Rumors of Apple switching to Intel chips originally started this weekend with CNet posting a confirmed story [link]. Later a few other sources jumped in as well, such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Steve Jobs is preparing to give his keynote for the Apple WWDC at 10am PST today and I guess all the rumors will come to an end and we can get on with either new PowerPC hardware and figuring out how our lives will change with “Intel Inside”.

Early on, I seriously doubted the rumors and figured CNet was as screwy as the rest of the world, but throughout the weekend, I learned other interesting details such as Apples work with Transitive Technologies, whose slogan is: “Our software allows any software application binary to run on any processor / operating system.”. I “lived” through the transition of 68k to PowerPC and remember the days of needing a software FPU for emulation during that transitional period. Transitive Technologies could be the emulator for a new transition.

John Gruber has some good blog posts about the stories and the possibilities. Here is his latest post [link]

Personally, I guess I really don’t care what is “inside” my computer. In my office, I have both a Windows box (Dell XPS) and a Mac Mini. I am happy with both, not because of what chip is in each one, but because of the software on each.

My final opinion: I just don’t see it happening. There are far too many risks compared to any possible benefits of the “ultimate switch”. I’m still expecting to see dual-core g5 announcements (IBM970MP) and maybe even a G5 Powerbook (or dual-core G4 Powerbook?). But there is good reason why I work with Flash, and not as an industry analyst, so your guess is as good as mine right now.