[ElDiabloConCaca]

I don't think Apple will use standard PC motherboards. They don't use standard PowerPC motherboards now, so I don't think they'll do it with Intel motherboards, either. In addition, the Apple product lines with strange, non-standard form factors far outnumbers the Apple product lines with familiar, standard form factors... Mac mini, iBook, PowerBook, iMac, eMac, etc. Look at any of those motherboard and you won't find a single one like them in any other computer.

The processor is changing, and that's it. The Macs will look the same -- they won't suddenly change into ugly PC boxes. For all intents and purposes, it should be impossible to tell a PowerPC motherboard from an Intel motherboard without knowing what each processor socket looks like.

Unless Apple decides to drop their prices to match current run-of-the-mill PC boxes, which I don't think they will, I think they'll keep the guts of their computers as proprietary as ever and charge about the same. This isn't a huge paradigm shift at Apple -- just a simple processor change that only affects programmers... home users will be able to use their applications as they normally would, and if they decide to upgrade their machine to an Intel machine, they'd better be ready to upgrade their software as well -- this is a given. Don't wanna upgrade your software? Don't upgrade your hardware, then, as you are asking for incompatibility issues. The condition your Macintosh is currently in is all you can ask of it -- you can't be assured that your stuff will work with all future machines to come.

I think Apple will use a combination of hardware and software to combat illegal installs of OS X. Using Intel's TPM chip as well as simple software checks (like they currently do with system-specific Restore CDs and certain applications), as Mikuro said, will combat the majority of tinkerers. I don't think they'll be successful at keeping OS X Intel off of all generic PCs...

I'm excited. I want an Intel-based Mac now. Especially after reading the reports about how fast it runs on Intel hardware. Sure, I liked the fact that I could brag about differences in endian-ness, RISC vs. CISC, pipeline depth and so forth, but that's not the meat of why I really enjoyed using my Mac. It's the user experience that really sucked me in and is what's keeping me a faithful member of the platform. Intel or PowerPC, as long as it's a Mac, it'll suit my needs happily.