I don't think they will have this all neatly settled in the next two years since it is a major change that will affect popular software, particularly software that developers use. This means that existing projects could need to back up, wait and restart or avoid the new hardware until it is settled. I am not looking forward to it from what I have read. They are said to be offering up a 'Rosetta2' to assist in converting or translating from old to new versions.

The hardware side is pretty settled ... the software is what is changing more frequently. Making their own just means ALL of the eggs are in one basket, and they have a hold on the handle.

Real news would be making that silicon in country instead of farming it out to third parties.

Hello,

Apple already changed it's CPU in the past, when they moved from Motorola's CPU to Intel's ones, and the move was easy and smooth.

Here, it's not that hard either for software developers, because Apple's own CPU will be ARM based (which is already what iphones are using, if I don't make mistakes). So, you already have a developing environment and compilers for this platform. Developers will just have to recompile their software. As for "optimization", excepting when it comes to Video games, developers are not bothering with this and let the compilers do the job.

Even if Apple's computers are not representing a large share of desktop/laptop market (in volume) , I think it's still a hard hit for Intel. Apple computers carry a prestigious image (I am not judging if this is legitimate or not), so it was good looking for Intel to power these computers. Intel will remain the leader, but you can see that the market is more open than in the past, with the resurrection of AMD.