Leopard and all regular SW compatible with G5 iMac?

[kebosma]

I don't really know whether this is the right forum category to put this in, but anyway...

I want to but a G5 iMac for my parents, which I want to run Leopard on.

Now, I use an Intel iMac with Leopard, iWork and Mozilla apps etc, are all SW applications compatible with a G5 processor compared to Intel or am I going to experience incompatibility problems with certain SW you guys now?

It can make a difference in deciding between a G5 or Intel iMac.

Thanks!

Erwin

 

[RacerX]

Right now most current software titles are Universal (designed to run equally well on PowerPC and Intel based Macs). Most older software is PowerPC-only but will run on Intel-based Macs (with a slight performance hit). Some developers are starting to release (or have said they will in the future) software that is Intel-only.

Who are those most likely to be effected by the shifting tide of software developers first? High end users are usually the ones who weather this type of transition before everyone else. Average users will most likely be able to go for a few years before a shift to Intel-only software starts to effect them.

If your parents aren't high end users (and most parents who are having their kids help them aren't), then they should be fine with an iMac G5 for a few years. As you'll most likely be doing most of the updates to things like plug-ins and convenience apps, when having a PowerPC system starts to effect their ability to perform daily tasks you can start looking for a reasonable priced Intel based system for them.

Odds are they'll get two to three years out of an iMac G5.

Hope that helps.

 

[fryke]

More specifically: That iMac G5, if equipped with 1 GB RAM or more, makes a fine home user machine with Leopard, iLife '08, iWork '08 and some more software. Currently, there's almost *no* intel-only software. This will change with Mac OS X 10.6, of course, when PPC-Macs are deprecated. However: 10.5 will still be supported for some time, then.