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What's wrong with this picture from a strategy standpoint? Since Apple sells hardware, and Microsoft makes more money on an upgrade than on a system bundled with a new piece of hardware, you'd expect Apple to degrade existing systems, and Microsoft to speed them up so they can sell upgrades.

Doesn't anybody study marketing strategy anymore?

Oy.

OS X was so damn slow in it's first versions that speed bumps were not that big a deal. 10.3 was the first version that wasn't slower than 9.x.

Dude,

The speed gain from 10.3 to 10.4 was pretty drastic, too. In contrast, MSFT has had years to "refine" their dog shit OS and all that happens is it gets more bloated and incomprehensible with each iteration. They want to keep the hardware box assemblers pimping Windows. The way to do this is to force new hardware on everybody.

The ultimate truth: No one person at Microsoft knows what's in Windows. In fact, no MSFT group does, either. That's why they can't get a coherent OS together.

Though it is true, I was really sad that the latest version of iPhoto doesn't run on a G3 iMac anymore........oh well.

I wouldn't be too upset if the "older hardware gets a speed bump" feature isn't present in 10.5. Seriously, how much more optimization can Apple squeeze out of OS X?

Personally, my first experience with X was on my (currently) defunct 15" TiBook (screen hinge, before you ask).

With 768MB of RAM, there was no speed decrease when moving to X, which I first did with 10.1. Each version thereafter improved that system until my somewhat clumsy colleague juggled it to death during its Panther incarnation.

However, Wallace Wang is correct and I made this very point in another thread several days ago. The response from the visiting Windows trolls was "what was the obsession with running on slow, outdated hardware". There are two observations here: a) if we can get Panther running on an underspec Bondi Rev. A iMac, then - by implication - that hardware is not outdated and b) why are Windows users obsessed with running on insecure, outdated operating systems.

Preach it, Brother Wang!!!

My Cube is going strong because of this very thing. I'm not even thinking of buying a new desktop yet (unless it goes kaput).

I plan on upgrading when my Cube is 8 years old - summer 2008.

I question the notion of OS X making the older Apple hardware faster.

I have 2 Powerbook G3 (500Mhz and 400Mhz) notebooks. Each version of OS X that I install on them only makes them slower. Boot times gets worse. Applications take their sweet time starting up.

I've done the permission repair procedure at least twice a day. I've also used many cache cleaners for OS X but they are still slow.

I have upgraded the ram to the max (1GB) and installed a faster hard drive on both. I know there is a processor upgrade available for the Pismos but I'll just wait for a new MacBook Pro.

I maybe the only one having the problem. They are still usable so I'm happy.

More Truth,
You are 100% correct. But, Tiger is definitely faster than Pather on my machine, and I'm sure Leopard will be even faster. Let's see how Vista runs on a 3 year old machine, let alone a 6 year old machine.

@Sum. It's not a question of marketing. It's a question of competence. MS is obviously building crap up crap upon crap. No wonder it gets more sluggish with every new version.

I foresee speed gains for PPC Macs leveling out now as Apple focuses on the x86 optimization of OS X.

macman,

On what facts do you base your ass-umptin?

The article is absolute correct. Even an ancient first gen blue iMac at 233-MHz and 512 MB RAM can run Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) and be very useable. It can even run (though officially unsupported) 10.4 (Tiger), if you use another newer Mac to install 10.4 on its harddrive. Each successive "0.1" incremental Mac OS X release was better optimized until 10.3. 10.4 seemed to be a "more features" release, and I did not notice any better performance on the older barely supported hardware. I expect 10.5 (Leopard) to be a release to optimize for Intel, so I do not expect the older PPC hardware to see significant performance improvements.

Actually, I would be surprised if Leopard even runs on PPC Macs. This will likely be the dividing line.

RE: Cheeky Git

I saw increases in performance with every release on my iBook G3 - though I must confess that I stopped using it before tiger came out (I installed it and lent it to a friend who still uses it). I am not sure why you would have seen a slowdown. I did notice that the system ran slow initially till spotlight had built it's initial indexes but then the speed came back.

With windows EVERY new release slows down the computer. My old 33 MHz Win 3.11 system felt more responsive than any of my current XP systems. The Vista beta makes my AMD 3500+ system crawl (though I am sure it will improve some before final release, I expect the same kind of decrease in performance I saw from Win3.11 to Win95).

As for the marketing angle. MS built it's empire on OEM contracts so they probably driving a new hardware cycle does more for them than do the upgrades, even though they do make 5 times as much on each upgrade. As they deal with a shrinking market share for the first time ever, they may rethink things before Vista's successor comes out (sometime in the latter half of this century).

Let's Just hope that apple's resurgence eventually eliminates the relevance of Microsoft and stops this insanity.

Well, 10.4.7 slowed my intel iMac down in a major way and i know i am not alone...

I have been keeping detailed performance records of each Mac OS X update and this is what I found out.

Overall Mac OS X has been slowing down, but the biggest slowdown occured in the last few updates of 10.3, which made early installs of 10.4 seem faster in the user interface department.

There was a slight CPU performance increase in G5 based Mac's with 10.4 because it's a 64 bit processor. As you know Intel Mac's are currently 32 bit, a step backward.

Mac OS X performance "feel" is very very dependant upon the amount of RAM and the I/O speed of the boot drive. If your not getting over 100 MB per second 4K writes under X-Bench, your crawling.

I run a RAID O pair of 10,000 RPM Raptors as a boot drive, I have edited my /etc/hosts file with huge list of blocked/banned ad servers, click registers and the like, plus using Safari Enhancer and other tricks (like a 6MB download cable) to have web pages appear almost instantly.

I never see a SBBOD.

I had an 800Mhz iBook G3 years ago, and it ran 10.2 very well. 10.3 was snappier still.

Before 10.2, it wouldn't have had Quartz extreme, so it would have had a far less snappy interface.

Mac OS 10.0 was a shaky beta release, 10.1 was a bug fix that made it suck less, and 10.2 was a pretty nice and usable operating system - even on G3 hardware. Mac 10.3 was faster still. Mac OS 10.4 added features that slow it down on older hardware (the background tasks that always run for Spotlight, mds and mdimport, the dashboard widgets eating up RAM in the background), but the convenience of them makes for a more productive computer as long as it isn't really old and underpowered.

Mac OS 10.3 was probably the best version of Mac OS X for older hardware.

Actually, I would be surprised if Leopard even runs on PPC Macs.

Then you'll be very surprised.

WOW...

Someone to speaks their mind and tells the truth - could it be that the M$ community is at long last getting feed up the the whole Windows thing and see it for what it is - A POOR COPY OF OS X (EARILY VERSION) AT BEST AND A LOT OF CRAP AT WORST!

I liked the line -"Don't even think about running Vista on a machine originally designed for Windows 98 or even one designed for Windows XP".

Dell is going to love that that one!

@CheekyGit re: Permission Repair. Worth a read. You may decide to ease up on, or cease, that activity.

http://daringfireball.net/2006/04/repair_permissions

Of course Leopard will run on a PPC. PowerMac G5s are still shipping today as there is no Intel replacement for them yet. Apple would NOT cut off it's pro line to OS upgrades. When the last pro PPC Mac ships, rest assured that the following five years of OS upgrades will be available to those machines.

My Cube got a lot faster when I put Tiger on it, and the boot times are blazing. Under 10 secs for a full boot.

I have Tiger (10.4.7) on my ibook 800mhz with 640mb of ram and on my 1.8ghz MBP with 1.5gigs of ram. I swear sometimes (as does my gf who uses the ibook and mbp sometimes) that the ibook actually runs certain apps (safari, finder, ichat, iphoto, etc) faster than my new MBP!! That little ibook is about 4yrs old and been through hell and back and still rocks. I find myself looking for the ibook sometimes cause the MBP just seems to be running too slow. That one reason is what has kept me from selling that thing.....that plus it was my first mac. =)

i just got a iMac 450mhz DV and it runs Tiger like a champ and I don't even have the RAM maxed out!

I have a blueberry 500mhz G3 imac on 10.3 and a g4 lampshade 700mhx on g3. Same ram on each. I swear on certain things my gh3 runs faster.

Not everyone is rich. We can afford the upgraded system but not a new computer. Thats why mac's are great. My imac is old and I still use imovie all the time!!!

CheekyGit -

Did you do a clean install? That can make a big difference. Definitely worth the effort.

Wow, Macromancer! You MUST have an upgraded processor and not the 450 MHz. G4 that I have. Mine boots in under a minute but certainly not under 30 seconds or even 10 like you are claiming.

What I feel like is gonna happen with the Leopard release, is that the G3 will be cut off, and it will require a G4 of 400-500 MHz to run (for PPC of course).

Is there gonna be two different versions for Intel and PPC? I would think they would save on putting both on one DVD.

To answer the fairly neive question of "Will Leopard run on PPC products?"

25 - 30 million Macs up and running in the world.
75% of those Macs are OS X capable.
>5% of all Macs are Intel-based.

Do the math - There are about 20 million PPC Macs out in the wild which could run a PPC Leopard OS. Assume 20% upgrade to Leopard at an average of $100 per copy. That's 4 million x $100, totalling $40 million bucks in virtual profit waiting for Apple to claim.

Keep in mind these are not completely accurate numbers, just estimates, and probably conservative, as my best guess is on the table.

So to answer the question whether OS X will be PPC as well - Duh.

Cheeky Git:

OS X runs best if your hard drive has a MINIMUM of 10% free space. OS X is VERY dependent upon virtual memory... the boot drive speed, free space and optimization of same... so, the better the condition of your boot drive, the better the OS will run.

Getting bigger, faster hard drives could help your PowerBooks immensely. Just pop the old drives into external FireWire enclosures and use them for extra storage.

I usually keep Dashboard disabled, since it seems to hog RAM and slow things down a bit.

Also, you need to take a look at how many extra drivers and background applications you're running and which eat RAM, hog the processor and generally slow things down.

There's also a haxie called Shadow Killer from Unsanity that disables a lot of the processor and GPU intensive eye candy that an older system may not appreciate, speedwise. I've installed it on some friends' older iMacs and it has helped!

http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/shadowkiller

About that "will Leopard run on PPC" nonsense.. There are a hell of a lot of people at Apple using PPC machines. Replacing every machine in use by several thousand people is not the kind of expense that Apple takes lightly.

-jcr

Is it really running faster or just an illusion?
Kind of like taking a placebo pill and thinking that it cures you.
Where are some hard fact numbers and tests to prove the speed increases? And what are we talking about milliseconds or ???

"Each succeeding version of Windows needs more hardware..."

Yeah, I need 10 hard drives and 33 CD players on my XP machine just to get it started. With Vista I will probably need 55 hard drives, 20 dual core processors, a terabyte of RAM, 10 keyboards, 400 graphic cards, 72 monitors and a whole bunch more "hardware" to keep it from slowing down.
LOL

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Tip: A faster, more powerful Mac makes OSX run faster. My G4 mac does not run as fast on OSX as my new MacBook pro. I guess faster, "more hardware" is the answer with Macs, too.

This is coming from a PC person at CNET saying, "Vista is a failure," From what I've read and what I have seen I would have to agree totally. Over 5 years and it still runs like crap and takes to much hardware to make it run at all.

I've still got my Blueberry iMac, and my mom has an even older Lime flavored one. They're both too old to run Tiger (no DVD, no FireWire) but Panther works great, and almost all system tasks are as fast as my dad's 2Ghz PC.

I´ve got a 2006 Ford, my brother has a 1989 Ford. I can fill mine with gas faster than he can.

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On a side note it takes my wife longer to take a shower now than 10 years ago.

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Actually, I would be surprised if Leopard even runs on PPC Macs.

Are you kidding? How stupid do you think Apple is? They're definitely not as stupid as you are, thankfully. If it's really difficult for you, use your fingers. Think of your user base as all ten fingers. Put down one pinky. The remaining fingers would be the user base you would be abandoning by not supporting PPC. You must be one of those "switchers."

Again, and more to the point: Leopard will run on a PPC-based Macs because brand new PowerMac G5s are still shipping today.

I've got 10.4 running on my Mac Plus. The only problem is swapping the 78 3.5 floppy discs that hold the OS. Still, I am really happy that I haven't had to waste money on any of those new-fangled Macs.

I performed a CLEAN install on my notebooks. They both have a 40 GB hard drive in them.

Don't get wrong. I prefer OS X over XP any day.

I guess I just have bad karma. I must of been a Windows user in a previous life.

Spark.... I'm with you! I tried to figure out a way to install 10.4.7 on my IIc, but porting over the software to 400+ 5 1/4 inch floppys was just too daunting an undertaking. Besides, it's not a mac, it's just an apple computer. I just wrapped the IIc back up in it's plastic after a nostalgic moment. Still boots though.

Hey PC defenders,

I am using my old iBook 600mhz G3 running 10.4.7

My iBook does get faster with every new version of OS X I install.

This is great.

Plus my hardware last longer.

Yes, I paid more for my mac hardare vs pc hardware.

But I have never had a virus or malware or spyware. It came with great bundled software. And now with system updates, it last longer.

Thank you Apple for taking pride in your work.

I am with zetsurin, 10.4.7 slow down my iMac G5 significantly and I am thinking of reinstall the whole os x, which should not be the way...

PC defenders note: you have been taken for a ride by Mr. Gates. He has made his billions by selling you software that has a core of the old, original DOS. Old users see something familiar when they have an all-too-common fatal crash and a black screen comes up with the :://drive C, etc. verbiage all over it. The reason so many viruses are aimed at MS software is that all MS did over the years is hang multi-chained subroutines on the old DOS core with holes in them big enough to drive a truck through!
Apples switch to a UNIX-like software base was brilliant. It makes MS look like an even bigger fool. The only bigger fool will be the people that they fool with their old shell game.

my old 233 imac is still kicking with panther and 264meg RAM. it works as well as can be expected with 6 megs graphics card, but just the fact that it never crashes, and also, has never had a virus, nor been in a repair shop says alot for Apple. it was the first Rev B imac... I was surprised because it was supposed to be a Rev A in November 1998. My old 6116 power PC Performa is still alive with OS 8 as well. On a happier note, my iMac intel with 2 gigs of RAM ROCKS! 10.4.7 is just fine with all the bells and whistles. By the way; 7 people asked me for my old imac 233 because it works so well. how many windows folks ask for a 9 year old PC?

I recently upgraded my 6yr old iMac G3 Graphite SE 500Mhz from 384MB to 1GB Ram (from Crucial).

Replaced the 30GB HD with a 120GB 7200rpm Seagate Barracuda HD.

And installed OS X Tiger.

It felt like new.

I have the impression it runs cooler too.

All you people with your tired old Macs - I am not impressed. Just shows you don´t need one. Hell, why do you think Apple makes new ones? Because they are friggin´ better than the old slow moldy ones of yesteryear that you guys are still slugging around with. "Mine runs faster on OSX" - faster than what? Mud drying? Not faster than anything Apple is putting out now. Why don´t you buy a new Mac? I sure hope you oldies don´t go around bragging that you use a Mac computer....and then fail to tell people its a 10-year old slow dog.
But if what you are using an old mac for is all you need then the new Macs are a waste for you.
Why doesn´t everyone NOT buy a new Mac? Just use that 10-15 year old door stop to surf the net, download the music and write an email.

@john T: "...how many windows folks ask for a 9 year old PC?"

Note: There are more people running Windows 95 than the total number of all Mac users. ´nuff said.

I´ve got an old Motorola Starmax 3000/180 "Mac"...it works, but I sure wouldn´t let anyone know I own it. Right now its job is not going to the garbage dump to pollute our planet, but rather hiding in a closet in the basement.

I wonder if on the Ford or Chevy Daily News sites the people brag about still driving their 1970 Ford Pinto or 1979 Chevrolet Malibu?
Hoot. Hoot!