Intel also hearing rumors Apple testing MacBooks based on own A-series chip

"For Apple, a move away from generally-available, off-the-shelf CPUs and towards its own breed of proprietary designs would not only afford it more control over product release schedules and its intellectual property, but it would also pave the way for the Mac maker to introduce new patent-protected features on its Mac line that rivals would have trouble reproducing for their own designs. "

What does this article author think the Motorola Power PC chips were? They were custom made just for mac. This isn't anything that MAC hasn't done before what so ever. Just the same with the new chips, odds are they won't be MFG'd by MAC, and just by a third party again. Same thing as SUN used to, same thing as MAC used to. (Remember all those "Sun Microsystems" chips made by a million different makers all labeled "Sun Microsystems".

They are just reverting back to their old game, for one reason, and that's to differentiate MAC's from others and lock people into proprietary hardware/software, while at the same token, be able to get rid of people running specific MAC OS's on PC's.