Anybody Else Thinking About Just Skipping Leopard?

In article <W3V2m.2012$>, Wes Groleau
<groleau+> wrote:

> > even if snow leopard supported powerpc, people would be considering
> > upgrading.
>
> Not everyone has money to toss out that easily.

true but then those people would not likely be spending money on snow
leopard either.

JF Mezei <> wrote:

> >> Now, what about guys like me, who have an 8500, a G3, 4, and 5 sitting
> >> around, but these get booted once a year or so...
>
> My guess is that Apple uses the "software update" functionality of OS-X
> to track active users since that utility "phones home" at regular intervals.

I know lots of people who have disabled automatic Software Update checks
and rely on manual installation to update their system.

The computers are actively used, e.g. for web browsing, so there may be
other ways to detect them.

> If you are on Classic, the OS doesn't do that and Apple wouldn't know
> about you.

Mac OS 9 introduced Software Update. There hasn't been anything new on
it for many years, so many people will have turned off the automatic
checking, so they wouldn't be counted as "active" using that methodology
even if they are still using that Mac.

I don't recall offhand whether Mac OS 9's Software Update works in
Classic, but it should.

People running Mac OS X 10.0 through 10.3.9 may have also turned off
automatic Software Update checks as there won't have been anything new
in recent years.

Software Update should at least provide a pretty good sample of a high
proprotion of recent Macs. That can be supplemented with evidence from
elsewhere to estimate the total number of "active" Macs.

> The information on active users is important to Apple in terms of
> knowing whether to continue to issue patches for verstion combinations
> of OS/hardware.

Indeed, and it doesn't matter if people running 10.3 and earlier have
turned off automatic checks, because Apple is already not supporting
those systems.

> For instance, if it sees a LOT of people still on Tiger on a G3, it will
> make sure that Itunes updates will be avaialble for that combination and
> not be compiled with switches that make Itunes no longer compatible with
> a G3. It did that for Iwork and Ilife which now require more modern
> processor and I suspect the next Iwork/Ilife might be Intel only because
> they will require features in Leopard or perhaps even Snow leopard.

Requiring Leopard doesn't mean it has to be Intel only. It would cut out
G3s, so they could build it to require a G4 processor and always be able
to use the vector unit.

I can't see any justification for a general purpose productivity
application like iWork to require Snow Leopard or an Intel processor,
both of which are mainly speed improvements.

I think Leopard on a G4 is a reasonable minimum requirement for the next
version of iWork. There may be a fair number of Tiger users who would
upgrade to a new version of iWork, but Apple is likely to take the
position that someone who hasn't upgraded their operating system in more
than two years is unlikely to be buying new software, or use it as a
small incentive to encourage an OS upgrade.

iLife has more performance dependent features, but it would be premature
to require Snow Leopard if the next iLife version is released while
Leopard still has a significant market share.

For comparison:

iLife '04 (Jan 2004) requires 10.2 (superseded Oct 2003)
iLife '05 (Jan 2005) requires 10.3 (released Oct 2003)
iLife '06 (Jan 2006) requires 10.3 (superseded Apr 2005)
iLife '08 (Aug 2007) requires 10.4 (released Apr 2005)
iLife '09 (Jan 2009) requires 10.5 (released Sep 2007)

iWork '05 (Jan 2005?) requires 10.3 (released Oct 2003)

iWork '08 (Aug 2007) requires 10.4 (released Apr 2005)
iWork '09 (Jan 2009) requires 10.4 (superseded Sep 2007)

I don't have a copy of iWork '06 but I expect it requires 10.3.

--
David Empson

David Empson wrote:


> I know lots of people who have disabled automatic Software Update checks
> and rely on manual installation to update their system.

Thos would still get "seen" by Apple and counted as active. Apple may
set some interval to define "active" such as someone who does an update
check every 2 months for instance.


> Mac OS 9 introduced Software Update.

I think Apple has now forgotten about Classic. There would have been a
time early in the life of OS-X where Apple might have monitored
migration rate of Classic to OS-X, but they may have done so by
measuring sales of OS-X media, which, in the Apple environment, would
have applied only to customers running Power based machines with Classic
already installed. Sales of new computers would come with OS-X
pre-installed and not require separate purchase of OS-X.

This transition is pretty much over from Apple's point of view. People
still on Classic are likely to be buying a totally new machine when they
decide to migrate to OS-X and be considered "new" customers by Apple.

One needs to consider that when OS-X was unveiled, Apple's market share
in both installed base and available applications started basically at
0. The "managed by accountants" era at Apple had decimated the company.

Jobs managed to build a totally new ecosystem with OS-X, with new
applications, and more importantly, started to attract new converts to
the church of Apple. Because the original remaining installed based had
dwindled, it didn't take that long for the new members of the Apple
religion to outnumber the old ones.

The conversion from Classic to OS-X, and support of Classic apps on OS-X
was very important in the early days of OS-X since there was little
software available on OS-X. But now, this was fixed quickly enough and
support for Classic was no longer felt necessary when Apple went to Intel.

So at this point in time, all that Apple would be interested in are OS-X
users at various versions and platforms and what software they have.
Remember that every time my Mac "phones home" it tells daddy what Apple
software I have on it. It knows I have iWork and Ilife on a Mac Pro
running 10.5.7 and probably knows even more about me, perhaps even what
underwear I am wearing. (must remember to disconnect the camera when
doing software updates :-) :-)

At one point, I was interested in buying Ilife and a DVD writer to
upgrade my G3, but ilife was already restricted to G4 and above only.
This is perhaps a self fulfulling prophecy. Whever I was doing software
upgrade, I was telling Apple I was on A G3 and didn't have iLife, so
Apple would have statistics showing that very few G3 users had Ilife, so
it was OK to stop supporting it.


The current upgrade path that will include Ilife and Iwork when one goes
from Tiger to Snow Leopard will be a great marketing coup since it will
allow Apple to make great claims about sales of Iwork quadrupling (or
whatever) and its market share against Office greatly improving.

Apple will also be able to brag about upgrades to Snow Leopard being far
cheaper than upgrades to WIndows 7 *and* buying Office.


> Indeed, and it doesn't matter if people running 10.3 and earlier have
> turned off automatic checks, because Apple is already not supporting
> those systems.

Lets be blunt here. From the user's perspective. membership to the Apple
religion is pretty much permanent. People tend to remain loyal to Apple
once they've tasted the forbidden fruit.

But from Apple's perspective, membership to the religion requires that
you have a relatively recent machine or at least "sign in" regularly
with Software Update to signal you still are loyal to the Church of the
Apple and read Jobs 314 regularly :-)

Apple knows that deep down, the guy who is still on a 604 with Classic
8.6 will eventually upgrade to OS-X and buy a new Intel mac when they
have the money. But as long as they don't have the money, they represent
0 oportunity for sales at Apple.

And lets face it: Both OS-X and Windows have reached a fairly stable
level of functionality as far as the OS is concerned and what is being
added are bells and whistles. In such a mode, it becomes increasingly
difficult to convince someone to part with money to upgrade (Windows-XP
to Vista is a perfect example).

The software ecosystem is what really drives things. When you look at
most of the software, it requires 10.3 or more often 10.4. If hardware
requirements have not changed between 10.1 and 10.4 (as I recall G3 was
minimum requirement all along), someone still below 10.4 woudl likely
not be interested in buying software upgrades or install new
applications, or are abandonning their machine. OR, they may have bought
a new Intel Mac and keeping their old one only to run some Classic
applications.


> I can't see any justification for a general purpose productivity
> application like iWork to require Snow Leopard or an Intel processor,
> both of which are mainly speed improvements.

As I recall during the recent Keynote, Apple outlined some new features
for some applications that would be enabled only on Snow Leopard (I
think stuff like the cover flow and quicklook). That would mean that at
this point in time, the applications would have conditional code enabled
only on modern version of OS-X. How long this would last, I don't know.

> I think Leopard on a G4 is a reasonable minimum requirement for the next
> version of iWork. There may be a fair number of Tiger users who would
> upgrade to a new version of iWork, but Apple is likely to take the
> position that someone who hasn't upgraded their operating system in more
> than two years is unlikely to be buying new software, or use it as a
> small incentive to encourage an OS upgrade.

The problem here is that Tiger is the last version for G3 users who
cannot upgrade even if they want. Apple would have a good idea of how
many such people there are and would have decided it isn't a market big
enough to cater to, and that a good enough percentage of them could be
coaxed into buying a new mac to get the software they need.



> iLife has more performance dependent features, but it would be premature
> to require Snow Leopard if the next iLife version is released while
> Leopard still has a significant market share.

Consider that it will be cheaper to upgrade to Snow Leopard from Tiger
than just buying Ilife and Iwork. So it looks to me like Apple will be
providing strong incentive for Tiger users to upgrade.

However, since it is the end of the line for PowerPC, Apple will have to
make an interesting decision on whether to continue to produce iLife and
Iwork for PowerPc Leopard/Tiger or just issue patches to make slight
upgrades to make the output files compatible with the newer versions.


> iLife '08 (Aug 2007) requires 10.4 (released Apr 2005)

Also required G4. I was not able to buy Ilife 08 nor Iwork for my G3
running Tiger.

In article <dxizd0mOwXzR-pn2-qToWjU48xxPT@localhost>,
"John Varela" <> wrote:

> On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:22:04 UTC, nospam <>
> wrote:
>
> > right *now* over
> > 80% of macs are intel and that number is only going up.
>
> Where does that statistic come from? How does anyone know how many
> people out there are running older Macs?
>
> 50% of the Macs in this household are PPC.

67% of the Macs in this household are PPC. If Apple had matte displays
available on anything except 17 inch laptops, that would change to 100%
Intel Macs. If matte is not available, then 67% of the OS X machines in
this household will be running on something other than Apple hardware.

But, skip Leopard? No way. It works just fine on my 15 inch 1.25 GHz G4
Powerbook .

--
http://www.ericlindsay.com

nospam <> wrote:

> In article <1j27z3r.1mjr8y31pfan0iN%>, David
> Empson <> wrote:
>
> > It wouldn't surprise me if all 10.4 support from Apple (e.g. iTunes,
> > QuickTime and iWork) is gone within a year of Snow Leopard's release,
> > and third party support will also be drying up.
>
> usually apple supports one version back, so 10.4 support will probably
> be gone except for maybe a major security update while 10.5 will get
> security updates for a while.

The pattern around the release of 10.5 went like this:

Sep 2007
- 10.5 released

Nov 2007
- Final numbered update for 10.4 (10.4.11)
- Final security update for 10.3 (2007-008)

Jun 2008
- Final iTunes update which supported 10.3 (7.7.1)
- Final QuickTime update which supported 10.3 (7.5)

There was a similar pattern around the release of 10.3 and 10.4, at
least for numbered updates of the previous system (10.2.8 was almost
coincident with 10.3, as was 10.3.9 with 10.4). My recollection is that
security updates for the second preceding version stopped at the same
time.

I don't recall the exact timing of iTunes and QuickTime updates ceasing
support for 10.2 and earlier.

Given the significant number of Tiger users out there, Apple may decide
to continue Tiger security updates for a while after Snow Leopard is
released, and I would expect iTunes support to continue for several
months.

Leopard's final numbered update will probably be 10.5.8 (barring any
serious bugs), but it will keep getting security updates, iTunes,
QuickTime and minor or targetted bug fix updates until the release of
10.7.

I'm still wondering whether Apple will continue selling Leopard after
September (for PowerPC G4/G5 users who want to upgrade). It doesn't seem
likely - Apple would prefer they buy a new computer.

Safer to assume it won't be available, so buy Leopard before September
if you anticipate upgrading a PowerPC Mac, and don't want to hunt down a
second-hand copy later.

--
David Empson

In article <020720092010547950%>,
High Priest <> wrote:

> Apple is even naughtier than that. A wise webmaster will test his
> site on as many browsers as possible. So it was with great annoyance
> that I noticed my copy of Safari 3 mysteriously morphed into Safari 4
> without asking permission. Why not just deliver me a new copy of 4,
> leaving 3 untouched?

Um, Safari 4 can't be installed unless you install it yourself, either
through Software Update or manually.

Every upgrade of Safari has replaced the preceding version; they can't
co-exist on the same system because the underlying architecture is too
different.

--
Member National Rifle Association
Member American Civil Liberties Union
Member Human Rights Campaign

David Empson wrote:
> Mac OS 9 introduced Software Update. There hasn't been anything new on
> it for many years, so many people will have turned off the automatic
> checking, so they wouldn't be counted as "active" using that methodology
> even if they are still using that Mac.

I rarely boot OS 9, but I did get some sort of update the last time I
did (not counting this month when I went back to OS 9 after my Panther
partition got trashed).

> People running Mac OS X 10.0 through 10.3.9 may have also turned off
> automatic Software Update checks as there won't have been anything new
> in recent years.

Actually, I got a Panther security update not too long ago.

--
Wes Groleau

"There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over."
-- Larry Wall

Wes Groleau <groleau+> wrote:

> David Empson wrote:
> > Mac OS 9 introduced Software Update. There hasn't been anything new on
> > it for many years, so many people will have turned off the automatic
> > checking, so they wouldn't be counted as "active" using that methodology
> > even if they are still using that Mac.
>
> I rarely boot OS 9, but I did get some sort of update the last time I
> did (not counting this month when I went back to OS 9 after my Panther
> partition got trashed).
>
> > People running Mac OS X 10.0 through 10.3.9 may have also turned off
> > automatic Software Update checks as there won't have been anything new
> > in recent years.
>
> Actually, I got a Panther security update not too long ago.

Which security update was it? If you installed it via Software Update,
it should be listed in the log which is visible in System Preferences >
Software Update > Installed Updates, along with date of installation.

The last general Panther security update I know of was 2007-008, which
was released in December 2007 (shortly after the introduction of
Leopard). The last new Panther update of any kind that I know of was
iTunes 7.7.1, around July 2008.

You might have had a security update offered if you installed something
else which was a prerequisite for an older security update. Prior to
Apple doing combined security updates they did a huge bunch of smaller
targetted ones.

--
David Empson

David Empson wrote:
> Wes Groleau <groleau+> wrote:
>> Actually, I got a Panther security update not too long ago.
>
> Which security update was it? If you installed it via Software Update,
> it should be listed in the log which is visible in System Preferences >
> Software Update > Installed Updates, along with date of installation.

Well, as you may remember, I don't have a bootable Panther
right now. :-) But I _think_ I got one recently.

I do see that I put in Security Update 2009-002 on Tiger recently.
Maybe my aged memory is sitting in front of the wrong machine.

> The last general Panther security update I know of was 2007-008, which
> was released in December 2007 (shortly after the introduction of
> Leopard). The last new Panther update of any kind that I know of was
> iTunes 7.7.1, around July 2008.
>
> You might have had a security update offered if you installed something
> else which was a prerequisite for an older security update. Prior to
> Apple doing combined security updates they did a huge bunch of smaller
> targetted ones.
>


--
Wes Groleau

New “Telenovelas� Web Page
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=1032

On 2009-01-31 09:15:53 -0800, Tim McNamara <> said:

> In article < >,
> Nelson <> wrote:
>
>> Tiger works just fine for me and I have been procrastinating
>> upgrading not wanting to deal with all the version incompatibilities
>> with software I already have. And the new permission structure
>> sounds like an added headache, especially if you don't do a clean
>> install. Plus I really can't find any compelling new features. It
>> just looks like bloat. I felt the same way about Spotlight and
>> Widgets prior to upgrading to Leopard and my opinion has not changed.
>> Maybe I'll just wait for "Snow Leopard" and save myself the hassle of
>> two upgrades.
>
> Spotlight is handy and was the single most useful thing that I found in
> "upgrading" to 10.4. I've not upgraded to 10.5 as there is nothing
> compelling there for me. I'll look at 10.6 but since I own an iBook G4
> it is possible I won't be able to upgrade to it. That's OK, 10.4 works
> very well for me.

If you do own an iBook G4, you cannot upgrade to Snow Leopard at all,
or any future release of Mac OS X, since Tiger was the last OS to
support PowerPC. (Other than Leopard, which you don't want to upgrade
to.)

I find that Leopard was much better than Tiger, but then again, I
didn't care much for Tiger, so your mileage may vary.