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Sat, Nov 21, 2009 - 04:29 AM EST  —  AAPL: 199.92 (-0.59, -0.29%)  |  NASDAQ: 2146.04 (-10.78, -0.5%)

Apple soon to add Mac models to its ‘obsolete’ list
Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 09:00 AM EST

Soon, Apple will officially deem some older Macs as "'vintage' or 'obsolete,'" MacMerc reports. "What's the difference between 'vintage' and 'obsolete?' It's kind of a legal thing. Service parts for vintage products are only available to repair older Apple products purchased in the state of California, as required by statute. There is no difference between vintage and obsolete products anywhere else."

"After March 17th Apple will not provide service parts or documentation for these products and the items cannot be sent in as Mail-In Repairs to AppleCare Repair Centers," MacMerc reports.

The "Vintage" list:
• Xserve RAID
• Xserve (Slot Load)
• Xserve (Cluster Node)

The "Obsolete" list:
• PowerBook G4
• Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio)
• Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver)
• Macintosh Server G4 (Digital Audio)
• Macintosh Server G4 (Quicksilver)

Full article here.

[Attribution: Ars Technica. Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "Carl H." and "Jen" for the heads up.]

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Feb 05, 09 - 09:13 am Comment from: Obsolete

I'm still on my Powerbook G4 433Mhz.

Now my life is obsolete...

Feb 05, 09 - 09:13 am Comment from: El Guapo

I am now obsolete! (PBG4)

Feb 05, 09 - 09:23 am Comment from: Radius

My 1.6Ghz G5 tower is soon to be on that list, I think. A shiny new iMac for me, please! However, my G5 still works great. If nothing else, I can always use it as a space heater.

Feb 05, 09 - 09:30 am Comment from: HMCIV

I've got the last Powerbook G4 model. I'll trade it in when I migrate from the "obsolete" list to the "wow, really?" list. Well I'll think about it anyway. wink

Feb 05, 09 - 09:33 am Comment from: Ed

My imac G5's warranty expires in may. I guess I'll be obsolete soon too.

Sorry apple, can't justify buying a intel imac anytime soon.

Feb 05, 09 - 09:44 am Comment from: Rike

Ed
Wait until the Macbook touch comes out. Then pounce (no Snow Leopard puns unintended).

Feb 05, 09 - 09:45 am Comment from: ChicagoMusicGuy

Sheesh... My PowerBook G4(1.33ghz) bought in August of 2004 is still rockin!!! Oh yeah, and it has FireWire...

Feb 05, 09 - 09:47 am Comment from: DJ

Ha haaaa... my iMac G5 is still in the land of the living!!

Feb 05, 09 - 09:49 am Comment from: ElderNorm

With Apple, when its obsolete, its just that Apple does not have to keep spare parts on hand. The third party market does that just fine. It also does NOT mean that the hardware will suddenly stop working. grin

With Microsoft, all the new stuff has OLD obsolete stuff inside but its sold as "NEW". And that does not mean its going to work for you at all. grin As far as working, most MS products work best when they become obsolete..... cause support is finally at the SP3 level.

Just a thought. grin

en

Feb 05, 09 - 09:52 am Comment from: Bread

Apple innovates to early. Too early no floppy, too early USB, too early no more firewire 400... even though I never use it.

Feb 05, 09 - 09:56 am Comment from: Me

Awww, sad panda. My Quicksilver is obsolete now. Actually, I'm surprised it wasn't already.

Still runs Leopard great though and kicks the pants off any PC running the latest and greatest (such a relative term) Windows variant. Much prettier too.

Feb 05, 09 - 10:05 am Comment from: Me

Let me clarify that...

Any other 8 year old PC.

Feb 05, 09 - 10:16 am Comment from: Columbus

My 15" 667MHz Ti PB G4 is still rockin' even at almost 8 years old! Although, a new MBP is just about in order now....

Feb 05, 09 - 10:17 am Comment from: silverwarloc

My eMac that I gave to a friend of mine is still kicking butt. Installed 10.4 on it.

Feb 05, 09 - 10:21 am Comment from: Famous Grouse

Ah well, life moves on. I have a four year old Powerbook G4 sitting in a cabinet waiting in case our eight year old G4 867MHz dies. Both have been replaced with shiny new Intel machines, but only time will tell if today's machines provide as much value as those from the G4 era have. That G4 is still used daily by our au pair and believe me she beats on it - Skype, YouTube, Limewire, AIM, MS Office you name it, it's running on there. The 17" Apple Monitor still looks fine, too.

I owned a G5 tower briefly - I couldn't keep my office cool in the summer and it went on eBay about a week after the first Intel iMac's came out.

Feb 05, 09 - 10:21 am Comment from: -hh

Kind of disappointing, seeing that I got my PowerBook G4 12" in Oct 2005: this is just a total product support lifespan of just under 3.5 years

And while I wouldn't mind a MacBook Air, the Air doesn't have a firewire port, which means that it would be utter misery for moving my photography stuff back & forth between the portable machine and the home desktop.


-hh

Feb 05, 09 - 10:21 am Comment from: Richie

Does this mean my G3 Blue & white tower is obsolete?
Hate it when that happens. Seeing that we are still using it every day at work, guess Apple makes an OK computer.

Feb 05, 09 - 10:24 am Comment from: Jeff

Wow I was scared there for a minute, I was sure I would see my Preforma 6200 on that list.

Feb 05, 09 - 10:33 am Comment from: Big Al

I'm 64 years old.

I've been obsolete for decades.

Feb 05, 09 - 10:43 am Comment from: Jim

I gave my wife my 15" 1.67Ghz PowerBook G4. I still find myself using it, it's just a great computer. Leopard runsgreat on it, I have Back to my Mac on it to troubleshoot any problems she has when I'm not there... I just can't see myself ever throwing it away.

Can't say that about a similar age PC!

Feb 05, 09 - 10:52 am Comment from: Dan

I hope they plan on continuing OS support for these, because many were sold in 2006 and are less than 3 years old.

Feb 05, 09 - 10:55 am Comment from: Rudge

I use a dual 867 Mhz G4 (mirror) PowerMac at my work (in-plant print shop) and I have a 1 GHz Titanium PowerBook at home, with an old white Airport base station. Both seem to work great using Tiger. There's a few more years left in both of them.

I tried installing the earlier Leopard on the Tibook and had some with my Airport and my original iPhoto, forcing me to go back to Tiger. I've been hoping that the latest updates to Leopard may have solved those problems.

Some day I'll gladly buy new, but by then the MacBook Pro will do even more amazing things. grin

Feb 05, 09 - 11:15 am Comment from: CourtJester

I have never seen a G4 door stop yet!

Feb 05, 09 - 11:20 am Comment from: Register or Login

The only titanium notebook computer ever made is now obsolete? Must make it worth some bucks then, all original packaging included. Low mileage.

Feb 05, 09 - 11:35 am Comment from: MrMcLargeHuge

I'm obsolete (PBG4).

Feb 05, 09 - 11:52 am Comment from: Jim

Why is this news? Apple puts machines on the vintage and obsolete list every six-eight months; all AppleCare techs get an e-mail with the list when it changes.

Feb 05, 09 - 12:10 pm Comment from: Sarasota

While I still have two G4 Power Macs around, they've been obsolete for years. They're great for basic surfing, mail or music playback, but I wouldn't even consider using them for music or video editing or video playback.

Feb 05, 09 - 12:34 pm Comment from: jesus

still have my 12inch 1ghz power book as my main computer. Just slapped a new battery in it.. running 10.5++ and going strong.

Feb 05, 09 - 12:34 pm Comment from: CheekyGit

My Dual 1GHz Quicksilver is now obsolete. *sniff*

Feb 05, 09 - 12:38 pm Comment from: alansky

The thing is, the powerbook G4 was discontinued only three years ago (Jan 2006) and was presumably sold by Apple on the Special Deals page for several months after that. Apple is certainly not doing its customers any favors by placing such machines on their list of "obsolete" (and therefore unsupported) computers. It is quite conceivable that significant numbers of late-model powerbooks G4's are still covered by AppleCare!

Feb 05, 09 - 12:49 pm Comment from: Always Right

PB G4 main, but family still fires up clamshell ibook from time to time . 9 years old.
Fine (and fun) for surfing.

Feb 05, 09 - 03:03 pm Comment from: ken1w

I believe when this list says "PowerBook G4," it means the original PowerBook with a G4 (400 and 500 MHz) model

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP114

because that's the model that Apple officially calls "PowerBook G4." It does not mean that all the subsequent PowerBook models with a G4 chip, with official names such as "PowerBook G4 (Gigabit Ethernet)" and "PowerBook G4 (12-inch, 15-inch, 17-inch Double-Layer SD)" are on the obsolete list.

Feb 05, 09 - 03:08 pm Comment from: ken1w

... and to add to my post above, Apple did not add "Power Mac G4" to the list; that original model was already on the the list. They added specific models of Power Mac G4, such as "Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio)" to the list. Therefore, later models of Power Mac G4 are not "obsolete" either, just as all PowerBook G4 models that came after the original "PowerBook G4" are not on the obsolete list.

Feb 05, 09 - 03:26 pm Comment from: Mac User

Funny how my "obsolete" Mac hardware is still better than the crap PC users are dealing with today. I suppose i should upgrade my hardware more than once every 8 years, but then again, it's not like I'm a PC user who needs to fix things all the time. Macs have been largely trouble-free for me since my first beige G3 tower.

Feb 05, 09 - 04:38 pm Comment from: bizlaw

My 12" PB G4 (Leopard) is still running great, even with the big buckle dent on the front right corner from when I dropped it at the airport.

Looking at a MacBook Air toward the end of the year since my 11 year old son keeps taking my PB to play his games on. Darn, I'll just have to buy a new Mac!

Feb 05, 09 - 05:16 pm Comment from: @Richie

No, Radiohead makes OK Computer

Feb 05, 09 - 07:14 pm Comment from: Tommyr

This G4 PPC Mini (my main machine!) is no where's near obsolete!

Suck THAT Microsoft!

My ibook still works great too.

Eat me Windows!

Feb 05, 09 - 07:22 pm Comment from: Rike

My wife is still using our 400 Sawtooth under OS9 for a business application that didn't make it to OSX.

Feb 05, 09 - 08:04 pm Comment from: Cubert

Well, it looks like my PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz. and my Cube are both obsolete now.

Anyone want to donate some $$$ so I can get a spankin' new MacBook Pro?

grin

Feb 05, 09 - 08:18 pm Comment from: Cubert

@silverwarloc,

Install Leopard on it. Yes, it can be done and it is very easy. Just boot your eMac (G4 I assume - won't work on a G3) into target disc mode so it appears as an external volume on a Leopard-supported Mac. Choose your eMac as the install volume and "boom" you're done.

Use the option button to streamline the install (like the removing the languages you won't use and drivers for peripherals you won't use). I guarantee that it will run faster than on Tiger.

Feb 05, 09 - 09:20 pm Comment from: pluki7

Good thing I didn't find my PowerMac 9500/132 on the list.

Oh, wait...

Feb 06, 09 - 01:54 am Comment from: ken1w

@ Cubert

> Well, it looks like my PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz. and my Cube are both obsolete now.

I don't know about the Cube, but it's only the original "PowerBook G4" (400-500 MHz) that is on the obsolete list. All the other PowerBook G4 models had different (longer) names, and they are not let on the obsolete list.

Feb 06, 09 - 08:49 am Comment from: Cubert

ken1w,
Yeah, I figured that out after I posted, but thanks anyway!

Their list is a little bit confusing although looking at the list, I'm sure the Cube has already been listed. So, it seems that obsolete machines are able to still serve as iTunes servers, surf the web, look at photos, watch non-HD movies, etc.

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