iLife Quietly Moves Intel Dual Core Only

OSNews ^ | February 4th | Thom Holwerda

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Apple has always been about moving forward, about pressing customers to buy the latest and greatest. Product pacing has been high in Cupertino (except for the Mac Mini, obviously), and this is obviously a good thing if you're an Apple bean counter. Most Apple fans more or less accept this planned obsolescence without question, but the company may have just gone a little too far.

iLife 09 has recently been released, and among all the excitement about the new release, as well as the hubbub surrounding Steve Jobs' health, it was relatively easy to miss the alterations in the system requirements for the new iLife suite: one of the most significant iLife 09 features now requires an Intel dual core machine.

leaving not only PowerPC G4 and G5 owners out in the cold, but also the newer single core Intel machines. This means that a Mac bought in late 2006, like the Intel Core Solo, can no longer fully enjoy the iLife suite. That's only a little over two years ago.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

The built in obsolescence is moving a little too fast these days.

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

Does Apple now use the older Intel Core2Duo or the latest Centrino2 platform?

[Cyropaedia]

Ping. Mac related news...

[Paleo Conservative]

leaving not only PowerPC G4 and G5 owners out in the cold, but also the newer single core Intel machines. This means that a Mac bought in late 2006, like the Intel Core Solo, can no longer fully enjoy the iLife suite. That's only a little over two years ago.

But we can't turn off TV broadcasting transmitters that send obsolete 1940's and 1950's standard signals on February 17th.

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

It’s not just obsolete; it’s also hogging useful bandwidth that could have been expanded to transmit information far more efficiently and reliably, if it went digital.

[Ted]

Core2Duos on my 2 iMacs. Apple website says the new MacBook uses the Core2Duo as well.

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

Core2Duo and Centrino are misleading.

There are two main platforms currently sold for laptops, from Intel:

One is the Santa Rosa. The newest is the Montevina.

I guess Apple is still using the older Santa Rosa family chips.

Santa Rosa = Centrino

Montevina = Centrino2

[Swordmaker]

iLife Suite is quietly phasing out G4 and G5 compatibility—PING!

The article's author seems to think it also will not work with the Core Solo, but I doubt that. In addition, although I have not fully tested it yet, most of the iWork'09 and iLife'09 Seem with most functions on my G5 PowerMac.

MacPing!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Swordmaker]

Here is the actual system requirements for iLife'09, direct from Apple:

---

iLife ’09 System Requirements

• Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor
• iMovie requires an Intel-based Mac, Power Mac G5 (dual 2.0GHz or faster), or iMac G5 (1.9GHz or faster).
• GarageBand Learn to Play requires an Intel-based Mac with a dual-core processor or better.
• 512MB of RAM; 1GB recommended. High-definition video requires at least 1GB of RAM.
• Approximately 4GB of available disk space
• DVD drive required for installation
• Mac OS X v10.5.6 or later
• QuickTime 7.5.5 or later (included)
• AVCHD video requires a Mac with an Intel Core Duo processor or better. Visit iMovie ’09 Camcorder Support for details on digital video device and format support.
• 24-bit recording in GarageBand requires a Mac OS X-compatible audio interface with support for 24-bit audio. Please consult the owner’s manual or manufacturer directly for audio device specifications and compatibility.
• Some features require Internet access and/or MobileMe; additional fees and terms apply. MobileMe is available to persons age 13 and older. Annual subscription fee and Internet access required. Terms of service apply.
• iPhoto print products are available in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and select countries in Europe and Asia Pacific.
• GarageBand Artist Lessons are sold separately and are available directly through the GarageBand Lesson Store in select countries.
• Burning DVDs requires an Apple SuperDrive or compatible third-party DVD burner.
• Flickr service is available only in select countries.

---

The only thing that requires a Core 2 Duo minimum is the new music lesson component of GarageBand.

[MediaMole]

Some slideshow transitions will only work on newer hardware. G4 machines only get two transition options including the “Ken Burns.”

G5 machines have limits based on their video cards and video RAM.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The built in obsolescence is moving a little too fast these days.

Well, we do want Moore's Law to continue - and it is the natural consequence that, although Macs are built to last, people will aggressively seek to write software to exploit the capabilities of cutting edge machines which will consequently not be much if any good on earlier machines.

Essentially Moore's Law implies that you need to justify your computer purchaces on the basis of no more than a two-year payback period for half of your investment, and four years' payback period for three quarters of your investment. If you aren't willing to write your investment off that fast, you aren't ready to buy yet.

I wanted to upgrade my old G4 to Leopard, but it was too slow - so I bought a new 20 inch iMac and handed the old one down. I've maxed out the RAM for it, and I don't expect to upgrade beyond that until/unless some killer app arises that it isn't adequate to run. Actually, I'm hoping that Snow Leopard will make better use of the hardware I already have. If not, there wouldn't seem to be much call for buying it since it doesn't promise any upgrades to the user experience.

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2181592/posts

[snip] U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup gave Psystar the go-ahead to amend its lawsuit... [to] argue that Apple has stretched copyright laws by tying the Mac operating system to its hardware. [end]

[Richard Kimball]

I moved to iLife 09 and have an iMac with the 24" & 2.8 dual cores. This isn't a planned obsolescence move. Having worked with previous versions of iLife, we're talking about phenomenally more power out of the program. You can do things in iMovie 09 that simply were not possible with the older program. Trying to make the older machines do these things would be like trying to haul a trailer with a bicycle.

Planned obsolescence would be increasing program overhead without increasing program capabilities. MS has been accused of doing this with Office, where Word requires more overhead, but doesn't add any capability that the average user wants.

Non-destructive video editing that allows slow-motion, reverse play, multiple layer sound tracks that can be mixed, camera stabilization, and color balance correcting in HD simply requires more horsepower than a "cut this clip and paste it here" program.

[publiusF27]

Last fall I bought an iPhone, and to get it to talk to my Powerbook G4, I had to upgrade to iTunes 8. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a 17” MacBook Pro, one of the last of the pre-unibody machines, from the Apple refurb store. It came with iLife 7! Within days, they released iLife 9. What are they doing selling me a machine with 7, when 8 is current and 9 is imminent? Pissed me off.

They did give me a discounted upgrade, and now I have 9. Just tried the new iMovie yesterday for the first time. It’s a HUGE step forward from version 6, which I was using. I’m still trying to learn my way around, but the only thing I really don’t like so far is that I have to use iPhoto to insert photos into a movie, can’t just import them from the Finder any more. At least, I can’t figure out a way to do it. I never tried iPhoto, and don’t really want to use it, but I guess I may have to learn. Other than that, the new iMovie is really cool, and the image stabilization thing works great.

[Swordmaker]

It came with iLife 7! Within days, they released iLife 9.

That's odd... you might have a collectors item if it came with a disk. Apple never officially released iLife'07, they skipped it and went directly from '06 to '08.

They did release incremental upgrades throughout the period to individual components of the iLife suite.

Your older version MacBook Pro was probably already in inventory as a sealed box. You get the OS version and iLife that was originally installed on it when it was packaged. Apple does offer upgrades for the OS through Software Update and upgrades to the iLife suite with a shipping, handling and media price of $9.95.

[publiusF27]

Yeah, it might have been 6. Whatever it was, I was irritated that when I bought a new computer from Apple, my iLife was downgraded from what I already had. I did the upgrade to 9, and like it so far.