Starting next year, Apple Computer will shift to Intel processors. Sites that specialize in Mac coverage will have much, much more to say about this than I. But for now, consider these points:

• Apple’s move away from IBM’s PowerPC chips further reduces Big Blue’s involvement in the personal computer biz, which it once dominated. It previously sold off its own PC operations to a Chinese company.
• Wired suspects the real reason for the switch might be Apple honcho Steve Jobs’s increasing involvement within/sucking up to the Hollywood media conglomerates. Intel, you see, has been developing anti-copying schemes that would reside directly on the CPU chip. They’d prevent home users from doing anything to music and movie files that the media giants don’t want done.
• If Apple hardware will now have “Intel Inside,” does that mean Mac OS X will be runnable on other companies’ hardware? And if so, will there even continue to be Apple hardware?
• Apple claims it’s got developer tools that’ll make the transition really easy for software creators, and that even unadapted applications will run swiftly and bug-free on the new machines. I’ll believe it when I see it.
• Does this mean the beginning of the end of Apple’s whole “Think Different” corporate identity?