There are a lot of knee jerk reactions in this thread that bear little relation to the topic.
First, this is a rumours site, and has accurately reported on some currently circulating news. MacRumors has not generated this story, it is the messenger.
Whether this news is fact, fiction, or speculation is a little hard to say in the absence of statements from the likes of Apple, Arm, Intel etc, but these links might help MR readers to form their own reasoned opinion:
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/05/05/arm_threatens_intel/
http://www.slashgear.com/apple-ditching-intel-for-arm-in-future-macbooks-tip-insiders-06150576/?
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/05/06/apple_arm_laptops/
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/02/16/nvidia_kal_el_tegra/
Secondly, computing is changing. What we've had for the last ten years is a mix of desktops and laptops, with software vendors providing major packages (like MS Office and the Adobe design applications) in the two OS flavours. It is only comparatively recently that handheld devices have become mainstream, particularly for business users. Looking to the future (say 2015 for the sake of argument), it is pretty obvious that mobile devices will become more prevalent, along with the infrastructure that will make them work (like cloud storage for example). It will be too late at that stage for any company to suddenly wake up and decide to join the party.
Thirdly, if you look at Apple's history you can readily see how they have changed little bits of our world very significantly. Take the iPod - laughed at by many when first introduced because it was ridiculously expensive, but it was part of a system that has completely changed the way we buy, store, organise and listen to our music. And music retailers (like HMV in the UK) have missed the boat and are going down the pan as a direct result.
If this 'Arm in Apple' rumour is true, then I would guess that Apple are looking ahead a few years to what might be, and ensuring they are at the front of the pack. Yes, Intel processors are good and have been good for Apple for the last few years. But what about 2015, when MS Office is a thing of the past, and Adobe CS stopped at 6.5, and all your applications are in the cloud to be used only when you need them, along with all your documents, and the MacGadgets magazine you used to buy is only available in digital format along with all the paperback books and daily newspapers.
Finally, Arm don't make chips. They design them and license them for others to make, taking a royalty on each one sold. Any of the chipmakers could produce Arm chips, and in fact many already do.
Arm have already indicated they are designing with the high end server market in view, so are probably already familiar with the fairly modest processing powers needed for laptops. Their A-15 chip will come very close to many current laptop processors. There is no doubt that they have the capability to enter this end of the market in time.
Intel, on the other hand, have already publicly admitted that they are way behind in the mobile/handheld end of the market. For sure they can rectify that, but if I were designing a new tablet today or in the next 6-12 months, I would have no reason to choose anything other than Arm.
If I were designing a laptop today, I would make damn sure that it did what an iPad can do in terms of it's battery life and portability, and that would mean going for a low-power-consumption chip.
