Apple has confirmed a register report that Panther, aka Mac OS X 10.3, will not be a fully 64-bit operating system. Greg Joswiak, Apple"s vice president of hardware product marketing, this week admitted that Panther will be a 32-bit operating system tweaked to support 64-bit addressing.
That"s the same technique implemented in Mac OS X 10.2.7, the version of the Apple operating system that will ship with the first 64-bit Power Mac G5s. Mac OS X 10.2.7, codenamed "Smeagol", is a 32-bit OS, but certain libraries and other elements have been recoded to allow it to make use of the 64-bit addressing provided by the G5"s 64-bit IBM PowerPC 970 processor.
In the run up to the launch of the G5 and subsequently, many Mac users assumed that Panther would be a fully compiled, "true" 64-bit OS. However, reporting on an chat with Greg Joswiak, Apple"s vice president of hardware product marketing,PC World.com this week noted: "Apple hasn"t announced plans for a pure 64-bit operating system; Panther, an updated 32-bit OS due out the end of this year, will have [Mac OS X 10.2]-like 64-bit support."