This is somewhat old news, but Adobe announced the end of PowerPC
(PPC) Mac support with the latest release of Flash Player (v10.2) in
February. (Read the system
requirements page for Flash Player 10.2 for further details.)
Although content created for Flash 10.1 and earlier will continue to
work, anything that requires version 10.2 is out of reach for
PowerPC.
It's hard to say whether this was a push by Apple for Adobe to end
PPC support in yet another attempt to shift more of us to the Intel
side or simply Adobe's decision to abandon PowerPC to cut development
costs.
Strangely enough, antiquated Pentium 4 processors (such as the 2002
2.4 GHz version), Windows XP (released in 2001), and minimalist Intel
Atom chips continue to be supported.
With that bombshell, PowerPC Mac owners will be facing yet another
harsh reality in obsolescence with the possibility of not being able to
display some of the latest Web content in the not so distant future.
Thankfully, Apple still is giving a trickle here and there of browser
support to soften the blow for Mac
OS X 10.4 Tiger users with the late 2010 update of Safari to
version 4.1.3.
I'm simply dumbfounded that fully capable PowerPC Macs continue to
lose support and functionality with so many things that similarly aged
(and often far older) Intel machines still receive, although ironically
it appears that Core Duo Macs - introduced as long ago as January 2006
and discontinued as recently as August 2007 - will lose OS support with
the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
In contrast, there always is a silver lining - see PowerBook G4 to the Rescue for
a Die Hard Pittsburgh Penguins Fan, which illustrates how a
12" 1.5 GHz PowerBook
G4 was powerful enough to stream a live Pittsburgh Penguins hockey
game using NHL.com's GameCenter Live application and Flash Player 10.1.
It's nice that some applications still allow support for older
hardware. Hopefully this continues for a while longer before completely
capable machines are crippled even further.
Speaking of Core Duo Macs
The very last of the PowerPC Power Mac line, the G5 Quad, is much faster than
any of Apple's Intel Core Duo machines and very competitive with most
Core 2 Duo Macs. Aluminum PowerBook G4s running at 1.5 GHz or 1.67 GHz
are relatively similar in overall processing power when compared to the
average netbook with a single-core Intel Atom processor, but the
PowerBooks have dedicated graphics and are much more versatile.
While these highly capable PowerPC machines meet or exceed the
Windows-based minimum hardware specifications required for the latest
release of Flash Player, it matters not. Progress in the world of Mac
OS X tends to make Apple hardware obsolete much faster than
comparable Windows computers released in the same time frame.
There are many other examples aside from this recent Flash upgrade
that have created arguably unnecessary obsolescence in the Mac world,
but progress is progress.
In the meantime, always look for ways to get the most out of
hardware that is deemed obsolete. If you never happened to own a G5 and
don't mind the limitations of the PowerPC platform, obsolescence isn't
such a bad thing, because it certainly creates amazing values for used
equipment. I've seen
eBay prices on G5 Quads tumble down to the $400 to $500 range - and
sometimes less.
Get the most out of a lower-end machine until your needs require
more. It's the Low End Mac way.
Dan Bashur lives in central Ohio with his wife and children. He uses various PowerPC G3 and G4 Macs running Tiger and Leopard. Besides finding new uses for Macs and other tech, Dan enjoys writing (fantasy novel series in the works), is an avid gamer, and a member of Sony's Gamer Advisor Panel. You can read more of Dan Bashur's work on ProjectGamers.com, where he contributes regular articles about the PSP, classic gaming, and ways you can use Sony gaming hardware with your Mac.
