PowerPC is back! Sort of…
Cupertino, CA - The news spread all around the web about Apple Inc buying microprocessor designer P.A. Semi for 
$278 million in cash. Reportedly Apple was in talks with this very same company back in 2005 to use their processors on Apple notebooks but since allegedly the company was not going to be able to mass produce their low power chip until 2007, Apple decided to switch to Intel.
Engadget has an article from May 22, 2006 that reports the interest from Apple on the processor maker P.A. Semi, but nothing happened back then. What’s the plan then? Everyone that care about this type of news is going crazy thinking what would Apple do with this type of low power processors. One idea I read on some other articles is that they may use it in new 3G iPhones, or an ultra portable computer like MacBook Air.
While the MacBook Air has already a chip from Intel, and the instructions set that Leopard is using is Intel, I don’t think they use this low power processor on MacBook Air. The iPhone that’s another story, if the iPhone is using a very light weight of Leopard and Leopard as we know is compatible with PowerPC chips, Apple may be thinking on using this chips on iPhone and iPods only.
I remember back when Apple made the announcement that they will be transitioning to Intel processors, I wrote a post thinking out loud, that maybe Apple needed to stick with both of them. Due to the fact that software can be written in Universal Mode and OS X is already Universal, why not offering both chips. Maybe PowerPC for high end machines and Intel for the rest of them, well now maybe they can afford to host both types of processors on any of the machines they currently offer.
I know that many of you are going to disagree with me on that, and I understand that fragmenting the line can only cause confusion on some people that are not that tech savvy, but for the ones that knows what all this means, options are always a good trade. If I had the opportunity of getting a PowerPC Mac mini with discrete graphics as opposed to integrated graphics and a PowerPC processor that gives me the same power or more than my actual Core2Duo 1.83GHz, I’m up for it.
I had a G4 1.5GHz Mac mini and the only reason I sold it was because of the RAM limitation of 1GB, I’m running Photoshop Elements and iMovie all the time and I needed more RAM. That said, my only grief on my new Intel Mac mini is the integrated graphics, because as for everything else it runs more than fine.
For those who remember the iMac G5, those machine where so fast that people that still have them are having a hard time thinking of getting rid of them. The last used Mac I bought is a PowerBook G4 with 2GB of RAM and I can argue that is faster than my current Intel Mac mini. PowerPC processors are great and the only (and biggest) downside is the power consumption.
Whatever Apple plans for the future with this acquisition will be great, as this company technology looks promising, plus how many companies have Apple bought and ended up doing nothing with them. I foresee many great things in term of portable gadgets, more powerful iPhones with 3G and maybe even larger screen, turning it more into a PDA (ala Newton), I’m already saving for that.
