Ever since Apple announced last year that they will switch to using Intel processors, the industry has been alive with speculation as to which Mac model will switch first. My view is a bit different – Apple make fantastic-looking PCs, and if they have Intel hardware I ought to be able to run a version of Windows on one. Or, perhaps I could run Mac OS X in a Virtual PC on Windows (probably not, as I guess it will look for an Apple trusted platform module)?

On the way to work today, I was listening to episode 36 of the This Week in Tech podcast (incidentally, one of my favourite podcasts – even if it is a little US-centric) which briefly discusses the possibility of a new emulator for Windows applications on a Mac (not like Wine for Linux, which is API-based – you will need a copy of Windows in order to make this work, in a similar manner to running Linux applications on Solaris using BrandZ), so maybe I really can have the best of both worlds.

All I need to know now is, with the industry finally starting the push to 64-bit technology, will the new Intel Macs use cheap 32-bit processors (an early report from ThinkSecret suggested 3.6GHz Pentium 4s), or some new 64-bit dual-core beast? With CES taking place this week (Intel has already made some major announcements about its brand, identity and technology direction) and MacWorld next week (surely there must be some news there about Intel Macs), maybe we’ll get an answer soon.