Of the two, which would you find less desirable?

1.) Nintendo Forced To Go Third Party (next hardware does even worse than Wii U/3DS)

Pros:

No need to buy Nintendo specific hardware to get Nintendo games. 

Larger userbases to sell games to.  

Cons: 

Nintendo would lose a lot of their stature and potentially become just "another third party"

Didn't work out so great for Sega. 

Playstation/XBox audience may not take to Nintendo style games as cartoony/family titles aren't exactly tearing it up on Playstation/XBox. 

2.) Nintendo is bought out by Apple at some point (ie: their stock price gets too low inviting a take over bid)

Pros: 

- Nintendo IP would likely clean up on the iPhone/iPad, thus maintaining Nintendo's central role in the game business. 

- Apple could make a more dedicated console style AppleTV with a real Nintendo designed controller. Theoretically that might put Nintendo back on top in the console business. 

- Nintendo would have incredible marketing and brand exposure.

Cons:

- Well some other company would own them, so they wouldn't have the same freedom as before. 

- Culture would likely have to change as well, as Apple would obviously want influence over corporate decision making. 

- While Apple makes gorgeous hardware ... it ain't cheap (relatively anyway). 

Definitely Apple.

Both would be terrible but I would rather have them going third party cause I don't want to buy Apple's lolzworthy overpriced hardware to play Nintendo games

So being bought by apple would be a shit ton worse

Going 3rd party would be the lesser of the 2 evils. Let it be noted that both are particularly nasty evils.

I find being purchased by apple is far less desirable. That would absolutely mean the end of Nintendo as we know it.

Going to apple means Nintendo loses all creativity. Going third party means Nintendo retains all creativity.

3rd party is probably better. If Apple bought them, you can be sure that the games will exclusively be on smart devices and not on conoles.

Both sound great. Really.

I don't think Apple would make Nintendo make solely touch based iPhone/iPad games though ... there probably would be a general "Nintendo controller" and you'd be able to play Nintendo games on various Apple products that way too, whether it was your Macbook, Mac, Apple TV or a Apple style console.

While I'm sure there would be Touch Mario Brothers and Pokemon on iOS, there still likely would be the proper Mario Galaxy, Zelda 3D, etc. with a controller too. 

Nintendo going third party would be the preferred choice I guess.

both are bad, though i guess apple would be best.
Regardless, I'll officially retire from gaming if that happens, but i know it wont, so CHEERS!