Good, I always thought Micro$oft should do that with windows to keep people from using newer os's on old junkers. PowerPCs no matter how fast they are don't compare with intel based macs these days and having used leopard on a G5, this is a good move because leopard ran like crap on anything that wasn't intel based
The last PowerPC G5's were sold in the first half of 2006. That's barely 3 years old now for a computer that most likely cost a few thousand dollars at least.
This is poor business in my eye on many factors, without even mentionning how much landfill these Apple PC's probably use up once their owners find out they can't get the latest and greatest on them.
Well, I saw an albino squirrel once, so anything is possible, but it's extremely rare. Seeing a Mac in a landfill is almost as rare as seeing a Zune in public!
Computer specs are advancing year-to-year faster than ever. In 2006 I picked up a 1.6Ghz laptop with 512MB of RAM and an 80 GB hard drive for roughly the same amount of money I just spent on a 2.53Ghz laptop with 4GB RAM and a 320GB hard drive. I obviously run XP on the former, Vista Premium 64-bit on the latter. Vista Premium 64-bit would run like pure crap on the former. The point is, specs advance, and so follows the software.
Well since you're British and the Zune isn't on release here I'd say it'd would be pretty bloody rare.
You're right though - there's probably ten to twenty times as many PCs in landfills as Macs and I guess there's a reason for that. Wonder what it could be?
***
Engadget Note: As we all know Paul will come back with some variant of "Coz PCS break and are crap and Macs last 4EVA!" it's actually because PCs sell about 20 times more volume than Macs. Yo may return to your regularly scheduled reading now.
@Rask This switch to an intel based platform was announced in 2005 though. Anyone who bought a PowerPC based Mac after that should have known that the platform would no longer be supported at some point. Plus I'm sure if you ask any computer company would tell you that you should upgrade your computer after 3 years ;)
Well, thanks for making the insults easier for me!
But seriously, all you have to do is go back to my original statement. Old Macs are like antiques. Why? Because of the design. A beige box is not a collectors item (although Apple made many a biege box back in the day). A Bondi Blue iMac is.
And scarcity automatically makes something more valuable. BMWs, which have 2 percent of the car market, is always going to be more valued than say, a Buick, which probably outsells BMWs three to one (because they're cheap).
Of course, I don't foresee this same scarcity phenomenon for the Zune, I'm sad to say. Especially that first model.
I actually take a lot of my trash to a residential landfill and can state in the affirmative. I have never seen a Mac thrown away. PCs yes, Macs no. And of course, if I ever do see a Mac in the trash, I'll probably grab it and sell it on Ebay.
Sorry, I don't agree that 10.5 doesn't run well on PowerPC-based systems. I have Leopard installed on an old 1GHz G4 PowerBook and it runs fine. I strongly suspect that it would much better on a G5-based system so I am quite certain that the system resources of the older systems are not an issue.
Exactly darn right. Apple isn't going to support it because they made a MAJOR CHIP CHANGE three years ago. It's not like that's going to happen every three years. It's just an unfortunate consequence of making such a drastic change.
Tyrant Apple forces you to wholly upgrade hardware-wise, your 3 year old Mac to support their newest OS and you people still moan, whine and bitch at how horrible and evil MS is because Vista is slow on 8 year old machines (which are the only machines around with less than 2GB of RAM, which in turn are the only machines that Vista really is slow on - and cheap laptops of course).
You defend by saying, oh...we were warned beforehand, so it's ok. Seriously? Wow, just...wow. I swear to God that Steve Jobs has sold his soul to Satan and really does have a dead-loyal following. Apple really can't do any wrong.
Apple spills milk = the glass was slippery, the milk was heavy MS/Dell/Gateway/Acer-etc. spills milk = the hand is diseased, the hand is frail, the hand SUCKS!, the hand is CHEAP!
Why do all of you die hard windows fans hate Apple so much? is it because you don't like their product? you don't like their customers? or you don't like competition?
because you guys actually sound more like trolls than Paul, this sounds like a witch hunt
Wow. I don't think I've ever been to a landfill in my 19 year old life. And if I did, the Mac-to-PC ratio of discarded computers would be the second to last of my concerns. The last, of course, being the release of Windows 7.
I hate fanboys/girls, ignorant consumers, and misleading computer ads.
I use Vista, 7, XP, Leopard, Tiger, FreeBSD, s60, and WinMo.
I'm not a fan of companies, I'm a fan of their products. I'm hoping others will do the same in the future. It's best for the consumer and they wouldn't sound like idiots.
Writing this on my HP TC1100 built in 2003 (1.1 ghz). Bumped up the memory to a gig and runs Vista good. Moved on the Window 7, now it runs like butta. Pending there is no future major hardware problem, I can see myself using this machine for another 4 to 5 years.
I strongly disagree... I have a Dual 2 Ghz PwerPC G5 and have run Leopard since the morning it was released. It runs flawlessly!!!! This is the reason that I switched from PC to mac in 2004 and have never looked back.
I don't own an intel computer because the only benefit that I saw was to run Windows on it....why on earth would I want to do that!!
It does seem a bit early. My work machine is a Power Mac G5 dual-core 2.0 running Leopard. Having recently used a G3 600 with Jaguar, I'm actually quite surprised at how slow the G5 feels. I think it's Leopard's fault -- just feels sluggish, while Tiger on my 4x2.66 Mac Pro at home flies. I obviously understand the latter SHOULD be a lot faster, but the Leopard machine exhibits quite a few hangs that I am not used to seeing on a Mac. While I haven't tested it same-for-same on any specific Mac, I feel that Leopard is the first OS X release to feel *slower* than the previous one.
Frankly, I blame Leopard more than the "old" G5 technology. I'm used to old Macs lasting at least 5 years (hell I used that old iBook as my only computer for 5 years!) so this seems early. It would have been nice to have Snow Leopard be the final PPC release, bringing some speed improvements over Leopard and giving the PPC platform a few more years of life.
Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Contrary to popular belief just because 10.6 comes out in late 2009, Intel only, doesn't mean 10.4 or 10.5 running on a PPC Mac will magically stop working.
i am running 10.5 on my powerbook just fine, and although i cannot upgrade to snow leopard, i haven't seen that there are too many new features i cant live without. i will just wait till 2011 when they ship OS11 and buy a new laptop with intel
@Paul, your trolling is legendary, albeit sycophantic. By the way, your BMW/Mac analogy is garbage because iPod’s outnumber Zune 80:1…which by your account would make the iPod a Buick. Of course, if you actually used a Zune, you’d realize it’s every bit as functional as your iPod. Read: Basically the same product. Pompous ass.
@Paul a. Chapel, first let me say that you, my good sir are one of the worst examples of an apple fanboy. there are more windows computers (not PCs because the term "PC" accounts for both windows computers and macs.) in landfills because Microsoft has 90% of the computer market share, while apple only has, what (i think at the last count) 7 to 9% of the computer market share. therefore there is roughly a 10 to 1 ratio for each windows computer sold in comparison to apple computers. with more computers sold, there, should, by definition, be more windows computers in landfills.
Don't send reasonably new (or old) hardware to the wastesites if it doesn't have to. This move by Apple is pretty artificial in that respect because many of them are in use and could be used onwards. Fret not, you can still have the latest security and software updates if you install Linux :) Debian Gnu/Linux has support for the powerpc architecture, and a 64-bit-only PowerPC port (ppc64) in the works (according to wikipedia). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Architectures
Paul, I have never seen a Mac or Windows computer (avoiding the PC term since they are both PCs) at a trash dump because, well, I don't spend my weekends hanging out at trash dumps. Apparently you do.
Nice comment on the Zune! You are just so hateful towards the Zune and Microsoft, aren't you? Hate, hate, hate. All you do is spread your sad little form of hate.
I have a Dual G4 PowerMac and an iMac G5 at home, both run Leopard absolutely fine. However it was inevitable that Apple were going to leave PPC behind eventually. I think they have absolutely done the right thing. I will get Snow Leopard for my MacBook and be happy with the others running Leopard.
I've still got my working MacPlus and it doesn't even run OSX or 9 or 7 or whatever. Really, who gives a crap. I'm still running some aging G4 FW800 dualie with Tiger Server and it needs to be finally replaced (a damaged Level 3 cache) with any Intel Mac computer. Snow Leopard will force me to upgrade from a five-year-old computer. Big deal. I got my money's worth out of it running 24/7 for a few years. Oh, Apple is making me suffer terribly. Bunch of whiners. Continue running your older computers with Tiger or Leopard. It won't kill ya and you're not exactly orphaned.
If you're not running at least one Intel Mac by now, then screw it. You darn sure don't need Snow Leopard for gains in speed which is what it was designed for. If you gripers don't want your G5s because they can't run Snow Leopard, I'll take a couple of them and be happy with them running Tiger Server 24/7. For a fact, G4s do not run Leopard faster than Tiger. Leopard does seem to get more frames out of a graphics card, but overall it's slower.
1. Apple ties you to specific hardware. Nifty looking imacs, laptops, minis, but try to change a graphic card, which we know its industry most non consistent part of the machine. Thanks god you can add-on ram. Everything else soldered on board :)
2. While its OS is advertised as most advanced (i remember Steve saying 10 years on promo), it happens that 2 3 4 years old macs are stuck with old operating system. But its not just the os. Compare this to windows or linux OS, and get a conclusion yourself.
3. Software that comes along with it is also problematic, and that is most important. While people are ok without stacks, or new features in snowL, they wont be ok when they try to install newer versions of software which will require newer OS.
4. Third party software tied to the operating system version!? Plugins, addons, flash players, dvd video players.... Why is this so, read on the next bullet. Can someone find a positive thinking in this?
5. Development is awful, the developer tools are tied to specific version of OS. SDKs run on current versions of operating systems. You can develop for earlier releases on current, but you cannot develop for current on earlier release, which for developers mean, that apple has a lot of not consistent changes inside the OS. Just for comparison, you can install VS2008 on windows XP, vista, and win 7. And you can choose to develop windows mobile different version, dependent on which sdk you use.
6. Java is never current on OSX, PPC worst.
7. Advertisement of show stoppers, as improved features... "LESS call drop"!? What is this!? former version had more call drops, newer has less. buy it it definitely has call drops just less!?
Examples of apple most advanced: You cant use Xcode iphone 3 SDK on 10.4.11. (Aggravated customer of 10.4) You can throw your PPC mac G5 in garbage, thats it for G-s. (Aggravated customers of PPC Macs) 3 versions of iphone in 2 years. (Aggravated customers of iphone 1 and 2)
Conclusion: Seems that apple has no direction where to go. Proof is that you can buy a nice 3000 $ laptop with intel GMA TODAY, and nobody in apple store will tell you that major snowL feature is CUDA which works on NVidia macs aaaand some of ATIs.
I personally own 3 apple apparatus at home, and that is going to change.
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Good, I always thought Micro$oft should do that with windows to keep people from using newer os's on old junkers. PowerPCs no matter how fast they are don't compare with intel based macs these days and having used leopard on a G5, this is a good move because leopard ran like crap on anything that wasn't intel based
The last PowerPC G5's were sold in the first half of 2006. That's barely 3 years old now for a computer that most likely cost a few thousand dollars at least.
This is poor business in my eye on many factors, without even mentionning how much landfill these Apple PC's probably use up once their owners find out they can't get the latest and greatest on them.
@Rask
I have never seen a Mac in a landfill or in a pile of junk waiting by someone's garbage can. People usually keep old Macs like antiques.
@Paul
There was a blue iMac at the local recycling depot last Saturday when I dropped off my garden waste.
@Mark Anderson
Well, I saw an albino squirrel once, so anything is possible, but it's extremely rare. Seeing a Mac in a landfill is almost as rare as seeing a Zune in public!
Wait a minute... You put a $ instead of an S for Mircrosoft!!!! You're so cool!
Computer specs are advancing year-to-year faster than ever. In 2006 I picked up a 1.6Ghz laptop with 512MB of RAM and an 80 GB hard drive for roughly the same amount of money I just spent on a 2.53Ghz laptop with 4GB RAM and a 320GB hard drive. I obviously run XP on the former, Vista Premium 64-bit on the latter. Vista Premium 64-bit would run like pure crap on the former. The point is, specs advance, and so follows the software.
@Paul
Well since you're British and the Zune isn't on release here I'd say it'd would be pretty bloody rare.
You're right though - there's probably ten to twenty times as many PCs in landfills as Macs and I guess there's a reason for that. Wonder what it could be?
***
Engadget Note: As we all know Paul will come back with some variant of "Coz PCS break and are crap and Macs last 4EVA!" it's actually because PCs sell about 20 times more volume than Macs. Yo may return to your regularly scheduled reading now.
@Rask
This switch to an intel based platform was announced in 2005 though. Anyone who bought a PowerPC based Mac after that should have known that the platform would no longer be supported at some point. Plus I'm sure if you ask any computer company would tell you that you should upgrade your computer after 3 years ;)
@Mark Anderson
Well, thanks for making the insults easier for me!
But seriously, all you have to do is go back to my original statement. Old Macs are like antiques. Why? Because of the design. A beige box is not a collectors item (although Apple made many a biege box back in the day). A Bondi Blue iMac is.
And scarcity automatically makes something more valuable. BMWs, which have 2 percent of the car market, is always going to be more valued than say, a Buick, which probably outsells BMWs three to one (because they're cheap).
Of course, I don't foresee this same scarcity phenomenon for the Zune, I'm sad to say. Especially that first model.
landfill knowledge...
we have tramps posting here apparently
I actually take a lot of my trash to a residential landfill and can state in the affirmative. I have never seen a Mac thrown away. PCs yes, Macs no. And of course, if I ever do see a Mac in the trash, I'll probably grab it and sell it on Ebay.
Sorry, I don't agree that 10.5 doesn't run well on PowerPC-based systems. I have Leopard installed on an old 1GHz G4 PowerBook and it runs fine. I strongly suspect that it would much better on a G5-based system so I am quite certain that the system resources of the older systems are not an issue.
@Kelmon
Exactly darn right. Apple isn't going to support it because they made a MAJOR CHIP CHANGE three years ago. It's not like that's going to happen every three years. It's just an unfortunate consequence of making such a drastic change.
Tyrant Apple forces you to wholly upgrade hardware-wise, your 3 year old Mac to support their newest OS and you people still moan, whine and bitch at how horrible and evil MS is because Vista is slow on 8 year old machines (which are the only machines around with less than 2GB of RAM, which in turn are the only machines that Vista really is slow on - and cheap laptops of course).
You defend by saying, oh...we were warned beforehand, so it's ok. Seriously? Wow, just...wow. I swear to God that Steve Jobs has sold his soul to Satan and really does have a dead-loyal following. Apple really can't do any wrong.
Apple spills milk = the glass was slippery, the milk was heavy
MS/Dell/Gateway/Acer-etc. spills milk = the hand is diseased, the hand is frail, the hand SUCKS!, the hand is CHEAP!
@Paul - Macs are PCs too! Stop using their names to mean otherwise!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer
@CreepinJesus
No.
Why do all of you die hard windows fans hate Apple so much? is it because you don't like their product? you don't like their customers? or you don't like competition?
because you guys actually sound more like trolls than Paul, this sounds like a witch hunt
murmermer:
Their attitude, their fans' attitude (not plural. hivemind), their users attitude.
A lot of Apple's success is based on the ignorance of their customers.
@Paul
You think... an old blue iMac is an antique piece of art to be kept?
...
Jesus you're sad.
Wow. I don't think I've ever been to a landfill in my 19 year old life. And if I did, the Mac-to-PC ratio of discarded computers would be the second to last of my concerns. The last, of course, being the release of Windows 7.
@Paul a. Chapel
"Well, I saw an albino squirrel once"
Albino squirrel? Isn't that the name of the next version of Ubuntu? :P
@inno8sky, who said: "Hey shit for brains (Paul) there seems to be a significant amount of beige in apple's past."
Which is ironic since I actually said "Apple made many a biege box back in the day."
I hate fanboys/girls, ignorant consumers, and misleading computer ads.
I use Vista, 7, XP, Leopard, Tiger, FreeBSD, s60, and WinMo.
I'm not a fan of companies, I'm a fan of their products. I'm hoping others will do the same in the future. It's best for the consumer and they wouldn't sound like idiots.
To give you an example of how crazy people are about old Macs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soyburger/sets/72157594228629049/
Writing this on my HP TC1100 built in 2003 (1.1 ghz). Bumped up the memory to a gig and runs Vista good. Moved on the Window 7, now it runs like butta. Pending there is no future major hardware problem, I can see myself using this machine for another 4 to 5 years.
@Paul
Actually that's a great example of how some people are just crazy period.
If you see a computer in a landfill, someone's doing it wrong.
They get recycled.
I strongly disagree... I have a Dual 2 Ghz PwerPC G5 and have run Leopard since the morning it was released. It runs flawlessly!!!! This is the reason that I switched from PC to mac in 2004 and have never looked back.
I don't own an intel computer because the only benefit that I saw was to run Windows on it....why on earth would I want to do that!!
@Mark Anderson, who said: "Actually that's a great example of how some people are just crazy period."
Says the guy who claims to own a MacBook.
A Macbook. Singular.
I used the plural form?
It does seem a bit early. My work machine is a Power Mac G5 dual-core 2.0 running Leopard. Having recently used a G3 600 with Jaguar, I'm actually quite surprised at how slow the G5 feels. I think it's Leopard's fault -- just feels sluggish, while Tiger on my 4x2.66 Mac Pro at home flies. I obviously understand the latter SHOULD be a lot faster, but the Leopard machine exhibits quite a few hangs that I am not used to seeing on a Mac. While I haven't tested it same-for-same on any specific Mac, I feel that Leopard is the first OS X release to feel *slower* than the previous one.
Frankly, I blame Leopard more than the "old" G5 technology. I'm used to old Macs lasting at least 5 years (hell I used that old iBook as my only computer for 5 years!) so this seems early. It would have been nice to have Snow Leopard be the final PPC release, bringing some speed improvements over Leopard and giving the PPC platform a few more years of life.
@ all y'all
Please stop bickering so the teacher will give us milk and cookies after recess.
Did Paul just admit that you have to be crazy to own a MacBook?
Yes, I did.
Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
@Paul
Good show, good show.
Reference for those who didn't know.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#33XwMb/www.elise.com/quotes/a/heres_to_the_crazy_ones.php/topic:Philosophy
I think the Ubuntu release is actually Squishy Squirrel, in keeping with the alliteration and all.
Contrary to popular belief just because 10.6 comes out in late 2009, Intel only, doesn't mean 10.4 or 10.5 running on a PPC Mac will magically stop working.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvn_Ied9t4M
i am running 10.5 on my powerbook just fine, and although i cannot upgrade to snow leopard, i haven't seen that there are too many new features i cant live without. i will just wait till 2011 when they ship OS11 and buy a new laptop with intel
I've manage to install Leopard on my old Gigabit G4 (even though it technicaly can't be installed on that machine) and it Leopard runs just fine.
@UnixSysEng:
how many spaces are you using on your 10.5 system?
I noticed that when i went from 6 spaces down to 4 things speeded up quite a bit.
-j
@Paul, your trolling is legendary, albeit sycophantic. By the way, your BMW/Mac analogy is garbage because iPod’s outnumber Zune 80:1…which by your account would make the iPod a Buick. Of course, if you actually used a Zune, you’d realize it’s every bit as functional as your iPod.
Read: Basically the same product.
Pompous ass.
@Paul a. Chapel,
first let me say that you, my good sir are one of the worst examples of an apple fanboy.
there are more windows computers (not PCs because the term "PC" accounts for both windows computers and macs.) in landfills because Microsoft has 90% of the computer market share, while apple only has, what (i think at the last count) 7 to 9% of the computer market share.
therefore there is roughly a 10 to 1 ratio for each windows computer sold in comparison to apple computers.
with more computers sold, there, should, by definition, be more windows computers in landfills.
@Rask & @ Paul a. Chapel
Don't send reasonably new (or old) hardware to the wastesites if it doesn't have to. This move by Apple is pretty artificial in that respect because many of them are in use and could be used onwards. Fret not, you can still have the latest security and software updates if you install Linux :) Debian Gnu/Linux has support for the powerpc architecture, and a 64-bit-only PowerPC port (ppc64) in the works (according to wikipedia). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Architectures
Paul, I have never seen a Mac or Windows computer (avoiding the PC term since they are both PCs) at a trash dump because, well, I don't spend my weekends hanging out at trash dumps. Apparently you do.
Nice comment on the Zune! You are just so hateful towards the Zune and Microsoft, aren't you? Hate, hate, hate. All you do is spread your sad little form of hate.
@moldymac
I have a Dual G4 PowerMac and an iMac G5 at home, both run Leopard absolutely fine. However it was inevitable that Apple were going to leave PPC behind eventually. I think they have absolutely done the right thing. I will get Snow Leopard for my MacBook and be happy with the others running Leopard.
And the G4 torrent server running Tiger... heh.
I've still got my working MacPlus and it doesn't even run OSX or 9 or 7 or whatever. Really, who gives a crap. I'm still running some aging G4 FW800 dualie with Tiger Server and it needs to be finally replaced (a damaged Level 3 cache) with any Intel Mac computer. Snow Leopard will force me to upgrade from a five-year-old computer. Big deal. I got my money's worth out of it running 24/7 for a few years. Oh, Apple is making me suffer terribly. Bunch of whiners. Continue running your older computers with Tiger or Leopard. It won't kill ya and you're not exactly orphaned.
If you're not running at least one Intel Mac by now, then screw it. You darn sure don't need Snow Leopard for gains in speed which is what it was designed for. If you gripers don't want your G5s because they can't run Snow Leopard, I'll take a couple of them and be happy with them running Tiger Server 24/7. For a fact, G4s do not run Leopard faster than Tiger. Leopard does seem to get more frames out of a graphics card, but overall it's slower.
Apple is nowhere near other OS's.
1. Apple ties you to specific hardware. Nifty looking imacs, laptops, minis, but try to change a graphic card, which we know its industry most non consistent part of the machine. Thanks god you can add-on ram. Everything else soldered on board :)
2. While its OS is advertised as most advanced (i remember Steve saying 10 years on promo), it happens that 2 3 4 years old macs are stuck with old operating system. But its not just the os. Compare this to windows or linux OS, and get a conclusion yourself.
3. Software that comes along with it is also problematic, and that is most important. While people are ok without stacks, or new features in snowL, they wont be ok when they try to install newer versions of software which will require newer OS.
4. Third party software tied to the operating system version!? Plugins, addons, flash players, dvd video players.... Why is this so, read on the next bullet. Can someone find a positive thinking in this?
5. Development is awful, the developer tools are tied to specific version of OS. SDKs run on current versions of operating systems. You can develop for earlier releases on current, but you cannot develop for current on earlier release, which for developers mean, that apple has a lot of not consistent changes inside the OS. Just for comparison, you can install VS2008 on windows XP, vista, and win 7. And you can choose to develop windows mobile different version, dependent on which sdk you use.
6. Java is never current on OSX, PPC worst.
7. Advertisement of show stoppers, as improved features...
"LESS call drop"!? What is this!? former version had more call drops, newer has less. buy it it definitely has call drops just less!?
Examples of apple most advanced:
You cant use Xcode iphone 3 SDK on 10.4.11. (Aggravated customer of 10.4)
You can throw your PPC mac G5 in garbage, thats it for G-s. (Aggravated customers of PPC Macs)
3 versions of iphone in 2 years. (Aggravated customers of iphone 1 and 2)
Conclusion:
Seems that apple has no direction where to go. Proof is that you can buy a nice 3000 $ laptop with intel GMA TODAY, and nobody in apple store will tell you that major snowL feature is CUDA which works on NVidia macs aaaand some of ATIs.
I personally own 3 apple apparatus at home, and that is going to change.