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iLife '09 begins move to Intel-only mainstream software from Apple

Our friends over at Ars have discovered a potentially foreboding sign concerning the recently shipping iLife '09. Apparently, GarageBand's new Learn to Play feature, in which various recording artists talk about their songs and "teach" you to play them, will not run on PowerPC Macs.

In the very fine print of the System Requirements section of the iLife '09 page at the Apple online store you'll find: "GarageBand Learn to Play requires an Intel-based Mac with a dual-core processor or better." One can't help but suspect that this is the start of more of the same to come. When the architecture switch was first announced Apple went out of their way to extol the virtues of Universal binaries. But it was only a matter of time before even consumer software went in this direction. it's yet another sign that Apple sees the PPC Macs as rapidly heading for obsolescence.