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http://www.macnn.com/articles/03/08/13/apple.settles/

Apple settles with G3 owners over Mac OS X

updated 08:20 pm EDT, Wed August 13, 2003

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Apple has reached a tentative that alleged the company had failed to fully support Mac OS X on some G3-based Macs, according to c|net: "[Apple] agreed to refund the $129 purchase price of Mac OS X for customers who bought it for use on certain G3 Macs and have never been able to fully take advantage of it. 'If you are completely dissatisfied (with Mac OS X), you can return it and get your money back...If you want to keep OS X, but are kind of annoyed that you don't have full support, you can get (a $25) coupon.' The suit claimed that Apple had promised that OS X would be 'fully optimized' to run on all G3 machines but charged that such optimization was not done."

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08/13, 09:14pm | report spam | close Reply |
...and

Meanwhile, the lawyers behind this are counting their fresh loot. Suckers.

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08/13, 09:19pm | report spam | close Reply |
OS X G3 Works Fine

OS X (10.2.6) Runs just fine on my 300 MHz G3 revision A, with 448 MB mem Had some of a delay in the beginning with no support for the old printer but as soon as I found a USB card that would work a new printer was installed and no problems at all

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08/13, 09:21pm | report spam | close Reply |
No justice

Those who started this suit who thought it would somehow provoke Apple into fixing OS X for them were sadly mistaken. The lawyers in the suit knew what they were doing: Start a class-action lawsuit, then try to settle for who cares what. It doesn't matter what the company offers in any of these things, because lawyers always get their money, never coupons.

Companies like to settle because it usually gives out coupons or rebates off next purchases (I know of very few that actually gave real money back to the plaintiffs, and when they do, its like the RIAA settlement, and everyone gets 20 bucks cash, if you're lucky), which helps foster future sales.

The big thing here is, owners of these G3s are still SOL and will always be SOL. Basically they're hosed and Apple isn't actually punished. And what about the G3 owners who supposedly bought a G3 because it was going to be X compatibable, but never bought OS X because it didn't have the features they wanted. They get nothing.

Again, the only winners are the lawyers and Apple.

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08/13, 09:24pm | report spam | close Reply |
Heh heh...

Bye bye, beige G3s! No Support for Panther! And no lawsuit is gonna get you support! All th while, it supposedly runs makes B&W and iMac G3s even faster than with Jaguar.

The moral: Either buy new hardware more often or don't buy new OSes.

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08/13, 09:28pm | report spam | close Reply |
Right

OS X runs perfectly on my Apple IIc too. Stop lying to yourself, sure it will run but it will not "run just fine".

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08/13, 09:33pm | report spam | close Reply |
Good job! Not...

This has to be one of the stupidest settlements ever. I've got a PowerBook that I bought in late '99. I currently have a cell phone that's I can't use as a modem unless I boot into 9, which I haven't done in years because Apple didn't bother to write a driver for the IR port. I've got a 3D accelerator which is going unused by the OS, and a built in MPEG decoder chip which is also going unused. I wouldn't be upset if those parts where upgradeable, but they aren't, and the machine was not very old when Apple first dropped the ball. If they don't see fit to finish the job, I really with they would release the hardware specs so some enterprising person can finish it for them. Thank God they finally took advantage of the 2d graphics accelerator. That at least made it useable for 99.9% of what I do. I want Apple to stand by its products when I plunk $4,000 on them, not a fickin' $25 coupon!!! : P

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08/13, 11:16pm | report spam | close Reply |
What a blow...

To every person who was hoping the lawsuit would allow them to receive a new G4 class machine for a replacement, I know that's what y'all was thinkin'.
Get over it, Are you pissed off that you can't use Airport Extreme also, or a superdrive in your pismo? Geze, technology changes, way too fast to expect 6 month old production machines to run software as well as 24 hour hold.
That's how life works, I suggest you accept it.

Apple is still the number one customer satisfaction rated technology company in the world, and always will be in my book too.

Play hard, play to win, play Mac!

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08/13, 11:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
the only thing i wanted

was DVD playback in OS X. they made the hardware MPEG decoder work under OS X in the B&W G3s, but not the lombard PB... don't really see the difference (as far as man hours in programming go)

dvd player is the only OS 9 app i still use on that powerbook. Kinda silly that i have to reboot for that one app...

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08/13, 11:30pm | report spam | close Reply |
um....

Jaguar runs great on my Umax S900 and VLC will play DVD's just fine. Save your lawyer fees and find a viable solution yourselves.

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08/13, 11:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
no suprise

..coming from a company that can do whatever they want basically because they control the hardware and o/s. Your at the mercy of apple, and this is all the while that their a niche player, had they been a monopoly, MS tactics would be tame in comparison to what could do. They can charge whatever they want for the hardware as well as the o/s. There absolutely NOTHING you can do about it...

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08/14, 12:03am | report spam | close Reply |
It's not just 25$

You can also get a 129$ refund for your copy of OS X you bought for this G3 mac.

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08/14, 01:51am | report spam | close Reply |
re: no surprise

"There is absolutely NOTHING you can do about it ..."

Are you retarded? Ever heard of "buy a PC"?

Of course there is something people can do about it. Unlike the (mistaken) belief of our PC-brethren, we can switch. Easily. I already have to have a full working knowledge of Windows -- not because I use it (heaven forbid) but because I am the only person in my company that actually knows how to use a computer for something beyond Solitaire/Word/Outlook, and I look like I'm having a good time most of the time (because I use Macs), so everyone thinks I'm a "guru" and know everything about all platforms, despite my CONSTANT protests to the contrary.

So, yeah, if Apple ever actually pissed me off I could switch in about 20 minutes. Most PC people are WAY too afraid of change to do the reverse. You might say I, as an Apple customer, have the ULTIMATE incentive for Apple to do right by me.

I've been a customer of theirs since 1987, and so far they've done pretty damn right by me. Even more so when you COMPARE them to Microsoft. :)

Having said that and drunk the appropriate amount of kool-aid, I must still say that this lawsuit and the ones like it that happened before are generally (as opposed to this action specifically) a Good Thing. It keeps the company honest, it keeps them more careful about what they promise. I trust Apple, but that trust only goes so far.

As for the fellow who said that people should buy new hardware more often -- that's a simplistic paen to the issue that this lawsuit addressed, but that doesn't mean it's not true. We Mac users are *spoiled* and generally only *start* thinking about new hardware after the five-year mark. Our PC friends do that roughly twice as often. I'm not saying we should turn over hardware THAT often, but I can see that OS X makes it necessary to shorten the lifespan of a given Mac from five to, say, four years.

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08/14, 03:22am | report spam | close Reply |
Whatever

The whiners will whine. The feeble will sue. What a bunch of BS. An old machine is an old machine. Apple wanted to make OS X stunning and as a result it needs a more powerful machine. A 400mhz G4 is a very slow beast but runs 10.2 flawlessly. A 233mhz G3 is usable, but nothing special. If someone thinks it is fair for Apple to commit huge resources to supporting a machine that is by every definition to weak to do the job, then that person needs to get a real job so they don't have time to sue and so they will have money to buy a newer machine.

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08/14, 03:56am | report spam | close Reply |
What are these people on?

I was able to run Jaguar fine on my Beige G3 Desktop running at 233 mhz! Now I've upgraded it to a G4 400 mhz! These people are either A)Trying to make some money out of Apple. B)Idiots trying to put the OS on their original Powerbooks or C) Actually have Quadras and are only claiming to have Beige G3s because they know how sorry and retarded they really are.

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08/14, 08:17am | report spam | close Reply |
bottom line

Ok, the bottom line here is that Apple lied. Apple stated before OS X was released that any owner of a G3 or G4 based Mac would be a "first class citizen" on OS X. They said these systems would be fully supported. Guess what? It was a lie. I was pretty pissed off when I got OS X 10.1 and couldn't use my DVD player in OS X. Apple has since resolved this issue, at least for my machine, but I know owners of older machines are still out in the cold. These people have a right to gripe. By promising full support, Apple conned them into buying a new OS that never completely worked on their hardware.

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08/14, 10:17am | report spam | close Reply |
get over it

Aren't we on 10.2? Get over it. If you want the robustness of a modern OS, you're going to need the right hardware

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08/14, 11:33am | report spam | close Reply |
confused

I run OS X and watch DVDs on my beige G3. There are not any older G3 systems. I am not aware of anything that is not supported on my beige G3 running OS X.

What G3 systems are unable to run OS X? What kind of support is missing?

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08/14, 12:26pm | report spam | close Reply |
simple:

dont upgrade if you dont have to. if you're productive on something like system 7 then stick with it. if you're productive on panther stick with it. people should shut up and stop complaining

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08/14, 12:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: bottom line

Apple may have lied (depending on your definition of "fully supported" and "is" is), but that doesn't negate the fact that the settlement is worthless. No fault was probably given. And the whole point behind the lawsuit (I thought at least) was to get the support that was missing, not to get some lawyer $350,000 and the other users a refund. What about us users who haven't upgraded because the support is lacking? We've been shut-out. We paid good money for a machine with a so-called promise and never saw the support we were told was going to be there. Basically, $3000 down the tubes as we trusted it would run the OS without issue. I should be able to get my $3000 back. But noooooo. Lawyer boy gets his money, some people will return their CDs (and probably keep copies so they can still run OS X) to get the $129 back, others will take the coupons, and many of us are out in the cold wondering where are satisifaction is...

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08/14, 12:47pm | report spam | close Reply |
Here's a good one

This was in CNet's coverage:

The suit also sought damages for those customers who bought Macs that performed worse when running OS X than when running Mac OS 9.

Wow, couldn't we sue Apple and MS over every OS upgrade, then? I mean, since when did an upgrade to an OS ever really make it faster than the previous version? (OS 6 was faster then 7 which was faster than 8 and 9, which was faster then X, just like Win95 was faster than 98 which was faster then Me which was faster then XP - I know, you'd never be able to install XP on a 95 machine, but that's not the point, you can't install X on a machine supporting 7, either - I don't think).

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08/14, 01:34pm | report spam | close Reply |
dear god

A Beige G3 233 (clocked to 266), a 350Mhz iMac Indigo, a first generation 12" white iBook and now a 1Ghz eMac. 233, 350, 500 and now 1Ghz. G3, G3, G3, G4. The G3 desktop was the slowest of all with very limited ability. You're attemping to run OS X on a machine built in 1997. That machine is now 6 years old. Most people buy new hardware after 2 years. My iBook lasted 2 years, and it's now sold and I'm using a 1Ghz eMac. This is how the world works, it's why Apple has the instant loan on their website, and I think anyone retarded enough to sue because their hardware dvd player won't play a DVD should either buy a DVD player and STFU or buy an iBook with DVD and STFU.

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08/14, 02:10pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Here's a good one

I upgraded my AMD K6/200 with 80MB RAM, 6GB HD, and 8MB PCI video card from Windows 95 Rev.2 to Windows XP Professional, the machine works better now. Although I can literally see the screen/window redraw, it definitely works better than Windows 95. Bought that PC during 1997.

On the Mac side; any factory G3 or later Mac should able to run Mac OS X but just missing some features. I have 2 tray-loader iMac and one original iBook, which contain the older ATI RAGE chips. All of those machines are on Jaguar as a main OS, never go back to OS 8/9 or run Classic. I love Mac OS X more than those classic OS, even though Apple won't write the fully optimized RAGE driver.. I can live without it. Far more important, Jaguar gives me more than OS 8/9 offered.

Want power? Get the Dual G4 or G5.

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Apple settles with G3 owners over Mac OS X

updated 08:20 pm EDT, Wed August 13, 2003

...and

OS X G3 Works Fine

No justice

Heh heh...

Right

Good job! Not...

What a blow...

the only thing i wanted

um....

no suprise

It's not just 25$

re: no surprise

Whatever

What are these people on?

bottom line

get over it

confused

simple:

Re: bottom line

Here's a good one

dear god

Re: Here's a good one

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Apple settles with G3 owners over Mac OS X

updated 08:20 pm EDT, Wed August 13, 2003

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...and

OS X G3 Works Fine

No justice

Heh heh...

Right

Good job! Not...

What a blow...

the only thing i wanted

um....

no suprise

It's not just 25$

re: no surprise

Whatever

What are these people on?

bottom line

get over it

confused

simple:

Re: bottom line

Here's a good one

dear god

Re: Here's a good one

Login Here

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