It's unlikely. More likely with 10.7.
Even if true, that could change when Snow Leopard goes to a 64-bit kernel and Core 2 Duo systems get the benefit of the x64 architecture, particularly the extra registers it offers.
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More Evidence Apple is Shifting Towards Intel-Only Software Releases?
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It's unlikely. More likely with 10.7.
Even if true, that could change when Snow Leopard goes to a 64-bit kernel and Core 2 Duo systems get the benefit of the x64 architecture, particularly the extra registers it offers.
Its a very bold mood for sure, but not as unlikely as one might believe. From what we can tell about Snow Leopard, the main goal is ridding ourselves of the baggage of the past and moving forward with an optimized version of the OS. The biggest piece of baggage is the PowerPC. It has the most devices and having to code for two architectures makes programming more expensive, takes up more hard drive space, and leads to a product that doesn't perform like it would if we were only focusing on intel. A lesser part of that baggage is 32-bit support. Its going to need to go sometime.
Leopard is also largely 64-bit. Nothing about the technologies specifically implemented for Snow Leopard is 64-bit only. The kernel upgrade does not mean that the 32-bit kernel is going away, just as previous 64-bit upgrades didn't kill the 32-bit versions.
It's hardly baggage, since the overwhelming majority of software is and will be built for a 32-bit OS for the foreseeable future. Its demands in terms of disk space and cost are minimal, and there is no reason to believe other than purely unsubstantiated speculation that 32-bit support (which is present so far in Snow Leopard) will be stripped out, particularly since it's essentially only kernel development that would be affected. There are no new 32-bit systems, so there is no major ongoing driver development, and OS X already supports 32-bit and 64-bit HALs, so there is no new development needed to carry over. The Core Duo systems are largely ineligible for OpenCL, so no new work there. GrandCentral is not dependent on bitset, but on crosslink architecture, which is bit-agnostic.
Unlike the PPC situation, where lots of the code is simply not there, and a number of new functions are aimed squarely at Intel, there are no such hints about 32-bit operations.
There is nothing to be gained by going all 64-bit for a consumer software product. There's a reason to do it in hardware, and that's due to preservation of 32-bit compatibility in hardware, and there's a good reason to add 64-bit for limited functions, but no compelling reason to lock out 32-bit systems (as opposed to a quite compelling reason to cut off PPC).