Hell freezes over - Apple cosies up to Intel

It's been bandied about as a rumour for weeks but now CNet and the Wall Street Journal have reported as fact that Apple is switching to use Intel's Pentium D chips to replace the PowerPC processor from IBM which has been at the core of Apple's computers since 1994.

All will be revealed tomorrow when Apple boss Steve Jobs delivers his keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. If true, it's frankly flabbergasting given the difficulty in getting the Mac OS to run smoothly on a new processor (even though Jobs in typical hyperbolic mode claimed recently it would be a piece of cake).

Wired News writer Leander Kahney theorises that the move is part of Apple's attempt to take control of the online movie market - because the Pentium D chips have built-in security measures to ensure digital rights are adhered to. He points out that emulation software from a guy that used to work with Jobs would allegedly enables Mac software to run on Pentium chips with no loss of performance. A good trick if it were true.

Stay tuned for more details.