Did Apple cut owners of decade old G3 Macs out of the iTunes Store?

9to5 Staff | Apr 25 2011 - 8:07 am PT

A reader tipped us that Apple may have cut older versions of iTunes that are compatible with G3 Macs out of the iTunes Store. The iTunes Store used to work fine on iTunes 8.2.1, our tipster writes, but as of recently the store would refuse to open. Even though the jukebox software continues to operate normally on these machines, clicking the iTunes Store in the lefthand column puts up a warning to upgrade to iTunes 10, as seen in the above image. Our tipster explains:

Trying to go to the store’s home page, or searching the store, simply brings this page up again, although the ‘My Account’ page (accessed by clicking your email address in the top right) works fine.

While both iTunes 9 and 10 work on G4-powered Macs, they marked the end of the road for owners of decade old G3 Macs. iTunes 8.2.1, which can still be downloaded from Apple’s site, is the last version that supports G3 processors. “Looks like I’ll be using Amazon MP3 in the near future”, our tipster wrote. Of course, this could also be some kind of a temporary glitch. Is there anyone out there with a G3 Mac and iTunes 8.x who can corroborate this finding?

Thanks, Alex W.!