You can paint me a GIANT skeptic of chromebooks in any setting outside of education. My step-mom got one as a present (as in for FREE) from her daughters. She's BUYING a Windows laptop because of how frustrated she is that it works with exactly nothing. Can't use her fitbit. Can't update her GPS. No way to sync her iPhone. etc. etc. etc.
It's a niche product for nerds. Any standard consumer will purchase one and never buy a second once they figure out all the limitations of their "cheap" Chromebook. That's ignoring the fact that I've seen more Intel based Chromebooks in the wild than ARM. I completely disagree with your "mostly running ARM" assessment and the only facts I can find on it do as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook
A tiny FRACTION of chromebooks run ARM.
It is my understanding that Apple purchases the highest-quality chips of the highest-quality runs and pays a premium for it. What fraction of Intel's profits do Apple represent?
But Intel likes Apple Macs as a show pony. Intel has for years been desperately trying to convince hardware manufacturers to make both more consumer appealing PCs and new consumer devices around their chips. PC makers kept making the same old big beige towers, with the only differentiating factors being price (race to the bottom) and speed.
Apple doesn't like to compete in that space and likes to do other things and pushes on different features of chips that allow them to make smaller machines, quiet machines, fully integrated machines, battery friendly machines, and focus on industrial design.
Intel knows this and likes to use Apple to push other manufacturers to think in similar ways. The results have been pretty good as there are now PC competitors that make things like the All-in-one-flatscreen iMac, and the Macbook Air. If you remember way back before the iPhone, the original Apple TV was Intel based and showed Intel chips in mainstream consumer non-PC use cases. (This is different than concept demos because this was a real shipping product that actually managed to make enough money to sustain itself.) Also, Apple's obsession with reduction, like eliminating ports has been good for Intel because Apple helps encourage adoption of new standards they want to put out. For example, Apple embraced Thunderbolt at the beginning and was willing to drop legacy ports while most manufactures would normally hedge by keeping legacy ports. Apple pushing hard on this helps makes the 3rd party adoption faster which emboldens manufacturers to migrate faster themselves.
Every non-tech person that I know that has a chrome book loves it.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3086871/chromebooks/how-andro...
As for ARM inside the chromebooks : currently Intel sells chromebooks chips at low prices , and for a relatively smaller segment of the market - so they're OK with that.
What happens when ARM chips improve, and chromebooks hold a much larger share?
Respectfully I disagree. It's actually a great product for the majority of non-geeks who surf the web, take a few photos and watch Netflix.
Most newer devices sync over wifi to the cloud. I am pretty sure your Mom's iPhone can do that. The number of things you need a full blown PC for are diminishing.