bentmywookie said:
Thank you - finally someone brought this point up. My concern over purchasing PowerPCs within the next year has to do with whether or not it will have updated versions of software to run on it in 3-4 years (I believe this is still a reasonable computer lifetime for those of us whose pockets aren't overflowing with cash).
We simply do not know which software developers will continue to put out PowerPC versions of their products once the switch to Intel is well underway (which seems like it'll be around 1-1/2 to 2 years). I personally don't want to buy a Powerbook or Powermac now and in 2 years time have significantly less software support.
My guess/hope is that any PowerPC product you buy now will be well-supported for at least another 3 years, but it's definitely not certain.
As MacSA pointed out here
MacSA said:
Why are people so concerned about a PPC Mac purchased now or even in 12 months time being "obselete" ? How many years will it take for Intel based Mac numbers to even match the number of PPC Macs - let alone significanty excede them? It would be suicidal of Apple if they did NOT fully support PPC for many years after the introduction of Intel chips.
why would developers even want to throw away an existing market until, say 2010??? Just because Steve Jobs said that they hope to complete the transition by end of 2007 doesn't mean the whole community of Mac users is going to switch to the Intel machines overnight! Except for the pros who have to have the latest and greatest hardware, most other users ALWAYS seem to wait for a Rev B or a Rev C even in new PPC based Mac models. So a Rev B Power Mac or iMac based on Intel would see the light of the day probably between mid 2007 to end 2008 or so. Add a few more months for people to contemplate and switch to the newer ones, and it's already 2009 for many Power Mac users who'd upgrade.
And because of the FUD that surrounds big transitions like this, I don't see a huge wave of Windows users switching to Intel Macs within a few months of the release. I don't know how much cheaper or costlier Intel chips are going to be for Apple, but Apple will definitely not release *high performance systems* to compete in the price range of the mass market Windows PCs (like Dell/HP etc.). Apple's sales volumes may not be able to sustain too high a price cut. You may get a lot better performance from the higher end Macs, but the price point may still remain close to the historical price points (like $499, $1499, $1999, $2499 etc.). So although you may get a better machine in the future, the cash outflow would remain the same (forget about inflation and other factors for this discussion
😀 ). And that's been the case a few years ago and it remains the same now too - someone bought a 2GHz dual Power Mac for $2499 several months ago and now someone can buy a 2.3GHz dual Power Mac (with bigger HDD etc.) for the same price.
In the WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs also said that they hope Tiger to gain a share of 50% amongst Mac users by next June - the remaining 50% would still be with Panther or Jaguar. If it takes a few years just to get people to upgrade an OS that costs $129 retail, would it take any sooner to get people to switch their costlier hardware to Intel Macs??? Even if you argue that the PPC line of Macs is nearing its end of life, it doesn't prove that users will panic and switch - they will do so when they need it and when they can afford it and when they feel comfortable with the promise of the new architecture/lineup. In the Windows world there are still millions of users on Windows 95! I'm sure in the Mac world there are many users who continue to use their Macs that are more than 5 years old (even though they may not get any software updates from Apple or other software developers, and even though it may not fulfill all that they'd *want* to do).
Software companies do know very well how tough and time consuming it is to get (or rather, bait) users to switch to the latest hardware and software. They also know very well that only by supporting existing products for a few years will they be able to convince users to trust them and upgrade to later versions. Yes, this transition does impose an additional cost to developers to develop, test and fix software on two different platforms, but the last thing a software developer in the Mac world would want to do is antagonize the existing customer base and potentially lose a lot of new customers through word of mouth (or the faster medium, Internet). Yes, they would definitely stop PPC development and support sometime, but it's not going to be 2008 or 2009!
Most of the bigger (and long time) Mac software developers would definitely continue supporting all their apps on the PPC lineup till 2010 or later. In that case it really doesn't seem to matter that a Mac with an Intel chip is coming in 2 years from now. Even in the new Intel Mac lineup, would you count on software being supported for more than 5-6 years without having to upgrade? I personally doubt that. And 2010 is still around 5 years away.
