08.25.05

64-bit Mac OS X

Posted in tech at 11:09 pm by mridley

I haven’t seen anyone mention it, but what are Apple’s plans for 64-bit support on Mac OS X when they move to Intel chips? Will they drop 64-bit support? Will they only support 64-bit capable Intel processors? Looking at Intel’s recently announced roadmap it looks like 64-bit is going to be available throughout the x86 platform, but those chips won’t be shipping until after Apple has announced it will be shipping Intel-based Macs.

I doubt the first Intel-based Macs will be running Itanium processors. Maybe Apple will announce Pentium M-based ibooks and powerbooks before releasing their Intel desktops. That would be a pain for software engineers developing large memory applications on powerbooks.

We’ll have to wait and see.

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Related Articles:
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/press/new-intel-processor-architecture-119057.php
http://www.andwest.com/blojsom/blog/tatle/comments/?permalink=Intel-Reveals-Next-Gen-64-bit-Processors-to-Power-Macintosh.html

Viewing 2 Comments

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    Having seen the Intel announcement, it makes me believe it is unlikely they will launch Intel based Macs with 32-bit processors.

    Both iMac, Pro Mac and XServe are already 64-bit and they will stay that way. Anything else would be seen as a complete failure by the market.

    For the mini and portables, the picture is a bit more tricky. From what I can gather from the latest announcements from IBM and Freescale, what I think will happen is that Apple will introduce a mini with a dual core processor from IBM perhaps even in September at MacWorld Paris, and follow up with similar announcements for the rest of the product line. Exception is of course the portables where they have to stay at G4 until the switch to Intel.

    This of course makes it even less likely they will revert any products to a 32-bit Intel processor.
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    Yeah, I just think it's interesting that from the Intel roadmap they aren't going to have their new chips out until after Apple says they're planning to be almost done with the transition of their product line.

    Today the only 64-bit chip Intel has is the Itanium2 and I don't see that fitting well into any of Apple's product lines, except maybe the Xserve. Guess we'll see what happens.

    -m
 

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