Is it possible to upgrade USB1.1 to USB 2.0 ?

Unfortunately, no. The only Macs with 1.1 that can be upgraded to have USB 2.0 ports are Power Macs with PCI slots and PowerBooks with a Cardbus (PCMCIA) card slot. In those cases, you are not upgrading the existing 1.1 ports, you are adding new 2.0 ports with a card.

No. FireWire and USB work completely differently. Other than for something simple, like charging (not syncing) an iPod, there is no way to connect a USB-based device to a FireWire port.

What is it that you want to connect?

Have you tried it? It may be very slow syncing, but it may work as long as the port supplies enough power to charge while syncing. It probably needs to be connected directly to the Mac's port instead of through a hub. Try it with only the iPhone and keyboard/mouse attached (no other USB devices).

Your Mac OS X does need to be 10.4.11 or later, and you should be using the latest version of iTunes.

That Mac is a bit outdated. It can still be useful, but not so much as your everyday Mac. It might be fun to put Mac OS 9 on it, so you can mess around with how the Mac world was like ten years ago. 512mb of RAM and 700 MHz G4 is more than enough for Mac OS 9.

If you want to try running modern stuff on it, you would need to get a Tiger (10.4) license, upgrade RAM to 1GB (which I believe is the max for that model), maybe get a bigger hard drive (or an external FireWire drive). You could use the current 512mb of RAM, but it would not be too much fun.

So don't invest too much money into an old G4 Mac. You'll end up spending half of what it costs to get a brand new Mac mini, and that comes with the latest Mac OS X and iLife software, the Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and NVIDEA graphics. Plus it has five USB 2.0 ports.

In the meantime, install iTunes on your Windows PC and use your iPnone with it.

I've already checked this, and I wasn't able to find where the USB controller was on a >1GHz (USB 1.1) logic board.
But the =<1GHz boards (USB 2.0) have 2 more power supply connectors (16 pins) which might be used to power the USB2.0.

So... to upgrade USB, we would have to change the controller, check if the southbridge can endure USB2 connections, and give more power to it.

Very easy 😝

Couldn't you add a WiFi router with a LAN port to your iMac and have the iPhone connect that way? That iMac has a 10/100 ethernet port which could hook up to a 10/100 ethernet/802.11g or 802.11n router. I'd check in the iPhone forum if that's possible. That would certainly be faster than USB 1.1 if you could do that. While tethering isn't allowed, I can't see why a simple wired to wireless network to transfer files wouldn't work if the software is there.

Message was edited by: a brody

Oh yes, excellent idea !

But indeed, it isn't allowed as-is by Apple. To use an iPhone OTA, the easiest way is to use some Apps like hwBrowser, but to fully use an iPhone like this, it will have to be jailbroken.

Note: The 1.0 GHz iMac G4 17-inch still has USB 1.1 ports, I believe. Only the last lineup of Mac G4's has USB 2.0.

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP94

I don't think there is any way to upgrade the built-in ports from 1.1 to 2.0.

Kenichi Watanabe wrote:
Note: The 1.0 GHz iMac G4 17-inch still has USB 1.1 ports, I believe. Only the last lineup of Mac G4's has USB 2.0.

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP94

I don't think there is any way to upgrade the built-in ports from 1.1 to 2.0.

No you are wrong, if the G4 is powered with 1GHz or more, it's a USB2.0 device (the two USB1.1 ports are on the keyboard hub). It is because the system works with the new motherboard, whatever the screen size, natively using USB2 (167MHz bus speed, PC2700 Ram, bluetooth & airport extreme, 64Mb VRAM only...) . But if the G4 is cadenced at 700 or 800MHz, whatever the screen size, it's the first generation logic board, running only with USB1.1 (PC1333, bus 100MHz, 32 or 64Mb VRAM...).

About USB ports, it's very easy, the "border" is 1GHz 🙂

Edit, hold on, you don't need to answer that. I'm doing a bit more research.

Message was edited by: a brody

OK, here's the source of confusion:

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP104

Shows the 1 Ghz 17" M8935LL/A as just plain vanilla USB, which is either USB 1.1 or USB 1. Apple always indicated in the specs if USB 2 was possible, but if no USB 2 was indicated, it is assumed to be some form of USB 1.1 or USB 1.

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP94

Shows the 1 Ghz 15" M9285LL/A as USB 2, with USB 1.1 ports on the keyboard.
Naturally if you put on a USB 2 keyboard on the machine, it would be entirely USB 2. Otherwise the bus on the machine that has USB 1.1 keyboard and mouse will only show up as USB 1.1 in terms speed. Also the 1.25 Ghz models had the same limitation of USB 2 on the machine with USB 1.1 keyboard and mouse.

Since Kenichi's post is discussing the 1 Ghz 17", he is accurate. The 1 Ghz 15" is the one that is USB 2.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/stats/imac1.0_17fp.html

"USB Ports: 3 (1.1)"

About USB ports, it's very easy, the "border" is 1GHz

Except for the model noted above. 🙂