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WWDC is tomorrow and rumors are flying based upon the reports by CNet and the NYT that Steve Jobs is going to announce a move to Intel processors for the Mac. I mean, you can swing a cat around here without slapping up against someone going on about it, myself included. The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a rundown of all the punditry right here.

I’m no pundit but, like any self respecting blogger, that won’t stop me. The pros:

1. It’s been widely rumored that Apple has been less than pleased with IBM’s ability to keep up with Intel for clockspeed on their processors.

2. As has been pointed out elsewhere, if Apple can point to two otherwise identical processors and show better stability, security, and performance, Microsoft needs to be at least a little concerned.

3. Also widely rumored and generally believed to be true: Apple has, deep within the bowels of One Infinite Loop, a build of OS X that runs on x86 and, further, they’ve kept that build at parity with the latest PowerPC build so rolling out an x86 version of OS X is not a ridiculous idea. What is NOT rumored, at least that I’ve seen, is that Apple has any sort of emulation layer prepped so that Mac users who opt for Intel inside won’t be stuck with a pretty OS and no apps. I’m no developer, but I’m guessing that even with OS X on x86, developers will still have to recompile at least.

4. The Apple tablet rumors, again. A Centrino chipset in a thin Apple tablet could be a sweet, sweet thang.

And the cons:

1. Are you on crack? There is almost no way, at all, that Apple can announce a move to x86 for existing product lines that won’t cannibalize current sales. Unless, of course, they’ve had their secret clone army prepping thousands of x86 based machines whilst simultaneously dumping PPC boxes sitting on shelves.

2. What makes you think M$ is going to let Intel consider such a thing? Suppose M$ decides to cozy up to AMD to the exclusion of Intel in retaliation. I’m no pundit, but it could happen.

I can’t think of any other cons. Except for hell freezing over, of course, but that’s been said already. Personally, I think there may very well be a grain of truth and I suspect that what we’ll see is either Centrino chipsets in PowerBooks or a totally new device based upon Centrino technology, like the Apple Tablet. If Apple does do this thang, I’m reasonably confident that it won’t happen in the consumer products first, like the Mac mini. The margin is too thin and those are not the customers looking for big performance gains. If this happens, you’ll see it in products marketed at pros. Since I’m demoing Second Life right now and I decided a long time ago that I would never again have a desktop Mac as my main axe, I am keenly interested in some performance in that particular product line.

Should be an interesting keynote.

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