Q: New to Mac.. Yes I know iBooks are practically obsolete..

1) Maximum OS is 10.5.8 (Leopard) 2) You can get the discs on eBay, make sure you buy the black retail discs that work on any machine, not the machine-specific gray ones, 3) to sync to iTunes you need iTunes 10.x which REQUIRES 10.5.8 Leopard, 4) you can use iWork which is the Apple equivalent of Microsoft Office, it's also compatible with Office files, 5) updating the OS should resolve the WiFi issues you are having, Panther may be too outdated to recognize the netowrk, especially if it is WPA2, etc.

I have a iBook G4 1.07GHz with 1.25GB, I have run Leopard on it but for a better experience I decided to go with Tiger 10.4.11 instead since it runs much faster and runs most of the same software that Leopard does. For iTunes I simply use my iMac 1.8GHz with 2GB RAM which I put Leopard on. I never have the need to sync my iPhone when I'm on the go so I can simply wait until I get home to do it on my iMac.

The maximum OS for a G3 Mac is 10.4.11, and the maximum version of iTunes for it is 8.2.1.

(63833)

There are three 600 MHz iBook models.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/ibook/stats/ibook_600.html

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/ibook/stats/ibook_600_14.html

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/ibook/stats/ibook_600_2.html

Which one is it?

It won't be able to sync with the iPhone 3GS, since it requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.5.8, to which an iBook G3 can't be upgraded.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3gs/specs.html

If you still want to use it, I would recommend maximizing the RAM with a 512 MB RAM module in the one user-accessible RAM slot.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iBooks-PowerBooks/G3-iBook/

Instructions for installing the RAM:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=111918

Does it meet the other system requirements for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1514

(Specifically, does it have DVD capability and does it have 6 to 8 GB of available space on the hard drive — you want at least as much space remaining free as it takes to do the installation, and even more is better.)

Speaking of the hard drive, what is the hard drive capacity and how much space remains available on it? If it still has the original hard drive, it is very old by now, and likely to fail at any moment.

A ten-year-old computer isn't practically obsolete. It really is obsolete, for the most part. Don't make the mistake of thinking that this little prehistoric iBook is very much like a modern Mac.

Good luck with it.

I'm running an iBook G3 for my kids, and I quote from another poster "it will struggle with todays bloated internet", and it does.

I'm running Tiger (10.4.11) and downloaded TenFourFox http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/ which does help with browsing.

I also downloaded the Flash workaround from this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/message/17679501#17679501 plus you also need to follow the instructions with regard to updating the TenFourFox browser to activate Flash from here http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1226744

So my little iBook G3 can play Flash, but it is slow, and pointless trying to watch video. For general browsing and other stuff though, it still works okay.

I think you can go up to iLife 6, and others have said iTunes 8. OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org would be a good start for word processing / spreadsheets and opens native Microsoft files .doc, .xls etc.