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macrumors 6502a
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Jan 23, 2008
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After the WWDC keynote where Apple officially put PPC out to pasture, I began wondering what they would do about PPC software and applications. Specifically, if Apple is now officially supporting only Intel machines with 10.6, would it abandon Rosetta as well, thus requiring all 10.6 users to abandon apps that are not universal binary/Intel only apps?

This becomes an issue for a significant segment of the user base (including me) who still use MS Office for Mac 2004 and do not want to upgrade to 2008 for a variety of reasons including use of macros, VBA, cost, UI preference, etc. If Apple abandons Rosetta, I either have to upgrade to Office 2008 or I cannot install 10.6.

Has anyone heard anything about the status of Rosetta? I'm actually a bit surprised to have not heard anything about it yet.
 
Rosetta is an optional install in the latest developer seed of Snow Leopard, so yes, I'd imagine it is sticking around.
 
It's going to be an optional install with SL - if you're going to use PPC-based apps then you can choose to add Rosetta during the OS installation :)

EDIT: Beaten!
 
Actually you'll be asked to install Rosetta when you are trying to use the first Rosetta app.

Don't need install disk. Probably installed within a minute or so (I looked away and it was done when I looked back).
 
Apple will probably keep Rosetta around until MS does have an Office app that restores all the goodies in 2004, although it may be a permanent optional install. 68K emulation wasn't dropped from PPC macs until 10.5, even though the PPC transition started in 1994.
 
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