Apple does not want Intel to control the platform. Apple wants to control the platform. A Mac is really just a PC architecture - the existence of "Hackintoshes" proves this. This worked fine for a while until Intel blatantly starting handing out the Macbook air designs to its PC partners under the name "ultrabook" in direct competition with Apple.
ARM performance isn't there yet, but you don't need to be a rocket scientist to extrapolate historical trends to see that performance will reach laptop good-enough levels in short order. Apple can appease the power users (Final Cut Pro etc...) by still offering legacy x86 machines, but they can also offer a new machine for the mass market - with their own platform innovations.
When one of your best customers is dabbling in building CPUs of its own, there's reason to worry. In fact, Apple already makes the bulk of its revenues from ARM based devices. In many ways Apple has been a leading indicator for where the rest of the PC industry is going (shipping SSDs by default, moving to ultra portables as mainstream computers, etc...). There's even more reason to worry if the post-Steve Apple/Intel relationship has fallen on tough times. While I don't share Charlie's view of Apple dropping Intel as being a done deal, I know there's truth behind his words. Intel's Ultrabook push, the close partnership with Acer and working closely with other, non-Apple OEMs is all very deliberate. Intel is always afraid of customers getting too powerful and with Apple, the words too powerful don't even begin to describe it.
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