OS X on Intel -- tactical or strategic?

Not like anyone was surprised yesterday; Apple has clearly learned from the W-house and Wöllstrasse that one must leak trial balloons to cushion the market from shocks of this magnitude. But is it such a shock, really?

Steve Jobs has clearly seen the future, and it is Windows v. *nix, embedded in devices. If you can drive consumer ease-of-use into phones & cars, while carving out the position as best *nix GUI, you have a shot at surviving -- and perhaps evolving into a lifeform with more than an arboreal niche at the edge of the savannah.

Oh, I will miss the religious warfare over processor speeds as much as the next geek. But when Steve gets up and says they have a roadmap for somewhere that PPC chips won't go, I know he isn't *just* blowing smoke...