4th generation iPod shuffle successfully syncing under Leopard

I'm posting this for the reference of anyone who is running Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.x) on their Mac and wishes to sync iTunes, or configure a new iPod shuffle, without upgrading to Snow Leopard, perhaps because of the age of their hardware. Apple's published system requirements for the 4th generation iPod shuffle (MD7788T/A) are Mac OS X v10.6.8 and iTunes 10.7 -- if true this would rule out PowerPC users out completely, Leopard being the last version supporting them.

Happily, this appears to be incorrect.

Provided Leopard is updated first via Software Update to 10.5.8, and iTunes 10.6.3 is then installed, the iPod shuffle will register and sync perfectly happily despite iTunes being slightly older than specified. In cases where the iTunes 10.6.3 update does not appear in Software Update, a disk image installer can be downloaded from http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1575 and run manually (I have seen this happen occasionally). I have tested this today on a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, and noted no functionality issues at all. I believe it may well be the case that this also works for PowerPC Macs (though I am yet to test it), in which case some promise is available for PowerPC Mac owners wanting to buy a new iPod. I also, for reference, would not be surprised if this works for the 5th generation iPod touch, which claims the same system specifications.

I have been asked about this by a number of Mac support clients recently, and so I figure this must be a general question not adequately answered on Google. I hope this might be helpful to someone out there.