I just migrated my parents (late 70's, early 80's) from their 10-year old, first edition iMac to the latest model iMac. Yes, they are learning OS X 10.5 after using OS 8.6. That said, I told them not to buy any software, but to download Firefox and OpenOffice. The free, open-source software is reliable and will handle all of their modest needs. They paid less for their 20-inch LCD iMac than they paid for the original iMac. They are through with Microsoft Office, through with buying any software. Their requirements are light, but I bet most people don't have much in the way of software requirements for simple home use. They used that old computer for ten years until it died - dead power supply, and I told them it was time to replace it. (Business would be another analysis.)
It is time for Apple to pay attention to compatibility again, though. My four year old Power Mac dual-G5 will run 10.5, but probably not 10.6, which will likely be Intel-only. Thank you, Mark Snyder -----Original Message----- >To me, it looks like the game is played: Buy MS OS--whatever the latest >version. Use all MS products on it (browsers, email programs, >Office). Repeat about every 3 years. My son is pushing me to buy a >Mac. Is the situation the same with them? I see no reason to switch to a >more expensive system if I have to keep replacing them too. The old Apple was very long-term stable and I often supported clients that were running a range of Mac OSs that spanned 10 or more years. Old software ran fine on new machines and new OSs. Recently that has not been the case. Apple's transition to OS X forced changes at a much faster pace than Mac users were used to. Over about 6 years the old systems became hard to integrate with newer systems. Before we could catch a breath Apple changed processors. Now we have a situation where the old software won't even run on the new hardware. Apple is pushing us through this transition at an even faster pace than the OS X transition. Will things slow down now? Or will Apple decide that this rapid pace is better for them? ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
