Greetings All, Sorry if I am posting in the wrong place.
I was at a friend's and he (a PC user) was doing some upgrading and offered to update my iphone 3gs to 4,2.
he did and now my g4 733 and g4 550 (both running 10.4.11)will not "see" my iphone.
It is my understanding that I need to have OS 10.5 and the G4s cannot run that
I feel very much hung out to dry by Apple.
Why?
Apple didn't make you upgrade your iPhone. Your PC-using friend did, and he ignored the system requirements of iOS 4.2.
Because he did that, you really (literally) can't go back. The firmware is irreversible. Your friend really should have read the requirements.
Good news, though: you were way overdue for a newer machine, and now you have the excuse you need to buy one!
It doesn't have to be a NEW Mac, just a newER Mac. Your (very) old machines are JUST outside the requirements of Leopard (which needs 867MHz or higher).
Given the absolute FLOOD of new software that will not run on machines as old as yours, and given that Apple has repeatedly pointed out that they aren't supporting PPC machines any more, and given that it would thus be a very logical conclusion that you'd have run into this problem sooner or later anyway, I'd strongly recommend an Intel-based Mac (which have been Apple's exclusive manufacture for five years now) to avoid having to face this problem again in a year or two.
Luckily, recent Intel Macs are relatively cheap, Snow Leopard is extremely cheap, and depending on what model you get the more recent iLife(s) are extremely cheap, so this shouldn't set you back that much.
Alternatively, you could reset the iPhone to "factory" (will still have the baseband that requires 10.5 though), remove the SIM, sell that iphone and buy another 3GS that hasn't yet been upgraded, put your SIM in and you're back in business.