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Mac OS X: Intel vs. PPC Market

I looked at my plugins and ended up looking at Silverlight on several Mac systems.

What I noticed (from Wikipedia) was that only Silverlight 1 runs on PPC. Unaware of the technical details and trade-offs, I was surprised. At first glance, if you create Silverlight 1 for PPC and Intel, would it be difficult to continue to support both chipsets?

So, assuming this solution is based on markethare, I tried to find information about Mac OS PPC vs Intel markethare, but could not find anything at this point.

Does anyone have an idea what attitude is? This seems like the most important architecture / product solution you would make for a Mac OS X product.

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I think the statistics you get will be very different by source. The following are software update statistics from Omni Group. Select hardware, then CPU type. They have over 90% intelligence.

Even if you get different values ​​elsewhere, keep in mind that:

  • No new PPC computers will appear on the market.
  • Apple itself has refused support for PPC in Mac OS X 10.6.

So, if you are developing a new product, do you support PPC?

  • If your code is 10.6, then you cannot.
  • If you are writing low-level code specific to Intel, then don’t worry.
  • If you are working with code 10.5, then PPC support is just a compilation flag, it cannot be damaged here.

Just keep in mind that a user who does not upgrade his hardware and operating system is also unlikely to update your software.

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There are many PPC Macs, but given that they are usually in the hands of less experienced users, it’s hard to get accurate statistics.

Adium releases statistics from Sparkle users; they indicate approximately 11% of PPC users when you look at the 2009 statistics - http://www.adium.im/sparkle/?year=2009&week= * & graph = bar

kch the thought process seems right to me. PPC support if this is a compilation flag, otherwise don’t worry if you do not receive requests (and hopefully require money for it).

It is also worth noting that support for 10.6 is about 44% of Sparkle users, while 10.4 is still 11%, and the majority of the rest is 10.5.

Edit: A new survey done on the popular macosxhints.com website shows very different numbers. Now it definitely depends on the bias of self-selection, so I hope that it publishes site statistics for comparison after the survey is completed, but right now it lists:

  • 29% only have an Intel Mac
  • 2% have only Hackintosh
  • 5% have both (netbook users?)
  • 8% have only Mac PPC
  • 36% have PPC and Intel
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