MacCentral is keeping a live update of the keynote at today’s WWDC. The last entry as of right now was this tantalizing header:

The rumors are true: Intel will be inside

Oh, baby.

Update: The link above has the full rundown, best I’ve seen. Apple is truly going x86 Intel starting with one or two models next year. The question still remains whether they will do this similar to how they did clones back 7-10 years ago where Apple had strict licensing standards and a proprietary part required to get the OS to install or whether they’ll truly try to be Microsoft. I hope they choose the more open path.

What’s clear to me after thinking about this is that Apple is in a much better position now to take a chance on open clones: they have other revenue streams, good ones at that, that allows them to take some chances with their hardware revenue. I also think they’ll be able to maintain most, if not all, of their market in hardware. OS X is what makes Apple cool, and their hardware design is recognized as the best now by anyone and everyone even on the PC side of the world. So, they can still be BMW or Mercedes of computers while getting more and more revenue from their software and media divisions. I can install OS X for my mom without having her buy a computer with Firewire 800 and USB 2.0 and Gigabit ethernet. She’s less worried about spam and spyware but doesn’t have to buy a “luxury computer” to get the benefits.