[imr]

People no longer care that there is "Intel Inside" when it comes to cell phones and tablets, the fastest growing markets. Sure, the Intel/AMD chip will support all of the x86 baggage, but what phone or tablet has legacy code to support?

[rodh257]

right now they don't care, but I could see there being an 'intel powered iPad' marketed in future years - a good way to market the device as 'speedy' based on years of intel's own marketing.

[imr]

So after years of buying the cheapest computers (cell phones and tablets), people will want to pay more for a name brand processor?

[dexen]

Not those same people. Right now a tablet is either `the cheapest computer' with appeal to low-end market or `the ultraportable' with appeal to some of the middle- and high-end market.

In a few years a tablet could well become `the powerful, ergonomic and ultraportable computer', with appeal to whole middle- and high-end market. That's the unwritten assumption behind the article: that technical progress will allow tablets to go the PC way -- decades of domination on wide market, rather than the netbook way -- cornered to low-end market, little market dynamics after few years.

Of course, Apple knows how to sell upgraded hardware to the same people every year or two -- but you can't have the whole market work that way.