There have been rumors about this for quite some time. In fact it’s known that Apple has pursued the Intel seriers of processors for quite a while, but that the Mac OS was never publicly released on Intel.

Things have been even more interesting with Mac OS X. The core of it, darwin, runs on the Intel processor. There are also rumors that Apple has kept OS X developement in parrallel on the Intel platform.

This isn’t the first time that Apple has switched processor famlies, so it definitely could be done.

Well CNet seems to think it’s going to happen. They’re confident enough to publish an article about it.

I’ve been thinking about it and while Apple most definitely could make a switch, given some of the rumors lately I wonder if there might be a different reason for the switch.

Last week Mac Rumors popped up an article about a patent Apple had just recieved for the design of a tablet style computing device.

This impending change, could it be strictly for a low power device? Perhaps the resurrection of the Newton? The Newton line ran on the ARM processor, which Intel now owns. Could this mean that the Newton is about to make a comeback? Intel’s processors, weather ARM or their x86 line up, tend to use less power than their Power PC equivalents. This would make them ideal for a device which needs a long battery life.

Keep in mind that this announcement is rumored to happen on Monday at Apple’s World Wide Developer’s conference. If they are indeed going to announce a new hardware platform, this would be the forum to do it in. They will need to get people on board for this.

I don’t think Apple would canabalize their PC line up. If they made a change, people would wait to buy new Mac’s till they new hardware was ready with all the new software they need ready for use.

Apple’s past products have all been about making the Mac the center of the digital lifestyle. Products like the iPod still need a computer to connect to. I think it’s far more likely that Apple’s use of an Intel processor would be for some new device in the digital lifestyle.

Personally, I’d really like to see the Newton come back. It’s no secret; I’ve stated that several times before. Regardless, it will be interesting to see if this marraige with Intel is true, and what direction Apple takes with it.