Has Mac left behind "PowerPC" processors in favor of Intel processors?

1. Planned obsolence is Apples Buiness Plan. They really do build wonderful products but stop supporting them after a period of time. i.e. not being able to run the latest iTunes on my G5 is nuts. But I can run the latest iTunes on my 12 year old PC running Windows XP.

That's because they're both Intel programs, and the installed XP user base is enormous.

You cannot appreciate the reasons Apple abandoned the PowerPC unless you were paying attention six or seven years ago. When it was introduced, the PowerPC was superior to anything Intel had to offer. The problem is that Motorola failed to fulfill the promises it made to Apple regarding future enhancements and performance increases, while Intel continued to advance.

If Apple had not migrated OS X to Intel it is likely they would not be around today to support the PPC anyway. Would you have preferred that outcome? Sure, Apple would live on in the garages of Atari enthusiasts, but those of us who don't have the time or inclination to support that OS, wonderful though it may be, would be forced to succumb to a ctrl-alt-delete / BSOD / repair your registry / reinstall Windows life of misery.

There's nothing wrong with the G5 and it will continue to do everything it ever did. However, if you simply must have the latest and greatest software, you must upgrade your hardware. This has not changed since the original Macintosh with its 8 MHz Motorola 68000.

Planned obsolescence is Microsoft's business plan, not Apple's. Windows PCs become functionally obsolete and another copy of Windows purchased about every three years - easily half the longevity of a typical Mac. See the system requirements for Lion and ML for example. This life cycle has remained consistent and predictable for over 20 years.

Finally, there is no reason to expect Apple will be wedded to Intel forever. The world moves on, and next time it may be Intel that will have to catch up.

Appple has no planned obsolescence. They're in business to make great products yes, but it's primarily the size of the market that determines where they cut off support. When they switched from PPC to Intel, they did an outstanding job of putting years of life into the PPC based computers with Universal apps. Not only Apple but the software developers finally stopped developing anything forvthe PPC models because there weren't enough customers buying their software. Their focus went to where the future was. Certainly is sad yes that such a capable machine gets left behind though. But it's still a cranker, and though you may not be able to do all the latest, it still does what you have very capably. I have a G4 that I still use now and then. The G5 is a pretty special case because it was so blazingly fast in it's day. But the average PC or Mac starts to get long in the tooth rendering newer more complex web pages and games between the 4 and 6 year marks depending on how capable they were. The memory and bus speeds, cache sizes, number of cores, sizes of hard drives, graphics cards, sizes of supported RAM-all of it becomes smaller and slower compared to the latest machines. And web designs, software, games etc just keep getting more complex. Apple doesn't plan any of that. They have the tough job of drawing the line on where to stop supporting models when they have to make a technology leap -or they themselves will become obsolete. I have a very capable 2006 MacBook Pro Core Duo that won't run system 10.7 and I'm not real happy about it. But Apple knew it had to go 64 bit and it wasn't going to be financially feasible for them to design the new OS to run on the older machines. I'll continue using it though because there's nothing seriously driving me to replace it yet. I got six years out of it with just a RAM and hard drive upgrade and it'll probably be another 18 months or more before it's too slow.

Apple doesn't plan obsolescence and people in these forums saying that they do are just wrong.

Apple doesn't plan obsolescence and people in these forums saying that they do are just wrong.

I disagree. Planning for the development/realease of new products and planning for the obsolesence of the old products that are being replaced go hand in hand. It would be foolish to not plan for obsolesence. I don't believe Apple is foolish.

The thing is Robert, those G5's are blank books. You can install loads of different Linux OS'es, you can dedicate a machine to a specific task, like video or audio, and build an entertainment library. Will you be able to play the latest video games? No. That's what Playstation of XboX is all about. Jump in and use streaming services like Netflix or Boxee - maybe. And if you ARE interested in eventually getting on the Intel side of Apple, opt for a used Second Gen MacPro and upgrade the thing. My next Mac is going to be my current MacPro with the dual quad-core Xeons added and the RAM maxed out.

I'm not buying new again.. for a long long time. There really is no need.

John Galt wrote:

The problem is that Motorola failed to fulfill the promises it made to Apple regarding future enhancements and performance increases, while Intel continued to advance. ..

There was NEVER a Powerbook G5: the CPU ran so **** hot that it ate batteries like candy!

Apple recognized that the future of computing was getting smaller; that is in machine size! No way to improve their laptop footprint if they maintained the Motorola-IBM-Apple PowerPC architecture, so Intel was an easy choice.

Very few people give Apple credit for the whole implementation of Rosetta and the relative ease with with a hugh installed user base was able to make the transition to Intel with very few bumps along the way!

Hi Badunit. Re: my comment about Apple and planned obsolescence. I only meant that Apple doesn't design their machines so that they become obsolete at some fixed interval so that people will have to go out and buy a new one. That is what some people are claiming Apple's is up to. that's sheer nonsense. I agree with you that Apple plans for obsolescence. They do a good job of balancing development and hardware costs to cover it.

There are two major types of obsolescence. Component and Functional.

Component: When electronics suppliers do obsolescence planning, they choose the parts that will support a production run and as many years of repair as is feasible. This means picking as many parts as possible with multiple sources. Apple and every other computer supplier pick from the same pool of available components that industry offers. When they go obsolete is a function of how many design houses are buying their parts.

Functional. Functional obsolescence occurs when the demand for the function of something shrinks to the point people stop buying it. This is mostly driven by hardware and software performance in the computing world. Apple is a clear leader when it comes to advancing the overall technology of the computing platforms that people can buy. The result of them being good at that is that older models become functionally obsolete sooner.

Yes. Absolutely Apple has plans to deal with these obsolescence factors. But again, they never plan their products to go obsolete so that we have to go out and buy new ones.

Long live the G5's.

blasterdaddy wrote:

…Apple uses planned obsolenence in their business scheme…

The entire computer industry cannot survive without continued, planned obsolesence.

I find it very interesting, how much heat I got for suggesting that Apple uses planned obsolenence in their business scheme, and now friends who have a relatively new MacBook Air, are furious that they cannot install 10.8. HUMMMMMM,

Only the original MBA cannot run ML. It is now about four years old. At the time, nothing like it existed. It was clearly developed to address a particular niche market that demanded the ultimate in portability.

Your "furious" early adopter friends consciously chose to purhase a computer with 2 GB RAM that cannot be increased. For this they also paid a princely sum: nearly $2800 for the SSD model.

ML conveyes only minor improvements only Lion, and Lion is likely to be actively supported for quite some time... at least a couple more years. Therefore, the 2008 MBA will do everything anyone likely to need from an ultracompact portable computer at least through 2014. To be "furious" is simply unreasonable for a computer that will have about the same useful life as any computer Apple has ever produced.

Limited as it was, the original MBA is far from obsolete, and just like the G5, it will continue to do everything it ever did.

My 2002 dual G4 is still going strong. It's at OS 10.4.11 and the last SW Update was in Nov of 2010. I have no plans to retire it any time soon.

Yes, actually you can run the latest version of iTunes. The requirement is Mac OS 10.5.8.

same here. You can keep on using that Mac as certainly as Death and Taxes.

at least as long as your Mac meets the minimum system requirements for death and taxes:

http://www.nolo.com/products/online-will-nnwill.html

http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/iq/Install-Product/TurboTax-2011-System-Requi rements/GEN81459.html

when death and taxes are no longer supported on your Mac, then it will be time to upgrade!

Haha on the links