Five Years, That’s All We’ve Got

Is this old prediction supposed to be impressive, and meant to serve as a convincing track record in regard to predictions?

Because after the Intel transition was announced it was obvious (and not just in retrospect) that OS X would abandon PPC and a future OS X version would be Intel only. Actually, that's the basic meaning of the word "transition" --and Steve had said, when he introduced it, that Intel gave them the better future roadmap.

The iPad and the MacBook (the only Mac that matters) are converging on the same place on the product diagram: an ultra-light portable computing device with long battery life

Well, that leaves all the stuff that a tablet can't do.

Now, possibly, we would add a keyboard and a big screen on an iPad, in the future. And the iOS of the era would have many more capabilities, like a modern Mac has. Well, I wouldn't call that the disappearance of the Mac. Just a new form factor that replaced the old one. You know, like laptops sales have eclipsed desktop ones.

Mac OS X shows signs of becoming less capable, through deliberate crippling of applications by the OS.

I have seen not one sign of "deliberate crippling of applications by the OS" from OS X 10.0.1 to OS X 10.8. Where is that supposed "crippling"?

It's FCPX not having all the features of old FCP? That's because it was written from fu*n scratch, and they couldn't add all the stuff in time. The big things missing are already here (XML importing, Multicam, etc), whereas other stuff were left out like floppy disks where left out: they don't make much sense going forward but for a very small minority (e.g tape editing). Go to Philip Bloom's blog to read the experiences of 7 experienced professional editors with FCPX and how they come around to liking it as an improvement over FCP.