New and Noteworthy: Apple had options other than Intel; Apple warns against speculation on Darwin plans; more

Apple had options other than Intel The Register reports that Apple had more options than has been previously reported when considering its switch to Intel processors. "PA Semi - a maker of low-power Power processors - formed a tight relationship with Apple - one meant to result in it delivering chips for Apple's notebook line and possibly desktops. The two companies shared software engineering work, trying to see how Apple's applications could be ported onto PA Semi's silicon. When word leaked out that Apple had signed on with Intel, it shocked the PA Semi staff, according to multiple sources. [...] PA Semi's first processor - the PA6T-1682M - is due to sample in the third quarter of 2006 as a 2GHz, dual-core product with two DDR2 memory controllers, 2MB of L2 cache, and support for eight PCI Express. The product will ship in volume next year and be followed by single-core and quad-core chips. It also supports the Altivec floating point instruction set that currently provides a massive speedup for multimedia and scientific Mac software. At 2GHz, the chip consumes just 7 watts of power according to PA. Intel's Core Duo consumes between 21 and 25 watts." More.

Apple warns against speculation on Darwin plans Macworld UK reports that Apple's product manager for Open Source and standards has moved to minimize reports that the company's focus on open source is fading. "Infoworld columnist Tom Yager last week speculated that Apple's commitment to sharing the code within Mac OS X's Darwin kernel was fading. He noted that Apple hadn't yet shared the source code for Darwin on Intel processors. Writing on an Apple Open Source mailing list, Apple product manager, Ernest Prabhakar, said: 'Just to be clear, Tom Yager was speculating about why we have - so far - not released the source code of the kernel for Intel-based Macs.  We continue to release all the Darwin sources for our PowerPC systems, and so far have released all the non-kernel Darwin sources for Intel.'" More.

Parallels Desktop rebadged Digit reports that Parallels' virtual machine software for Intel Macs -- previously known as Workstation -- has been rechristened Parallels Desktop, and developer is now offering a Release Candidate (RC) version for users enrolled in the beta program. "Parallels Desktop enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows and other operating systems designed for use with Intel PCs. It works differently from Apple's Boot Camp software because it does not require you to restart your Mac -- instead, the operating system works within a window on your Mac OS X desktop." More.

First Apple MacBook benchmarks Another Digit article has some early, basic MacBook benchmarks. "How'd it do? Quite well for a notebook with a fast CPU (Intel's 2GHz Core Duo) but relatively skimpy RAM (512MB) and integrated graphics that steal their RAM from the main memory. In fact, the MacBook's WorldBench score is 88 is faster than four of the five models on our current All-Purpose Laptops Top 5. Our #1 all-purpose laptop at the moment, Dell's Inspiron E1505, has a WorldBench score of 82, close enough to the MacBook's 88 that you probably wouldn't notice a difference. The Inspiron has a slower version of the Core Duo chip, but it has discrete graphics (vs. the MacBook's integrated graphics) and we tested it with 1GB of RAM (twice as much as the MacBook's 512MB)." More.

Previously on MacFixIt

• iWeb 1.1 (#3): iComment issues; Formatting issues; Problems enlarging photos
• Security Update 2006-003 special report follow-up
• SMC firmware update 1.0 (#3): More issues fixed

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