From MacSlash:
We're a little more than three hours away from Jobs' earth shattering revolutionary tectonic keynote speech at WWDC. Everyone who's ever so much as seen a computer on TV is going to be watching to find out what he's going to announce. Steven Frank has some inside information on the announcement. And maybe you do, too? So speculate, MacSlash readers. Is Apple really moving to x86? Or is Intel only supplying the chips for the new Tablet Mac? Does the Intel deal have anything to do with Disney buying Apple? What do you think is gonna' happen at a speech that's sure to be bigger than "I have a dream" and the Gettysburg Address combined?
That link is pretty funny....
eta: Speculation in Wired about why Apple is switching to Intel:
But why would Apple do this? Because Apple wants Intel's new Pentium D chips.
Released just few days ago, the dual-core chips include a hardware copy protection scheme that prevents "unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted materials from the motherboard," according to PC World.
Apple -- or rather, Hollywood -- wants the Pentium D to secure an online movie store (iFlicks if you will), that will allow consumers to buy or rent new movies on demand, over the internet.
According to News.com, the Intel transition will occur first in the summer with the Mac mini, which I'll bet will become a mini-Tivo-cum-home-server.
Hooked to the internet, it will allow movies to be ordered and stored, and if this News.com piece is correct, loaded onto the video iPod that's in the works.
Intel's DRM scheme has been kept under wraps -- to prevent giving clues to crackers -- but the company has said it will allow content to be moved around a home network, and onto suitably-equipped portable devices.
And that's why the whole Mac platform has to shift to Intel. Consumers will want to move content from one device to another -- or one computer to another -- and Intel's DRM scheme will keep it all nicely locked down.
Presumably, Jobs used his Pixar moxie to persuade Hollywood to get onboard, and they did so because the Mac platform is seen as small and isolated -- just as it was when the record labels first licensed music to iTunes. The new Mac/Intel platform will be a relatively isolated test bed for the digital distribution of movies and video.
Will current Mac users like this new locked-down platform? I doubt it, which I guess is why it's going into consumer devices first.
In the PC industry, Apple lost the productivity/office era to Microsoft, but it's trying to get the jump on the next big thing: the entertainment/creativity era, and it's going to drag it users, even if they're kicking and screaming, with it.
Of course, the whole thing could turn out to be untrue....