Will Apple Ever Stop with Universal?

My buddy is thinking of buying a mac and is having a tough time deciding between the MacBook Pro and the PowerBook. I recently bought a PowerBook and love it, however he raised an interesting question. Things are universal now in order to run on both intel and PPC, however is there a good chance that Apple will stop making universal applications so that my PowerBook wont be able to get the latest greatest software?

I said, if that did happen it wouldn't happen for at least 5 years...but now he's got me worried.

I'd hate to think I dropped 2 grand on this new computer, and then Apple gets all the PPC computers switched to intel and then in two years wont have software availible for the PPC.

Of course if apple eventually decides to drop universal a few years down the line I guess thats okay...but I bought this for university, and I want it to last through the 4 years.

Does anyone know what apple's stance on this is?

Seeing as how they have been designing everything to run both PPC and Intel since they first developed OSX... I don't see them dropping PPC support anytime in the next 5 years or so... and beyond 5 years system requirements will be more of a problem for your PPC machines than universal binaries.

yea universal apps wont be a problem for a good time yet, hopefully most people will keep the support up for a good while.

While im still relatively new to mac how long did people support 128k mac when PPC stuff came out?

1994 saw the first 601 based Macs, with the Performas. Top of the line was the MC68040 CPU (from the 68K series) and was supported up until 2000 in some cases by Apple for the last Quadras and PowerBook 5xx series.

Generlly though, 1998/99 was the cut off point with OS 8.1 supporting 68040 Macs but Mac OS 8.5 being PPC only.

We will see PPC support until 2010 definitely. It's more an issue for the developers whether they support PPC. OS X 10.5 will definitely be PPC compatible and 10.6 should be, but will probably be the last PPC OS release.

Vicky

I think you should be good through the four years of college, and even if new programs don't come out, there are plenty now. But you need not worry for now.

As for your friend, tell him to get a MacBook Pro.

2010 seems like a good guestimate like mentioned above. the main issue is going to be how long some companies are going to create 3rd party software as universal binaries

Will a meteor hit my house?

no, thats very unlikely.