Apple just closed a deal to buy P.A. Semi. For those of you that don’t recall who they are… they were the company minutes away from wooing Apple away from jumping to Intel. The company offered PowerPC processors that provided G5 performance… without the heat dissipation issues.
The Intel transition still went through, which has left many scratching their heads. And, most people seem to be asking just one question…
Why in the world would Apple buy it? Gee, I don’t know… not like any other consoles use PowerPC (just Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation3)… Apple, if you want me to stop here, you know my number.
That said, some have theorized that Apple had abandoned PowerPC can quietly sit down. I’ve long held that Apple would maintain a PowerPC branch for both embedded, and workstation computing… and this pretty much seals that deal. Now, P.A. Semi is also heavy on ARM processor development, but iPhone is likely Intel-bound, unless P.A. Semi has a cheaper chip in development that the world isn’t aware of.
Update: Steve has gone on-record saying that he doesn’t see a return to PowerPC in Apple’s future. Of course, he also said he didn’t see video-playing iPods in Apple’s future as well. I wouldn’t count the statement either way really. After all, you can say you’re not going to PowerPC… and then pick up a Cell. And the Accelerate Framework loves Cell.