Comments on: Myths of Snow Leopard 1: PowerPC Support

By: danieleran

danieleran — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:44:25 +0000

Actually the early seeds of Snow Leopard have PPC support. While including Universal Binaries for PPC wouldn’t be difficult, all the QA and testing needed to make sure that every update and delta update worked properly for the millions of different PPC Macs out there is what would make supporting PPC expensive. Given the limited benefit this would provide PPC users (who will not benefit from the move to 64-bit, but rather just slow down slightly, vs. Intel users who will benefit significantly from the 64-bit upgrade for reasons I described elsewhere), there’s no real reason to try to ship Snow Leopard for PPC users.

By: JohnSawyer

JohnSawyer — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:13:16 +0000

At first, I thought it odd that Apple would discontinue PPC support for the next version of OS X, since the last non-Intel Mac was made less than five years ago (Aug 2006–the last tower G5)–Apple’s stated full support period after date of manufacture, is five years (though they’ve fudged a bit now and then). But then I realized, as stated here, that OS 10.5.x will (or may) be supported and updated for PPC Macs, at least until Aug 2011.

As for the article’s statement:

“Apple could certainly sell Universal Binaries of the new Mail, Address Book, and iCal separately at minimal cost, if there were a significant enough market of users with PowerPC machines who wanted that.”

…Why wouldn’t Apple just incorporate such UBs, at no extra cost, into OS 10.5.x?

By: What, Where, When, Why & How much - Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - ThinkTeen Forums

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:41:11 +0000

[...] mash up of a series of ongoing articles by Daniel Eran Dilger at roughlydrafted.com Myths of Snow Leopard 1: PowerPC Support June 16th, 2008 Snow Leopard is going to be the first version of Mac OS X that only runs on Intel [...]

By: Myths of Snow Leopard 4: Exchange is the Only New Feature! — RoughlyDrafted Magazine

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:20:50 +0000

[...] 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard Myths of Snow Leopard 1: PowerPC Support — RoughlyDrafted Magazine Myths of Snow Leopard 2: 32-bit Support Myths of Snow Leopard 3: Mac Sidelined for iPhone Myths of [...]

By: SaudiMac » Info about the next Mac OS X, Snow Leopard

SaudiMac » Info about the next Mac OS X, Snow Leopard — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:56:24 +0000

[...] here are some links with information about the new cat: Apple’s official Snow Leopard site Myths of Snow Leopard 1: PowerPC Support Myths of Snow Leopard 2: 32-bit Support Snow Leopard confirmed to be Intel [...]

By: Myths of Snow Leopard 2: 32-bit Support — RoughlyDrafted Magazine

Myths of Snow Leopard 2: 32-bit Support — RoughlyDrafted Magazine — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:18:12 +0000

[...] – Mac OS X Leopard – Snow Leopard WWDC 2008: Is Mac OS X 10.6 the Death of PowerPC? Myths of Snow Leopard 1: PowerPC Support Omni Software Update [...]

By: unscriptable

unscriptable — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:36:42 +0000

“Snow Leopard is going to be the first version of Mac OS X that only runs on Intel Macs.”

Am I the only one that finds this odd (and also a bit disappointing)? I thought Apple was specifically attempting to make OS X processor-independent. First, with PPC and Intel support (aka “Universal”). Then, with ARM support in iPhone and Apple TV.

Furthermore, I assume that Grand Central / OpenCL will support multiple GPUs, not just NVidia’s, right? Then why not support great multi-core processors like PPC 6 and AMD 64 while we’re at it?

I know, I know. It’s all about the resources. But, man, I was hoping we’d finally be breaking out of the Intel monopoly. :-(

By: Avon B7

Avon B7 — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:11:09 +0000

We also lack data on how many intel mac owners are also PowerPC mac owners. That data would put things more into perspective.

I am writing this from a Tiger based G4 desktop but I also have an intel mac here. Snow Leopard will not really represent an issue for me as the G4 machine is going to stay on Tiger anyway.

By: hylas

hylas — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:59:57 +0000

I’m one of those PowerPC lovers and even though we, as a business, have moved to the latest and greatest Intels, we still have a sizable stable of high end PPCs that won’t be put out to pasture soon. We *just* “lost” quite a few G4s with this last OS (10.5.x) offering, and it would be a bit of a 1 – 2 punch to lose such a chunk of workstations (combined).
I am hoping that 10.6.x will be optimized for PPC, it would be a highly desirable update and a fitting end (EOL) for these wonderful computers.

By: davebarnes

davebarnes — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:24:31 +0000

“That means that despite the huge influx of new Intel Macs sold in the last couple years, there is still a large active installed base of PowerPC Mac users to sell Universal Binaries to.”

Maybe or maybe not.
The data that we lack is how much money people with older machines actually spend on software each year.
I suspect (I have no data) that the older the machine, the less that is spent annually on software.
But, I could be completely wrong.
But, if I am right, then developers will be quick to leave the PPC-world behind.