Business decision. Apple needs to ensure an adequate supply of processors. That's why even when they were PowerPC, they forced the supply issue from both Motorola and IBM. And given AMD's financials (now and when Apple made their switch), Intel was the logical choice. Moreover, Intel never would have agreed to any second-sourcing from AMD.

Given the iPhone trends (ARM, and custom Apple chips), a more likely choice maybe a move away from generic PC hardware. Which would sink the nascent OSx86 scene.

I think OSx86 on laptops is already doomed. Most of the new budget lappies use incompatible graphics cards (Intel 4500, or ATI Radeon 3200), and Apple has dropped the price of laptops.

If Apple didn't have such a blindspot towards cheaper, configurable desktops, then would there even be an OSx86 scene (I mean who can resist f*ing around with kexts, bootloaders, DSDT etc )

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MacBook Pro - have allergy to nickel in the aluminum casing. So my kid gets an expensive toy!

Gateway MX 8738 - Retail, vanilla Snow Leopard 10.6.2 (thanks kizwan!) with Chameleon RC4, modified DSDT. Upgraded to Core 2 CPU (easy to do). Upgraded to 640GB drive. Everything but SD card working. Minor niggles. GMA950 with QE/CI and *no* artifacts.

iMac (luxo/lamp) G4 with Tiger.