# Rumor: Apple will abandon G3 nd G4 users as of 10.4



## zuppasch (Aug 28, 2003)

Rumor:
Apple will abandon G3 and G4 users, on the release of OS X version 10.4

10.3.x will be the last series of upgrades to support these overworked and outdated chips so, buy a G5 ASAP before your machine becomes a titanium doorstop.


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## Ripcord (Aug 28, 2003)

Rumor:

Steve Jobs was actually eaten 5 months ago by his pet Panther, Jaguar, and Cheetah at his ranch home in Modesto, California.  The Apple Board, petrified of the reaction from Wall Street and morale inside the company, have been using a clever combination of look-alikes, pre-recorded messages, and Jobs lookalikes to continue the illusion that he is still alive.

I'm betting that both of these rumors have about as much merit =)


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## rhale1 (Aug 28, 2003)

Why would our old machines become a, in my case, Sage doorstop? They still work OK, just they don't have the latest-and-greatest system. I can live with that (probably because my good ol' iMac will be 4 by then, and I'll be thinking about a laptop by then...).


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## MaC hAcKeR (Aug 28, 2003)

Apple would never... 
ANd I just got a fricken PowerBook... if they do.... GRR... then i'll have to lear myself some linux.


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## Ricky (Aug 28, 2003)

This would be a stupid move on Apple's part.

And that's why it's not happening.


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## Randman (Aug 29, 2003)

Eventually the G3 will be history, but I think that's still a very long way off. Apple would be crucified if it did something like that right now. It would totally destroy a market for it for schools, switchers, older non-tech savvy folks and students.
   My ole (now it's a back-up) clamshell graphite can still do what I want with it on 10.2.6.


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## adambyte (Aug 29, 2003)

Rumor:
Apple will rename the product line along with the update of OS 10.4. The "Power Mac G5" will be renamed the "Granny Smith Gee Whiz"


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## Funky Larma (Aug 29, 2003)

I still use a Pentium for Windoze stuff, it wont run XP but ticks away on 95 fine. 
Chips will get outdated but the software only moves along to take advantage of the newer chips. The G5 will breed a new type of software that wont run on G3 or G4's, it is called progress.
If the rumour cant be backed dont worry about it, if it is spend 5 minutes deep in thought and then dont worry.


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## Go3iverson (Aug 29, 2003)

I'd find it hard to believe that a G4 purchased today would only had about a 9 month life-span.


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## brianleahy (Aug 29, 2003)

Does anyone know why the OSX releases have cat names?   Did they use Cheetah (because they're fast) and then just get stuck?   

Makes me wonder how long they can keep it going.  There are a lot of cat species out there.  

Jaguar, Panther...   then what?  Puma?  Leopard?  Lynx?  Serval? Tiger?  Lion?  Cougar?


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## Go3iverson (Aug 29, 2003)

Puma's been used already  ;-)


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## Go3iverson (Aug 29, 2003)

Mac OS 10.4 = Chinchilla  

It's not a cat, but it's a smart, fast, agile animal!  

http://www.spymac.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=38495&size=big&papass=&sort=1&thecat=998


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## brianleahy (Aug 29, 2003)

Really?  What version was called Puma?


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## Urbansory (Aug 29, 2003)

Yea thats hard to believe. They'll just be slower than the G5, substantially slower by 10.4


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 29, 2003)

Puma was 10.0.

Apple supports hardware up to and sometimes longer than 7 years from the manufacture date.

My G4/400 PCI machine will be officially supported until 2006.  That doesn't mean that all new software will run on it, like FCP 4, but any and all OSs released up until then will run on it.

This guy's trolling or something -- he has no link to back himself up -- just pulling stuff out of the air and posting it to get people riled up.


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## Arden (Aug 29, 2003)

Steve Jobs lived in Modesto?  Where?  Why didn't I know about this? 

Apple is not going to drop support for the G3's and G4's, but we may start seeing software that does.  Remember the whole 68K-PPC era?  Originally, programmers had to program their apps for 68K code.  Then the PPC came along, and they started making FAT code, until almost everyone had PPC-based computers.  Now they will be coding 64 bit software along with 32 bit until almost everyone is using a G5+.

For the record, 10.1 was dubbed Cheetah.  I think the giant cat designations imply speed, power, and aggressiveness while something like Longhorn implies speed but from cowardness.


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## fryke (Aug 30, 2003)

_Cheetah_ was 10.0.
Puma was 10.1
Jaguar 10.2
Panther 10.3.

(Yes, I'm nitpicking.)

I'm pretty sure that Apple won't make a 64bit processor the only supported processor before the last G4/G3 sold by Apple is at least two or three years old. Take a look at the age of the newest unsupported machine by 10.3: The beige G3s. When were they last sold by Apple? (Checking apple-history.com...) Ah, yes: January 1999. That's almost five years when Panther arrives. And with the G4 processor going strong (the iBooks are even believed to still inherit the PowerBook's G4 processors when the PowerBooks get higher end G4s or G5s) in PowerBooks, iMacs and eMacs, we can - quite safely - assume that our G3s and G4s will still work with OS updates that come out in 2007 or even 2008. Okay, they might be obsolete machines by then, anyway, but hey! You asked...

I think Apple has a good 'window' open for 'currently supported hardware'. I don't want to buy a new computer every year (well, okay, I want to, but I can't...), but I also think that for beige G3 owners it's either time to get a new computer or, well, stay at either Jaguar (which runs fine for such old hardware) or Mac OS 9.2.2, which is quite a fast OS on those machines. If you want to prevent those machines from being doorstops and have NO idea how to live without the newest updates, install a version of Linux and make the thing a file-/mail-/proxyserver.


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## Ripcord (Aug 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by brianleahy _
> *Jaguar, Panther...   then what?  Puma?  Leopard?  Lynx?  Serval? Tiger?  Lion?  Cougar? *



I vote for Serval or Lynx.  Or maybe Manx =)


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## RacerX (Aug 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by zuppasch _
> *Rumor:
> Apple will abandon G3 and G4 users, on the release of OS X version 10.4
> 
> 10.3.x will be the last series of upgrades to support these overworked and outdated chips so, buy a G5 ASAP before your machine becomes a titanium doorstop. *



I think someone should replace the word _"Rumor"_ with *FUD* in this post.

Why would anyone post this? What were they basing this on?

Remember, friends don't let friends drink and *post*.



As fryke has pointed out, there is nothing in Apple's history that even suggest that they are going to drop support for the G3 and G4 processors anytime soon.


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## Ripcord (Aug 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by arden _
> *Steve Jobs lived in Modesto?  Where?  Why didn't I know about this?
> *



I'm pretty sure I had just responded to one of your messages when I posted this, and I'm pretty sure your profile was what made "Modesto" pop into my head when I was making all that up.  

So feel special =)


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## Arden (Aug 30, 2003)

Oh, I'm very special.  (Not the kind of special that my parents work with, but special in my own regard.)

I wish this old 233 Mhz beige G3 were fast enough to run MOX.  Then I could get around all those IE freezeups, disc problems, and everything.  It would make it easier for me to troubleshoot MOX problems, too, because I wouldn't have to use my iMac for that.


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## Jason (Aug 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by RacerX _
> *I think someone should replace the word "Rumor" with FUD in this post.*



i put rumor in there to make it less like a fact and more like a discussion, sorry if i offended you


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## binaryDigit (Aug 31, 2003)

> _Originally posted by RacerX _
> *I think someone should replace the word "Rumor" with FUD in this post.
> *



Actually the word "TROLL" would be more apropo.  You can't tell me that ANYONE actually places ANY truth in this, uh, "rumour".  This is so far beyond reality that I'm amazed it has received the credibility that it has.  Of course it has spawned this nice discussion about where Stevie lives and the names of cats, so I guess it isn't a total waste 

Nothing to see here, move along.  Please don't feed the trolls.


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## Krevinek (Aug 31, 2003)

Well, yeah, it would be pretty silly to drop support on the machines 1 year from now.

The Beige G3 and Wallstreets are getting dropped from OS X support, and it is curious... but they also had the last ROM/OpenFirmware that had the odd quirks in them (8GB limit for OS X partitions, etc).

It might have just been a move to simplify their support for exisiting systems. Plus it is fairly easy to support machines with OS X (CPU/Mobo kexts are used), so there isn't much reason not to... just let them know that it won't be able to do everything.


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## Stridder44 (Aug 31, 2003)

Anyone still running 10.0 has my blessing...


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## MaC hAcKeR (Aug 31, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Stridder44 _
> *Anyone still running 10.0 has my blessing... *


 AHH!!!! 10.0 ruined my iMac! It ate it... like a worm thru an apple...


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## fryke (Aug 31, 2003)

Well... Any machine capable of running 10.0 officially can be updated to 10.2.x afaik, so we're not talking about the need of staying waaaaaaay back. And imho, 10.2.6 is quite a viable operating system for many tasks - on an older machine, too.


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## Cat (Sep 1, 2003)

Right: my GF is running it on my old iBook SE (G3@366MHz): working perfectly fine. Panther is said to improve overall speed, even on non QE macines, so I suppose it will run even better, and then 10.4 ... well, why shouldn't it run at least equal to 10.3? Btw, 10.4 will only com out in more than a year or so, it's not as if they would be dropping G3/G4 support tomorrow. First of all, they would leace the G3 behind in their currently shipping products: the iBook for instance. When the G3 has disappeared from shiping products, then I would slowly begin to worry that they might drop support sometime in the future ...


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## Arden (Sep 1, 2003)

Apple still provides support for pre-G3 PPC machines, even if they don't Officially Support them with MOX and the like.  Why would they drop support for the G3, much less the G4?


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## Golfer099 (Sep 1, 2003)

The th9ing you also have to realize is that people look at my PowerBook G3 (333mhz Bronze keyboard) running Jaguar and are like oh its a mac so it must be slow -I'm loike no it's the fact that I have a 4 year old machine ruinnig the newest software available.  I have upgraded Ram and external hard drive - but it makes Macs look slow when if we took a 4 year old PC and put Win XP on it - it wouldn't even work - but yeah it could work fine woth Win 98 but my G3 would blow the water out of that if I had 8.6 running on it (even 9.2).  But I have upgraded from 8.6 to 9.0 to 9.1 to 10.0 to 10.1 w/9.2 to 10.2 - thats a shitload of Oses in 4 years and they all work fine.  So I guess what I;m trying to say is that I will but Panther 10.3 on this but I wouldn't want 10.4 on it - by that time I will buy a G5 PowerBook.


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## Captain Code (Sep 5, 2003)

> _Originally posted by fryke _
> *Well... Any machine capable of running 10.0 officially can be updated to 10.2.x afaik... *



My 9500 will run up to 10.1.5, but I have to use XPostFacto to install it, and 10.2 doesn't work with it.


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## Krevinek (Sep 5, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Captain Code _
> *My 9500 will run up to 10.1.5, but I have to use XPostFacto to install it, and 10.2 doesn't work with it. *



And my 8600 runs 10.2.6... mostly because Apple removed the ability for the kernel to boot properly with pre-G3 processors. But slap a G3/G4 upgrade in that thing, and it will run 10.2.x just fine.

The only catch is that Ryan is still looking at how to get 10.3 booting on these upgraded machines.


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## lilbandit (Sep 5, 2003)

God Arden stop calling it MOX!!!


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## Captain Code (Sep 5, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Krevinek _
> *And my 8600 runs 10.2.6... mostly because Apple removed the ability for the kernel to boot properly with pre-G3 processors. But slap a G3/G4 upgrade in that thing, and it will run 10.2.x just fine.
> 
> The only catch is that Ryan is still looking at how to get 10.3 booting on these upgraded machines. *



Well, yeah but if I'm going to upgrade a Mac it'd be my G4 400


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## mindbend (Sep 5, 2003)

If abandoning the G3/G4 chips results in uber-fast G5 integration, then I have no problem with "abandoning" dead processors. My G3/G4 machines will always run as they are now, thru Panther at least. Presumably they will easily network to any G5/10.4 OS, so I really don't care if Apple doesn't write another line of code for them.

I hate to be rude, but if G3/G4 owners can't use 10.4, tough crap. Move on, or just live with the perfectly usable 10.3 or whatever. It's not like those machines suddenly explode or stop working when 10.4 comes out.


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## Arden (Sep 5, 2003)

Why?  Do you not understand what I'm saying when I call *M*ac *O*S *X* "MOX?"

We still have another year, following the current pattern, before 10.4 comes out.  By that time, hopefully the G5 will have permeated the entire Apple lineup, but I highly doubt that the G4 will be left in the dust, though the G3 may be.


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## lilbandit (Sep 6, 2003)

I'm saying it sounds ridiculous, if you have to use an abbreviation use osx!


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## mr. k (Sep 6, 2003)

But now that IBM is developing a new strain of the G3 processor, one that is (or will become) better on in most aspects then the current G4's, I think they will still be a very good chip for another year.  I highly doubt that a G5 will make it into the iBooks within that time, and the way motorola is (rumored to be) having problems producing enough G4's for just the powerbook and iMac lines, I don't think that the move will be made to G4 iBooks.
I kinda like the G3, it's got a great name!


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## Krevinek (Sep 6, 2003)

Although the strain of G3 IBM is producing is better... I agree with fryke. A 1Ghz+ G3 with Altivec will be called a G4 by Apple. Still, a very viable processor.


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