You probably know that Apple is currently working on x86-based Mac OS X and there is already a developper version available... The x86 version is using a PowerPC emulator that translates all PPC instructions to the x86 CPU and thus the performance when running an application compiled for PPC CPU is lower. Hopefully untill the final release everything in the OS will be compiled for x86 processors (at the moment just a few apps are not), but what about third party applications? Read More.