We have a G4 power imac osx 10.5 ( but planning to downgrade to 10.4) tiger......also have a redundant new imac (snow leopard) apple wireless mouse and wondering if possible, if so how, to pair that up with the G4 imac? thanks
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wireless mouse on g4 imac ?
- Thread starter Sabrina2000
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If it's the Magic Mouse, you won't be able to use it on 10.4. It's also difficult to make the mouse pair with two different computers
It also should be noted that your iMac G4 may well not have Bluetooth, since it was during the iMac G4s run BT came in as an option. If it does have Bluetooth then under 10.4 the Magic Mouse may well not work.
You lost me at "downgrade to 10.4"..
Not wise at all. I would never run 10.4 unless it was a system without 10.5 support. With 10.5 you have an OS that still gets updates. With 10.4 you have an OS that has not gotten a single OS or security update since 2007.
Can you please help us understand your bizarre logic on this?
Hi Zen state - have a look at the thread "G4 (?) imac won't work" for the logic behind that ( in this forum,and I am the thread starter) but I take your point and if it's really not wise, maybe I'll sell it on ( I just bought 10.4 for £48. second hand boxed retail on e bay yesterday) and look for the same os instead......
currently we are 10.5.8....would magic mouse possibly work with 10.5.8?
currently we are 10.5.8....would magic mouse possibly work with 10.5.8?
As SuperJudge said yes it does. Keep in mind that 10.6 is really just a slightly improved 10.5 and was never treated like a new OS release like 10.5 and earlier. My point is that 10.5 is pretty close to 10.6 technology and capability wise.
10.5 may be a bit slower than 10.4 on some slower PowerPC Macs but the advantages it offers over 10.4 far outweigh any loss of performance. Just throw as much RAM as you can in it and 10.5 will be happy. Most of the people that find 10.5 too slow have less than 1GB RAM when than is the minimum requirement. It also seems like the iMac is a secondary machine now and that you may want to share things between them. 10.5 has much better networking protocols and makes any type of local or even remote sharing much better and more seamless.
That is incorrect. 10.6 is a massive jump forward in terms of the technology underneath the UI, the reason it wasn't so costly was because Snow Leopard didn't have many "Shiny New Features", but instead had boatloads of improvements under the hood. The reason it wasn't "for" PowerPC was because most of the improvements only matter for Intel CPUs, however the technological improvements are vast, the Interface just didn't have time to catch up, however the fact remains, the technology made a massive jump between 10.5 and 10.6 - it was just the marketable features (ie "justification") that didn't.
I was speaking more in terms of Apple mice and other common devices (what the original poster made the thread for) working on an older Mac. On a combined consumer functional use/32-bit level there is little difference between 10.5 and 10.6. A big chunk of the 10.6 advantage is better 64-bit implementation and in turn a lower memory footprint. Other than those 2 reasons I see no huge improvements at all.
In terms of the original posters very consumer needs and uses there is little difference at all between 10.5 and 10.6. At least in terms of functionality..
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There are a lot more improvements under the hood, but many of those are in terms of architecture going forward and not something you would "just bump into" unless you were developing software or messing with the guts of the OS. Again, not relevant, but here for completeness
ok, so how do I get it to work? How do I "connect" the mouse with the old G4 powermac so it will function?
and incidentally, would a windows mouse (wired or wireless) work on a G4 powermac?
and incidentally, would a windows mouse (wired or wireless) work on a G4 powermac?
If your iMac has bluetooth then just turn it on and use any bluetooth mouse. Just make sure in the preference pane you set it to discoverable.
For a wireless USB mouse it will come with a small dongle you simply plug into the iMac and you're good to go.
EDIT:
I forgot to cover wired mice. Any wired windows world mouse I have ever plugged into a Mac just works. Right click and scroll just work also.
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