Everything went the way you said it would. What to do if you bought a powerpc in the summer of 2006? I kinda feel left in the dark here.

I think hmurchison has this right.

I expect that the security and stability improvements will actually appear in both 10.6 and a free upgrade to 10.5.x (available for both PPC and Intel). I think the selling point (the reason that someone will pay) for 10.6 will be speed improvements based exclusively on Intel architecture – something that cannot be offered to existing PPC owners.

Expect the 10.6 upgrade to be less expensive – somewhere between $50 and $70 – and then Intel Mac owners just need to decide if they want more speed. This is a near-perfect way for Apple to signal the end of PPC without actually ending support while also laying the base for all future OS X upgrades (as opposed to security releases).

If they force PPC users by alienating them from paid OS upgrade even before Leopard still not completely de-rushed, they may really move to another thing rather than Intel based Mac.
It doesn’t have to be a Mac you know… If a Vendor plays such games to force people to do things, see what happened to Microsoft. How couple of mistakes made them lose entire user trust and sympathy.
I actually saw a Microsoft representative (reseller) use Java 6 being 64bit Intel only as an example about how Apple can’t be trusted for business things.
I better repeat: If Apple makes PowerPC Mac users mad, they may switch to other solutions. Also Linux is out of question. It doesn’t have ppc drivers (still in progress), no flash support etc. Putting customers to that situation wouldn’t be great for Apple.

Apple stated when Intel came out that they would support the G5’s for many years, I do not remember the exact number, but we are no where near it.

I agree as a part time programmer that cutting out PPC is best for apple in the long run. I also agree that this would be a significant short term mistake due to the risk of alienating those that bought the last round of G5’s, as well as those like myself that have G4’s and G5’s and Intel Macs. I am currently running OSX on most and still run OS9 on a few due to legacy software that is unlikely to change until i is rewritten in a few years.

I feel that the next OS should remain binary but stipulate that the following one would be Intel only so as to avoid bad feelings,

And though the IT world may have a 3-5 year cycle, home Mac’s have had a 5-10 year usage cycle and PPC’s were still being sold up to 2-4 years ago.

I don’t see why we can’t get a release to fix what’s been going off the rails lately that supports the same hardware as 10.5. Should Apple do that they’ll gain immense respect and good will from the IT world. Cutting off 3 year old hardware will do the opposite. A quick look at what’s happened on the Redmond side of the fence proves that. Vista cut off all but the most recent hardware and it’s being actively avoided. Yes I know there are other reasons for that, but indulge me. Fortunately Windows users can still choose XP which is supported by all software developers and runs fine on virtually any PC made since 2000.

The IT community is on a 3-5 yr refresh cycle. They understand support issues far more than the typical consumer. Which each successive release IT members in larger companies must continually rebuild and test their images to make sure things work. If 10.6 represents merely a security and stability upgrade there is nothing that prevents Apple from taking the same approach with 10.5.x. What I believe 10.6 will bring is a defined roadmap for Apple and developers. Carbon is out and PPC could be out. The iPhone, .Mac/MobileMe and upgrade development tools will all congeal into a platform that is easier for Apple to manage and easier for developers to build supporting apps. Fretting over PPC support is intriquing because eventually those PPC Macs are going to be replaced and that replacement will be with Intel based Macs. You may as well let Apple optimize the hell out of Macintel and reap the rewards after the next refresh.

I don’t see why we can’t get a release to fix what’s been going off the rails lately that supports the same hardware as 10.5. Should Apple do that they’ll gain immense respect and good will from the IT world. Cutting off 3 year old hardware will do the opposite. A quick look at what’s happened on the Redmond side of the fence proves that. Vista cut off all but the most recent hardware and it’s being actively avoided. Yes I know there are other reasons for that, but indulge me. Fortunately Windows users can still choose XP which is supported by all software developers and runs fine on virtually any PC made since 2000.

HORRIBLE idea for 10.6…Drop G4 support, maybe.

There are no new “I gotta have it” features. I don’t see what people’s hangups are given the dearth of information that we have. Most G4 Macs couldn’t accept enough RAM to make 64-bit worthwhile. I think people are stuck with the thought that this is somehow going to be another OS update with 300 new features and marketing blitz. Nope. Expect this to be the new OS X 10.1.

HORRIBLE idea for 10.6…Drop G4 support, maybe.

Yes, but that leaves all those pre-MacBook notebooks unsupported. I don’t think that’s a terribly good idea either. I think it would be all or nothing, and I think just killing off a few additional models would be added torture.

Peace,
Gene

HORRIBLE idea for 10.6…Drop G4 support, maybe.

Is it possible to have a “hot rod” version of 10.6 for us Intel owners, and a “stretch limo” version that covers both?

See prior comments vis a vis the QA process. I do QA for a living. 2 versions of 10.6 makes much less sense than one version supporting multiple platforms. If 10.6 is Intel only, then you already have your “stretch limo” – 10.5.

As for dropping PPC support, I agree completely with Ranger Jay. There are plenty of PCs in use that are supported but can’t run Vista (even though some of them are “Vista capable” or whatever they called it). At some point this will have to happen. Whether or not this is the —well, ask me on Tuesday!

Cheers!

Just because Apple may not support PPC in 10.6 doesn’t necessarily mean that they are “dropping” support altogether. I would imagine that they will issue bug fixes for 10.5 for quite a while. And just because a new OS comes out doesn’t mean that your older one will suddenly stop working…

Is it possible to have a “hot rod” version of 10.6 for us Intel owners, and a “stretch limo” version that covers both?

I think Murchison has it about right. This makes good sense from a programmer’s point of view, and the writer of yesterday’s Ars Technica article on this rumor suggested that a better-optimisized OS might have a payoff in longer battery life for present and future portable devices. But the marketing of a new OSX consisting primarily if not exclusively of “under the hood” stuff is another thing entirely. At least since OSX.1, every new feline has come equipped with some wizzy new features and interface improvements (or in some cases “improvements”) which have been promoted to make users willing to pay for the upgrade (Time Machine in Leopard and so forth). Without similar enticements in OSX.6, Apple might experience difficulty in convincing Macintosh users to shell out money for an upgrade intended to make their programmers’ lives easier and perhaps to help develop and market Apple’s line of non-Mac portable devices they sell, which might seem to be of more visible benefit to Apple than to the consumers themselves (no matter how incomplete or inaccurate such a customer perception might be). So, unless “Snow Leopard” is going to be distributed for free, as I seem to remember OSX.1 was, I have trouble accepting the part of the rumor that says no significant new consumer-oriented “hooks” will be forthcoming.

I’m in favor if bifurcating Mac OS X for now. I think Apple has pretty much given people the hint and like always people refuse to believe Apple right up to the point where Steve takes the stage and drops the “BOOM”. Hints that are out in plain sight.

1. 64-Bit Intel only Java 6
2. There’s a paucity of WWDC sessions pertaining to Universal Binary or Carbon development
3. Rumors state that 10.6 will not be feature laden. Consider this a concession.
4. The iPhone SDK doesn’t support PPC
5. Large developers like Adobe and Microsoft are eschewing PPC support (Soundbooth, Silverlight)

The writing is clearly on the wall. PPC support is going to be gone soon as in “we not waiting until 2010″. Yes this is going to ruffle some feathers but other than some tweaks to Leopard API and probably the addition of Cocoa Touch to 10.6 to support future devices PPC owners should be able to get what they need done Leopard. Most of the bellyaching will be done as a matter of principal.

Why is Apple doing this? Because even if you can easily compile a UB application you still have twice the QA work. If you decide to target the iPhone with a product now you have 3 platforms to QA. Are we having fun yet? 64-bit apps are Cocoa only as Apple killed Carbon 64.

So what I believe the Two Golden Gate Briges signify is a splitting of OS X. Leopard will be the last PPC supporting OS and 10.6 will be more in sync with the OS X platform as a whole from Xcode to the applications. 10.6 will be heavily optimized for Intel which includes SSE4 and perhaps VPRO management

PPC wasn’t an issue when Apple simply had two platforms to code to. But now we have Mac Intel, Apple TV Intel, Mac PPC. iPhone ARM. Ask yourself this “Do I want to continue to see Apple release buggy OS that require frequent stability downloads?” Folks there’s no free lunch here. OS X engineer bandwidth is finite and asking these guys and gals to produce PPC and Intel versions of OS X with Carbon and Cocoa framworks was a bit much. How many simultaneous transitions are we going to put them through.

10.6 needs to boil things down to what works across the OSX platforms. Intel is the defacto standard and ARM is the mobility standard. Three’s a crowd and PPC has to go for the sake of stabilit and security.

I can think of a LOT worse things than dealing with leopard for another year as a PPC owner. By 10.7 the legions of PPC owners will be refreshing their Macs and enjoying the sane decision made by Apple to pull the reigns back and regroup while they can. The time is perfect. The time is now.

Interesting to speculate, but it ain’t going to happen.

I read a couple stats. that suggest the PPC vs Intel user base is around 50/50. You can’t possibly consider pulling the plug on half of your customers.