Why would Mac kill their own development platform? Further, look Google as they thrash around desperate to diversify their revenue stream. Do you think it's sensible for Mac to go the opposite direction and pile all their eggs in one basket? Not to mention all the effort that went into creating this new unibody form factor. Should they just throw away all the resources they've put into doing that?
I think Apple will put less emphasis on the Mac in the next years, simplifying the line and reducing the products in the market, not so fast as he wishes, and this will be a trend in the entire industry, not only Apple. But that's my opinion and not a detailed analysis.
Apple has already put less emphasis on the Mac. OS X has largely stagnated since 10.5 came out in 2007, right around the time iOS started coming into the picture.
And if you look at what's coming in 10.7, it essentially reads like they're trying to turn the desktop into iOS. It's not an approach I'm particularly thrilled about; interfaces that make sense of small, touch-driven displays don't make as much sense on huge, high resolution displays, IMO. But Apple is letting their UI development for the former drive their desktop UI development.
Answered in several other places in the thread.
Owning your own development platform is highly overrated.
No man is an island, and certainly no corporation the size of Apple is one, either. Vertical integration shouldn't be considered a religious matter.
Somewhat irrelevant, as Apple has demonstrated fairly convincingly that they do consider it such.
Now, you could say that Apple didn't fab it's own PPC chips, but the x86 mac hardware is sure a lot more similar to everyone else's hardware than mac hardware has ever been before, and it's probably saving Apple rather a lot of money.
Of course, you could also argue that this trend is reversing, with the Apple platform now being driven by ARM devices that are far more, uh, custom. but you kind of have to do that right now, because the market for cellphone chipsets/motherboard layouts isn't as mature as the market for desktop/laptop chipsets and motherboard layouts.
I'm just pointing out, Apple is perfectly happy to use commodity stuff, when they think that commodity stuff is better/cheaper.
You may think owning your own development platform is overrated but you haven't demonstrated that at all and not everyone agrees. Worse you go on with this controversial opinion and built an entire alternative universe based on it. Are you a writer for the Enquirer or something?
(Shrug) Don't ask questions if you don't want people to answer them.