There are reports all over about Apple considering the use of Intel CPU’s in their Mac computers. While I’d consider this to be welcome news, I really suspect it is more for the purposes of gaining a price break then any serious consideration of Intel CPU’s. My reasoning behind that is simple, if Apple adopt x86 class CPU’s in their Macs, then they can kiss their Mac hardware monopoly goodbye. If OSX will run on x86 class systems, you can bet your behind that every hardware manufacturer will start selling “Mac compatible” systems. Especially since most Mac hardware nowadays uses the same video cards, hard disks, DVD drives and so on as standard Windows PC’s. There is another possible downside for Apple as well, if they use x86 based systems, then they could suffer from people installing Windows (I can’t imagine why anyone would substitute OSX with Windows, but there is no accounting for taste with some people) or Linux on Mac hardware. (Linux already runs on Mac hardware, but it isn’t anywhere near as popular as it is on x86 hardware.)
Were I to take a wild stab in the dark, I’d guess that this speculation is designed to get Apple a better price for IBM’s new Cell processor that is to be fitted in the Playstation 3 when it comes out. I imagine a multi core Cell processor Macintosh would finally give Apple the sort of performance they’ve been claiming to have for ages.
