Much is being made of the small print in iLife '09's system requirements.

"GarageBand Learn to Play requires an Intel-based Mac with a dual-core processor or better" is seen by some as a sign that Apple is phasing out support for PowerPC-based Macs.

In my opinion, they're overreaching.

If you bother to read the requirements, you'll see that "iMovie requires an Intel-based Mac, Power Mac G5 (dual 2.0GHz or faster), or iMac G5 (1.9GHz or faster)" and "AVCHD video requires a Mac with an Intel Core Duo processor or better."

Some functions require more grunt than others. It's probably as simple as that.

Over time, features are added to programs and the hardware requirements go up. If you look back to iLife '06, a G4 was the minimum - 733MHz for iDVD, or 1Ghz for editing HD video.

And before that, you could run most of iLife '04 (the exceptions were GarageBand software instruments and iDVD) on a 600MHz G3.

So while you can expect to see PowerPC software gradually fade away, it makes too much sense for Apple and other vendors to keep offering it for a few years yet.

One of the attractions of the platform has always been the relative longevity of a Mac, and the youngest PowerPC systems are less than three years old.

And Apple made it very easy for developers to build applications that run on either processor family.

Sure, it looks like Snow Leopard will be Intel-only. I still think a three year old system should be able to run the latest OS, but if there's some aspect of Snow Leopard that requires hardware features missing from most pre-Intel models (OpenCL, perhaps?) then maybe drawing the line at 10.6 is the right thing to do rather than offering partial support.

When all's said and done, I can still use an old version of iMovie running under Mac OS 9 on my G3 iMac (assuming I could be bothered to plug it in) providing I'm prepared to wait a lot longer for titles and transitions to render.

Remember, "support" has several meanings. I'm less concerned about whether new software is supported on my old hardware than I am about ongoing support - especially in the form of security patches and other bug fixes - for old software.

Allowing the industry to get away with mixing up bug fixes and new features was a mistake. Bug fixes for existing software should always be offered free of charge - the supplier took your money for a flawed product, and it should be compelled to either make it good or provide a refund of the original purchase price.

If you want new features, be prepared to pay for them. But surely it isn't too much to ask that a program you purchased should work properly?

Not working with new operating systems or hardware is perhaps the software equivalent of "fair wear and tear". But an inherent fault is an inherent fault, and any customer affected by it should be entitled to redress - any assertion by a software vendor that it doesn't claim that the product will actually do anything should be treated as a fiction to be ignored.

The downside of such a scheme might be that software would be coded to only run on then-current operating systems and hardware configurations. We already see this in some low-level utilities which could cause damage if the something changed in the operating system. That could mean paying for application upgrades each time the operating system is updated and whenever you purchased a new computer.

Which situation would be most harmful to your wallet?

After Apple hired Mark Papermaster to lead its iPod and iPhone hardware engineering teams, his former employer - IBM - took legal action to enforce its interpretation of the no-compete clause in his employment contract. That litigation has been resolved, and Papermaster will start work at Apple on April 24.

The compromise seems to be that Papermaster won't start at Apple until six months have elapsed since he left IBM. The employment contract sought to restrain him from working for an IBM competitor for one year.

The judge hearing the case made a preliminary injunction in IBM's favour, requiring Papermaster to stop working for Apple until a further order was made.

Papermaster asserted that "Until this litigation effort by IBM, aside from the divested IBM personal computer business and a single sale several years ago of Apple's Xserve product to a university, I do not recall a single instance of Apple being described as a competitor if IBM during my entire tenure at IBM."

According to IBM officials, Papermaster remains subject "to all of his contractual and other legal duties to IBM, including the obligation not to use or disclose IBM's confidential information." He will be required to certify in June and October that has met this obligation.

The status of contracts that seek to restrict an employee's right to work elsewhere immediately after resigning varies between US states. IBM's action was brought in New York, which was the venue stipulated in the contract. New York generally upholds such clauses, while other jurisdictions take more restrictive views.

IBM offered Papermaster one year's salary if he would go along with the company's interpretation of the contract.

One problem with such an offer is that - especially in a high-tech industry - a year out of the game is enough to disqualify an individual from serious consideration for a senior vacancy. And it seems unlikely that Apple would have held open the role for a full year.

There's been an interesting warning about a security vulnerability in Safari.

It seems that a maliciously-formed link can be used to gain access to files stored on a computer that has Safari set as the default RSS program.

You can read Brian Mastenbrook's warning here.

Some people are asserting that there's nothing to worry about, as there's a big difference between finding a flaw and developing a working exploit.

I'm taking this warning more seriously than that.

The reason is that Mastenbrook didn't provide a vague warning of 'possible code execution', he specifically stated "that Apple's Safari browser is vulnerable to an attack that allows a malicious web site to read files on a user's hard drive without user intervention."

Others seem to think that because they don't use RSS feeds they are safe.

Not so, according to Mastenbrook: "All users of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard who have not performed the workaround steps listed below are affected, regardless of whether they use any RSS feeds. Users of previous versions of Mac OS X are not affected."

Since Safari is the default RSS handler for Mac OS X, it seems sensible to employ his workaround - you'll find the instructions here (this is the same link as in the third paragraph).

Once you've done that, sit back and wait for Apple to release a patch.

I hope they don't take too long, as I subscribe to a lot of RSS feeds and I find reading them in Mail rather than Safari is irritating.

Perhaps one of the most important issues for Mac users during the year ahead will be the outcome of Apple's case against Psystar.

If the court holds that Apple can't restrict the use of Mac OS X to its own hardware, that'll certainly put the cat among the pigeons. In that case, I'd suggest that we would see a substantial increase in the price of retail copies of the operating system.

And Apple might not be the only company affected. Such a decision could mean that Microsoft would no longer be able to enforce the licence condition that OEM copies of Windows can't be transferred to a new computer.

If Apple was forced to allow other hardware builders to sell computers with Mac OS X preinstalled - or even merely advertise that it could be readily installed - then it could cream off some of Apple's business.

Apple's past experiment with licensing was to its detriment, and I can't see why things would be any better in 2009 except for one thing.

Notebooks now account for a much bigger share of Apple's unit shipments than they used to, and even Windows-focussed publications have good things to say about the MacBook family.

Running Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware would be of interest to three main groups, I'd suggest.

The first is the tinkerers. They are already doing it, they wouldn't buy a Mac, and they are sufficiently few in number that Apple can afford to turn a blind eye. There's no substitution involved.

Secondly there are the buyers who want the maximum bang for the buck, and are prepared to save money on commodity hardware even if that means risking reliability. If you can buy say 30 percent more computers on the same budget, it might not matter if 10 percent were out of action at any one time. I suspect that many of these people have already migrated from (eg) Photoshop and QuarkXPress on the Mac to Photoshop and InDesign on Windows for the perceived hardware savings.

My final category is those who buy to a price. If they can buy a Dell Studio Hybrid for $US449, they won't spend $US599 on a Mac mini - and maybe they're more likely to go for a $US299 Inspiron anyway.

But if Apple pushed up the stand-alone price of Mac OS X up from $US129 to oh, $US259 (the same as Vista Home Premium), then the Dell Studio Hybrid plus Mac OS X is more expensive than the Mac mini.

If you're that price sensitive, you'll probably make do with whatever OS the hardware manufacturer bundles.

While I'm not yet convinced by assertions that Psystar's case is being bankrolled by a major PC company, we do know that Dell has previously expressed interest in selling computers running Mac OS X.

But then, Michael Dell once suggested that Apple should shut up shop and return its funds to shareholders. If you look at the companies' share prices over the 11 years since then, Dell is slightly down and Apple is up by 1500 percent. Admittedly, Apple only started to pull ahead from Dell in the second half of 2004.

Enough of all this... what else do I expect to see during 2009?

I'm with Anthony "Carry" Caruana in predicting a subnotebook or netbook from Apple, though I still have a sneaking feeling that it might turn out to be an beefed-up iPod touch rather than a slimmed-down MacBook.

(But then I predicted the Mac mini would either get a serious upgrade during 2008 or be consigned to history, and neither materialised.)

And will iWork.com take off? I have mixed feelings about this. It looks OK as far as it goes. The question is whether people just need to get feedback from others about documents, or if they need to collaboratively work on them (which calls for something more like Google Docs).

In my experience, it's mainly the latter - but then I realised a long time ago that my patterns of use are far from typical!

Happy New Year.

Is it just me, or has 2008 been an unexciting year as far as the Mac's concerned?

On the hardware front, there were the two iterations of the MacBook Air along with the "unibody" MacBook and MacBook Pro. Did you notice anyone leaping up and down shouting "Yes!" apart from those that had backed the rumour of a machined shell?

Still, sales were going pretty well for Apple until the financial nasties hit the fan, with figures emerging in the fourth calendar quarter to suggest that Apple's US sales were hit more than the industry average.

That makes some sense, as the company's been particularly strong in the retail market, which implies consumer and small business purchasers.

If you think you may be about to lose your job, or that your clients are tightening the pursestrings, you're unlikely to respond by going out and buying a new computer.

Apple Stores opened in Sydney and Melbourne, with the usual lines of people waiting to be among the first to enter. Maybe I'm getting jaded, but I can't really see what the fuss was about.

There's a link between the growing number of Apple Stores and the company's recent decision to pull out from Macworld Expo (after next month's event) and some other trade shows around the world. If you get more people through your own doors than you do at trade shows, what's the point of exhibiting?

The problem is that history tells us that Mac-specific shows struggle without Apple. Maybe that matters, maybe it doesn't. We'll see soon enough.

The Mac OS X developers have been busy, with 10.5.2, .3, .4, .5 and .6 appearing during the year as well as a bunch of security updates. There have also been some hints about what's in store for us when 10.6 arrives.

Well, for those of us that have made the move from PowerPC to Intel, that is. There's been no indication that Snow Leopard will be available for G5 or earlier Macs.

Oh, and while we're talking software, Microsoft released Office 2008 without VBA support - then promised it would return in the next major version. Just as the ribbon thingy discouraged many Windows 2003 users from updating to Office 2007 for Windows, a fair proportion of Mac users chose to stay with Office 2004.

But the most significant matter for 2008 could prove to be the Apple v Psystar lawsuit, even though it won't be resolved until 2009 at the earliest.

Psystar has sold a commodity PC with the option of having Mac OS X pre-installed. Apple's challenging this on a number of grounds, including trademark and copyright infringement.

So far, things aren't going too well for Psystar, but the judge has yet to rule on the idea that Apple's copyright over Mac OS X has been tainted by its attempt to limit the type of hardware on which a legitimately purchased copy of the operating system is used.

If Psystar wins that point, it will put Apple's 'no clones, no licensing' position into doubt.

And maybe, just maybe, that's one of the reasons why Apple seems to be continuing the shift from being a computer company to a consumer electronics/retail/media business.

I seem to recall Steve Jobs saying that platforms have a finite life, and maybe Apple is wondering about the future of Mac OS X as a desktop/notebook platform, and turning to OS X as a handheld/mobile platform.

Anyway, enjoy the holiday period. Hydrapinion will be back on 12 January 2009. Here's to a more exciting - and hopefully more prosperous - New Year for us all.