Ovidiu Predescu's Weblog

MacOS X on Intel hardware

There are many rumors flying around about whether MacOS X will be ported or not to Intel hardware.

If one looks back at the roots of the main technology on MacOS X, the old OPENSTEP system, and the fact that it was available on four different architectures (Motorola 68040, Intel, PA-RISC and Sparc), you'll have no doubt that this is possible from a technological point of view.

However for this to happen, Apple has to gradually phase out the old MacOS, and have the majority of the software vendors, at least the important ones, port and write new applications using the new platform. The faster this process happens, the quicker we'll probably see MacOS X being used on Intel platforms. Without the third-party software, Apple cannot make this transition.