Will there ever be an Intel OS X application?

[Arcus]

Just a thought. Is there any loss of efficency when the programs a written in the 'universal'. format? If they are going to re-write the app, wouldnt it make sense to write it in a way that is optimized for OSX on Intel and not try to kill two birds with one stone?

Im not talking about new appications, it obvious why they would write Uni's but for apllications that already have a PPC version are they killing possible performance opportunities?

 

[robbieduncan]

This has been answered before. A Universal binary can contain fully optimised code for multiple architectures. There is no difference between having optimised code and producing an Intel only binary and using the same Intel only binary for the Intel side of a Universal binary.

 

[solaris]

^ Exactly!
You can merge any PowerPC and Intel binary, with 'lipo', into an Universal Binary. Regardless if they are optimized or not.

So you can have a '-fast' optimized PowerPC970 PowerPC part, and a generic Intel part in a universal binary...

 

[witness]

Of course universal binaries are going to be bigger, so will take up more space on your HD.

 

[robbieduncan]

Of course universal binaries are going to be bigger, so will take up more space on your HD.

As I've said before it's not really noticable. It's only the binary that gets bigger, none of the resources get duplicated. In most apps the binary size is less than 10% of the whole application size, even less when you have multiple languages installed.

 

[Eidorian]

I found an Intel only one.

http://www.nextcube.org/files/tiger-x86/VLC_20050924_x86_bin.dmg

19 MB instead of the normal 9-10 MB for the PowerPC version.