for the record, 64-bit isn't "nothing" or "meaningless". Essentially 64-bit means that you can process data in up to 64-bits instead of just up to 32-bits. The most obvious place this benefit comes from is being able to address up to 64-bits of memory addressing. To do this your running kernel (not necessarily your boot kernel) needs to be operating in 64-bits. The AMD64 architecture allows for direct access to the x86 instruction set when running under the AMD64 instruction set, but for compatibility does NOT allow access to the AMD64 instructions or ops while running in x86 mode. So to access more than 4GB of RAM you need to be using a 64-bit kernel. The problem is while running under the AMD64 architecture while the systems can run 32-bit code under directed access all interfaces to the actual kernel have to be compiled under 64-bits. This means 64-bit drivers and even 64-bit libraries depending on what the library is doing or providing for.
The good news for Mac owners is that, AFAIK all Intel based Macs are 64-bit systems as the CoreDuo has had those extensions since the beginning (I believe). It would just seem that apple is taking a more modular approach to 64-bit than MS to not force through the growing pains that MS users had to go through during the (uggghh..) XP x64 days or even the maligned Vista x64 days which didn't finally stop sucking until last year. Instead Apple seems to be trying to make the trasition to 64-bit as smooth as possible, and thus it is taking a bit longer to do it.
But yes, you should all welcome 64-bit computing, and hope that Apple can get there as soon as possible with a full blown OS kernel and base system. The sooner computing moves away from 32-bit, the faster we can move towards high memory operations and much much much larger computing tasks in a mainstream environment.
The good news for Mac owners is that, AFAIK all Intel based Macs are 64-bit systems as the CoreDuo has had those extensions since the beginning (I believe). It would just seem that apple is taking a more modular approach to 64-bit than MS to not force through the growing pains that MS users had to go through during the (uggghh..) XP x64 days or even the maligned Vista x64 days which didn't finally stop sucking until last year. Instead Apple seems to be trying to make the trasition to 64-bit as smooth as possible, and thus it is taking a bit longer to do it.
But yes, you should all welcome 64-bit computing, and hope that Apple can get there as soon as possible with a full blown OS kernel and base system. The sooner computing moves away from 32-bit, the faster we can move towards high memory operations and much much much larger computing tasks in a mainstream environment.