Scott sent word that a class action lawsuit in California has been filed against Apple claiming that Apple has not offered support for certain G3 systems running OS X so that they offer similar features found in OS X G4 systems. Apple said "Mac OS X will feature preemptive multitasking, memory protection and advanced virtual memory, and will be fully optimized for Apple"s PowerPC G3 based computers" in a May 1998 press release; however, some G3 owners have argued that Apple did not follow through with their statements. By upgrading to OS X, "they"ve lost features like DVD playback, support for hardware graphics acceleration using OpenGL and hardware-accelerated QuickTime movie playback." The G3 systems in question feature ATI graphics, and poor drivers are being held responsible for the systems" sluggish performance.
"The reason for this slow performance was not due to the inherent limitations of either these computers or OS X," according to the firm. "Rather, it was due to Apple"s willful failure to write software drivers in OS X to take advantage of [certain ATI-based hardware accelerators]."
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The filing stated that Apple"s "scheme of misrepresentation" was "used to accelerate a deliberate policy of planned obsolescence" which caused customers to buy a G3, upgrade to Mac OS X, and then buy a G4-based system to get the performance and features they were looking for.
What a surprise to hear a story mentioning ATI and inadequate drivers! However, in this case, ATI is not to blame. ATI writes drivers for their retail Mac cards, but Apple is responsible for supporting OEM cards and embedded chipsets.