Given the superiority of 64-bit computing in performance, memory use and security, it's no surprise that Apple is touting Snow Leopard's 64-bit capabilities as a selling point of the OS. However, over the past few weeks, bloggers from the likes of , and have pointed out that in pre-release versions of the operating system, the kernel, which provides the core functions of the OS, runs as a 32-bit process on almost all Mac systems that it is installed on.

This is true: The kernel in Snow Leopard is designed to load in 32-bit operation by default on most Mac systems. However, focusing on the kernel, which facilitates very low-level functions that generally don't benefit from 64-bit operation, is missing the real point of 64-bit computing in Snow Leopard.

As anyone using Snow Leopard on a Mac with a 64-bit processor can see by opening the System Profiler utility (located in the Utilities or accessible from the About This Mac dialog under the Apple menu), the vast majority of applications, kernel extensions and application frameworks in Snow Leopard run in 64-bit operation. This means that nearly all the core applications that ship with Snow Leopard (the Finder, Spotlight, directory services, the Dock, etc.) are running in 64-bit mode.

All of these application frameworks support 64-bit processing -- only a few frameworks, applications and kernel extensions load in 32-bit mode on Macs capable of 64-bit processing.