They said they'd be using Intel chips for a while, it could specifically in regards to Mac Pro.
Even if apple could make a great server/high performance chip that seems like possibly a lot of additional work for little gain in the market?
Keeping intel chips for some computers may make more sense in keeping their toes in the water for intel incase they need to rekindle that relationship for future projects down the road.
The goal is to transition in two years. Given Apple's record at the high end, I believe that goal is optimistic.
I would be astonished if an Ax chip can match the media creation performance of the Xeons in the MacPro and iMacPro any time soon. The top Xeon has 28 cores, and matching that is going to be an interesting challenge.
I think it's more likely there were be further splits in the range, with prosumer iMacs running Ax and no-compromise pro models staying on Xeon for at least the next few years.
Intel support was announced during OS X Tiger, and 10.4.4 was the first public release with support for x86. 10.7.0 was the first release without support for PPC. So 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard were the two major releases with support for both Intel and PPC.
Now, Apple tends to provide security updates for at least a few years for each OS release, so I can envision recent Intel Macs getting security updates for another 4-5 years.
Up until last month I would've said they would keep things around much longer - I mean, they supported old iPods and iPhones far longer than their competitors...
But the killing of openGL and 32-bit software is making me wonder about their previously-amazing commitment to supporting older things.
Even if the goal to transition is 2 years that still means there will be a long tail of having to support Intel chips for future updates to the operating system. I have a 2011 Mac Pro that is chugging along perfectly fine with zero issues.
Even if apple could make a great server/high performance chip that seems like possibly a lot of additional work for little gain in the market?
Keeping intel chips for some computers may make more sense in keeping their toes in the water for intel incase they need to rekindle that relationship for future projects down the road.