?
Asia Text Extras – I need French, but not Japanese
AirPort Setup Assistant for Graphite and Snow
Adobe Reader Download Manager
Netscape
Marble Blast Gold – what on earth is this?
Photoshop G5 Update
Emergency Records Organizer
LaCie Backup Support v1.1.2
Welcome to Panther.app
/Library/Application Support/Privilege/Common/License Manager
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaEmbedding.framework
- what’s that?
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/LiveType.framework
/Library/Frameworks/SMK* – what are they?
/Library/Frameworks/WBHomeScreen.framework
/Library/Frameworks/WBMediaProvider.framework

they are backed up on Time Machine
 
PowerPC apps

subsonix said:
Probably the wrong approach. Apple released a new update, hours after.
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yeah but I don't use them anymore
Appleworks - I use OpenOffice
Canon Utilities - I don't think I ever used them
World Book - this was a GByte
iPod Updater - I tested my iPod - it works fine
EarthLink Total - I live here like totally
Marble Blast Gold - it's a game I never played
Quicken 2004 - I bought it then didn't use it
 
subsonix said:
My point wasn't that they would or should update to the latest and greatest. But that when they are ready to upgrade the hardware, an upgrade to MS Word would not be a hindrance.
Click to expand...

It certainly would be if they are only upgrading one of their Macs, and didn't want to break their workflow or retrain employees.

If you have a hundred working Macs, and can afford to replace 1 per month, you might not want to touch any of the software for 8 years.
 
firewood said:
It certainly would be if they are only upgrading one of their Macs, and didn't want to break their workflow or retrain employees.

If you have a hundred working Macs, and can afford to replace 1 per month, you might not want to touch any of the software for 8 years.
Click to expand...

Lot's of ifs there. Office is available on intel, what makes migration impossible is software that is PPC only. What I tried to get through here is that these software vendors should update their products to current machines from Apple, if they don't they can't be taken seriously IMO.

How long is backward compatibility of Word btw? In any case isn't perhaps MS as much at fault here, I seem to remember that you can save in Word 2003? format. Otherwise consider some of the open office derivatives.
 
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The old software thing again... I wonder whether it will ever be possible to open Claris/AppleWorks (AW) _draw_ documents on a new Mac? Having been stung by iWork's inabilities in this regard, I've no intention of using Apple products for documents which I might want to open years later. Just can't trust 'em. I understand that the AW databases are in the same situation.

If someone does know a way, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

:-?
 
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