So, as of this Monday, it is official. Apple will be using Intel Pentium 4 processors going forward.

Forgive me for not caring.

OK, maybe that’s a little harsh. I do care, but only enough to rub it in the noses of all those mac-fanatic nay-sayers who responded with our speculation to that effect with ridicule and the aloof certainty that only the religious can muster. “It’ll never happen,” they cried. “It will be the death of Apple. The PowerPC is so much better. Are you insane?”

We heard about Project Marklar, the then-supposed feature-complete x86 version of OS X percolating deep in Infinite Loop. The aforementioned mac-fanatics scoffed at it, dismissing it as unfounded rumor (which, to be fair, it was.) Now Steve Jobs has confirmed its existence.

We watched as Apple was basically ignored by its key chip suppliers, not once but twice; Motorola/Freescale deciding to focus on cellphones and other embedded devices, and IBM moving over to the much more lucrative videogame console space. We heard Steve Jobs make his bold prediction at the launch of the Power Mac G5, that they would deliver 3GHz within a year. Then we squirmed in shared embarrassment as Jobs muddled his way through a mea culpa one year later having failed to deliver on his promise. And one year after that, 3GHz still hasn’t been reached. By this point, even the mac-fanatics were getting restless, and it was only a matter of time before another radical shift was needed.

The solution, it was thought, would be dual-core PowerPC processors, but despite IBM’s work on its game-console chips, there was no real indication Apple was actually going to use those chips (of course, hindsight is 20/20; six months ago, the signs pointing to dual-core were everywhere.)

We saw other signs, puzzling on their own, obvious when added up. Hidden code in OS X referencing Pentium chips. Increasingly solid rumors of an Apple/Intel relationship. Palpable tension between Apple and IBM. No portable G5, even as the Pentium M was helping PC laptops pull ahead of their Mac equivalents. Still, any speculation on OS X running on Intel was met with the usual scorn.

Well, since everyone else is too polite to say it, I will: We told you so. Nyah.

At the start of this post, I said I didn’t care about this switch. Why? Well, I don’t see that much has changed. The Mac will lose AltiVec but it’ll gain SSE2. The Classic environment will be gone. Developers will have to check an extra box to have their software run on both PowerPC and x86. Hardware manufacturers will have to create OS X drivers for PowerPC abd x86. And everything else will be exactly the same as it is now.

Seriously, BFD. The Mac still doesn’t ship with a two-button mouse.