Owners of Intel-based Macs will finally be free of all that redundant PowerPC code in the system software, freeing up space for, as Apple puts it, "their music and photos". How can these two claims be reconciled? Only by Apple shipping native-only versions of Snow Leopard. But just as Leopard lacks the ability to run Mac OS 9 apps - a feature present in previous Mac OS X releases - there will come a time when Apple drops Rosetta, its PowerPC emulation mechanism.Įarly rumours concerning Snow Leopard suggested PowerPC support was to be dropped, though that was subsequently denied by Apple. Universality has been handy in ensuring users can run the same installed code on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs without resorting to emulation. Undoubtedly, some of that will come from the re-engineered core technologies, but it's hard to conclude that Snow Leopard's release will come not as a "universal" binary capable of running on both Intel and PowerPC processors, but as a single-platform product.
PowerPC-based machines might be left in the cold?Īpple is promising a version of Mac OS X that "dramatically" reduces the amount of storage space the operating system requires.
Apple's next major Mac OS X released, will focus solely on under-the-bonnet changes, the Mac maker has revealed.