SlashGear Japan
The long-predicted move away from supporting PowerPC-based Apple hardware has begun, with the company’s next-gen Leopard OS closing the door a little further on older machines via increasingly stringent spec demands. According to sources, however, Apple engineers have found that, while initially they claimed Leopard would support “a PowerPC G4 (800MHz or faster)”, tests on legacy hardware have shown it to run simply too slow to gain the company’s seal of approval.
Unlike, say, Microsoft, who’ll still let you install Vista even if your PC is struggling with XP and is going to grind to a halt, Apple G4 machines running at less than 867MHz will refuse to load the new OS. That includes the 800MHz PowerBook G4 (Titanium), 800MHz PowerMac G4 (Quicksilver), 800MHz iMac G4, 800MHz iBook G4, and 800MHz eMac.
The required specs, then, will be:
- an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 (867 MHz or faster) or G5 processor
- DVD drive
- built-in FireWire
- minimum 512MB RAM
- minimum 9GB hard-drive space
It’s expected that come Mac OS X 10.6 support for PowerPC-based hardware will be removed entirely.
Updated Leopard requirements to exclude 800MHz systems [Apple Insider]
5 Responses to “Apple Leopard OS X upgrade scraps 800MHz support”
Ty September 24, 2007
Oh, that is terrible. Hopefully they don’t begin doing what Microsoft seems to ALWAYS be doing…
NeutralBenj Edwards September 24, 2007
It’s ok. My 800mhz G4 iMac was already slower than molasses without Leopard. I definitely don’t want it to get any slower.
NeutralTy September 24, 2007
Yea, probably true if it is that way already. Time to upgrade!! :-) What fun!
NeutralJim L September 26, 2007
My eMac will become an orphan soon. Time to pass it on to the kids…
NeutralAnonymous October 5, 2007
It quite unfair only to those who cannot afford to buy Intel Macs and what that leave for G4 and some G3 with Operating system with no support??? That sound bad.
I do have G4s that networked in my house because I can only afford to buy G4s and cannot afford to buy Intel Macs. Intel Macs is over $2000-$3000 and I do not have that sort of money in my part time job. It really disappointing unless Linux have something for G3 and G4 to keep it going rather dump it and wasting away good machines.
+1