iMAC Have Tiger 10.4,worth buying a new MAC?

R

rivrbyte

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
129
Hello Apples!

I'll tell you right off the bat, I have a PC, but please don't hold that against me.:p

I'm only trying to help a friend who, she would admit, knows nothing about PC's, OR MACS. I don't live that close to her, so I'm trying to gather all the info I can before I drive all the way over and probably spend the day helping her out.

She bought a iMac (it's out of warranty) and is trying to upload itunes from her iMac to her iPhone ( 14GB v.4.2.8 Model # MC676LL) but it pops up an error message telling her she has to upgrade her Operation System. Itunes is not SUPPORTED with Tiger OS.

I've asked her repeatedly to click on the apple icon on the top left hand corner to tell me what her system is. Well, finally, she found it and this is what she gave me.

iMac Model # MA876LL
Default web browser Safari version 4.1.3
Finder version 10.4.7.
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac7,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB 667 MHz (2 -512MB) so-dimm
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: IM71.007A.B03
SMC Version: 1.20f4

I have been told on other discussion boards that she can skip the leopard and go directly to Snow leopard, buy buying the MAC BOX SET with both the 10.5 leopard and 10.6 Snow leopard platforms.

Apple Support told me NO! She can not leap frog,but has to do this step by step. She would have to FIRST buy the $150.00 leopard upgrade,then another $150.00 Snow leopard, then add more memory. My friend told me she noticed it being real slow lately. No wonder. An old processor, OS, and only 1GB So-Dimm (pc2-5300) Lap top memory? They put this in to save money, I guess.

This was built in 2007, going on almost five years old. I told her after all these upgrades, for another $700-$800 dollars, she can have a new iMac with LION 10.7, a bigger monitor,hard drive and faster processor! Why Not?

Thank you! :cool:
 
rivrbyte said:
I have been told on other discussion boards that she can skip the leopard and go directly to Snow leopard, buy buying the MAC BOX SET with both the 10.5 leopard and 10.6 Snow leopard platforms.

Apple Support told me NO! She can not leap frog,but has to do this step by step. She would have to FIRST buy the $150.00 leopard upgrade,then another $150.00 Snow leopard, then add more memory. My friend told me she noticed it being real slow lately. No wonder. An old processor, OS, and only 1GB So-Dimm (pc2-5300) Lap top memory? They put this in to save money, I guess.
Click to expand...

Apple support is correct. Snow Leopard's installer piggybacks on Leopard. You have to have Leopard installed to install Snow Leopard, and then you need Snow Leopard installed to get the Mac App Store to buy Lion.

Tell your friend that it's time to buy a new machine, and she should bring her old iMac into an Apple Store when she makes the purchase. They'll transfer all her data over to the new Mac for her.
 
I just bought a similar system the other day. 20" 2.16GHz Core2Duo iMac for my son. I install Snow Leopard on it..no problem. I suggest she add some ram...I ordered 4GB for him for $50 from Amazon.

Not sure why Apple said that...you can absolutely leap frog to the latest. If you can find the $29 Snow Leopard set somewhere you can use that...that's what I used for this one. Not sure those are still out anywhere. Just need to find a full copy of SL..works great and will install with 1GB of RAM.

It's not a bad system at all. For most people a 2GHz C2D is plenty.
 
Terpfen said:
Apple support is correct. Snow Leopard's installer piggybacks on Leopard. You have to have Leopard installed to install Snow Leopard, and then you need Snow Leopard installed to get the Mac App Store to buy Lion.

Tell your friend that it's time to buy a new machine, and she should bring her old iMac into an Apple Store when she makes the purchase. They'll transfer all her data over to the new Mac for her.
Click to expand...

You can install SL directly on a blank system. You don't have to have Leopard. As I just said in my post I did this less than 24 hours ago.
 
Terpfen said:
Apple support is correct. Snow Leopard's installer piggybacks on Leopard.
Click to expand...

You can install Snow Leopard on any clean system. I would also honestly sit tight with SL for a little bit. I have Lion on my laptop and its ok, but I'm sticking with SL on my desktop until things get more hammered out.

That and I have serious issues with the way they changed Spaces after all these years. I'm not going to bother learning a completely new way of dealing with multiple virtual desktops until I have a few projects finished.
 
I would reccomend just getting the snow leopard box set. Apple support is full of shit. At our store before they pulled the box set we had people buying them to go from 10.4 to 10.6. Only reason I recommend the box set is because then you will get the OS, iLife, and iWork. Well worth it.

But remember if you get the box set, and go straight to SL you have the chance of losing data. Be sure to do a backup because when you do the install from 2 versions back it will have the tendency to delete data.
 
Just to confirm what's already been said: No, you do NOT need to upgrade. You can perform a clean install of 10.6 (Snow Leopard) without needing 10.5 (Leopard).

I, personally, would not recommend 10.7 (Lion) -- especially if she's used to 10.4 (Tiger).
 
That system is still a perfectly usable system. A RAM upgrade would help a lot if you upgrade the OS, but you should be good.

The only concern with staying with 10.4/Tiger is the fact that lots of newer software will require a newer OS. Web browsers, for one. One alternative is to look at TenFourFox, a build of Firefox optimized for Mac OS X 10.4 (although it is PowerPC-only code, it runs just fine on Intel systems, and it's more up-to-date for 10.4 than the official Firefox builds.)

I would recommend upgrading the OS, though. Anyone who told you you had to do every step is wrong. The "Mac Box Set" is specifically sold as a "full OS", not an upgrade. Once you're on 10.6, you can then upgrade to 10.7. Or, you can buy 10.7 on USB stick, and just install that directly. (You'll have to ask for it specifically, it won't be on shelves.) The advantage of the Mac Box Set is that it gives you the latest versions of iLife and iWork, too. $100 for the Mac Box Set (from Disc Direct, then $29 for the upgrade to Lion. (Or $69 for the Lion USB stick, with no iLife or iWork.)
 
Thanks.
I'm still on the fence about whether to have her (my friend with the tiger 10.4 iMac) to tell her to buy a new mac with LION for around $1100.00, or pay for the O.S. upgrades from Tiger to Leopard, to Snow Leopard plus adding more (it's cheap laptop memory) to her existing iMac.

Apple Support told me i positively, without a doubt need to step up from one OS to the next, otherwise it could damage the tiger directory, etc., and also, it's a copyright issue jumping directly to Snow leopard from Tiger 10.4.

As a PC user myself, this is somewhat confusing having to do this. Just trying to help her be able to use her iTunes to transfer to her iPhone,but thinking after three or four year computer, maybe she should upgrade to the i7, and DDR3 ram, and a 500GB or to the 1TB HDD. The monitor is bigger too at 21.5".

The ball is in her court, but I'd hate to have to be FORCED to buy each of the Leopard,then Snow Leopard if she doesn't have to, when I've been told all she has to do is buy the 40.00 Snow leopard and be done with it.

I've received so many different scenarios for this possible upgrade(s), it's just dizzying. I don't really know who is right. :confused:


Thanks!
 
Apple doesn't stress OS licensing. Buy the $29 SL disc. Buy 4GB of RAM for $50. That's what I did a week ago for that same iMac I bought for my kid. It's not complicated.
 
I've got several of that same gen of iMac at work, and can also confirm Apple support is feeding you a load of crap about Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard will definitely install on a 10.4/10.5 or blank HDD.

Backup your stuff because any upgrade has the potential for disaster. Ram + Snow Leopard will make those machines run great. Lion, not so much. Tried it for a bit on one of them and with only 2gb of ram there was a lottttt of swapping to disk going on.
 
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