OS X Lion and the Post-PC Era: Yay or No Way? – No Way, My Current Mac Works Just Fine!
Low End Mac’s Dan Bashur has posted the third and final installment in his OS X Lion “yay or nay” series of musings, noting that OS X 10.7 Lion obviously won’t be the first choice for everyone – or even a possible choice for some who are running middle-aged to older Mac hardware. A Core 2 Duo processor is the minimum Lion spec., so my own late 2008 unibody MacBook with a 2.0 GHz C2D just makes it over the bar, not that I’m planning to upgrade to Lion in any hurry until I’m sure I have all my mission-critical application bases covered. I’m doubtful that some of my core suite of production apps. and utilities will survive the termination of Rosetta support, which could be the deal-breaker unless and until I can find adequate substitutes.
As Dan observes, Rosetta emulation made the transition from PowerPC to Intel hardware much less painful by supporting – and in many cases accelerating – the performance of PowerPC applications, but 64-bit only Lion is leaving that in the dust, creating a huge divide between longtime Mac users who may still be using PowerPC apps and those who have recently joined the party.
He expects that there will be a lot of unhappy campers who purchased Final Cut Pro or Adobe CS for a G5 Mac who will find out the software will no longer install or work on a Mac running Lion.
Another thing that really disturbs Dan [and me – CM] is Apple’s evident determination to put an end to physical media and moving everything to the Mac App Store, which usurps power from the owner of the software who may want to resell it on the used market down the road – essentially forcing us to all become “licensees” of our software, rather than owners. The more I ruminate on this shift, the less I like it, and I wasn’t that enthusiastic to start with.
“What if a problem a problem occurs with data corruption? What happens if my account becomes hacked, compromised, or accidentally deleted? Is there any recourse?” Dan Bashur asks, noting that “Taking away my physical media takes away my ability to remedy and control the situation – and my own destiny.” Exactly.
Dan says he doesn’t want every piece of software (especially new versions of the OS) to end up as only downloads, nor does he appreciate the overuse of gestures, observing that if he wanted an iOS device for a computer, he would go out and buy an iPad. Agreed and agreed. I actually did go out and buy an iPad 2, and while it has its virtues, I’m definitely not blown away by it, nor am I warming up to gesture-based computing with familiarity. I suppose it speaks volumes that I’ve never really used gestures much with the MultiTouch trackpad in the MacBook. I vastly prefer real pointing device control.
Dan concludes that his G4 machines still get the job done [mine too; I’m composing this blog on an 11-year-old Pismo PowerBook running OS X 10.4 Tiger], and with all the applications that are capable of running on them, he says he doesn’t need to upgrade right now. I think a lot of longtime Mac users are going to come to the same conclusion. I have no intention of giving up on these old Pismos any time soon, and old as they are, I still find them a more versatile and satisfactory platform to work on than the iPad.
Dan Bashur also still has a Pismo which he says he remains quite content using with legacy applications. The experience can be quite enjoyable on “outdated” equipment [the Pismo is just a delightful machine, period. CM], conceding that he’ll move to an Intel Mac someday to replace his workhorse 12″ PowerBook G4, but a machine that allows him flexibility to use as he sees fit, compared to what he calls “this post-PC era Lion nonsense that is being crammed down our throats when the newest Macs on the horizon will only run Lion or later.”
Incidentally, a point to ponder for anyone considering the purchase of one of the new, upgraded MacBook Airs widely anticipated for release this week, or any other new Macs from the point of the OS X 10.7 Lion release going forward, buying one will mean going Lion cold-turkey rather than retaining the option of having a Snow Leopard boot partition on your drive for continued access to Rosetta Power PC emulation.
In the near to mid term, there should be plenty of Apple Certified Refurbished late-model Mac laptops available that can support Snow Leopard, but beyond that the future looks a lot murkier for Mac traditionalists.