This story is just rubbish...
Apple threaten Intel and tell them their CPUs need to be better, Intel snap into line?! I think not
Intel would have just told Apple, "...see how many Macs you'd sell for the rest of the year without any of our chips."
What you fail to realize is that most consumers don't care what's in the gut of the machine. They just want it to work. Apple would then be forced to make it work with AMD, ARM, or whatever. And they would (I'm sure with some initial issues). Though I agree that Intel is and should be their best choice. A dual chip Intel + ARM to run Mac OS X and iOS is a possible route I see Apple going.