Microsoft cares because if Mac laptops have twice the battery life of windows laptops, nobody will blame Intel

Won't they blame Dell/Toshiba, not Microsoft? In my experience, users think of the vendor as being entirely responsible for battery, even when the software may be using it inefficiently.

Users will see all their friends using Apple products getting much better battery life, and their friends not using Apple products getting much worse battery life.

Agreed. People blamed Apple for Intel’s foibles up until a few days ago.

It still doesn't make sense for MS to push ARM that way - Apple isn't offering its ARM processors to 3rd parties. The best non-Apple processors are obviously x86 right now.

My question is what is the play for Intel and AMD right now? Are they shitting their pants or is this something that was somewhat expected given the progression of Apple's chips and their announced plans? Do Intel/AMD understand how Apple managed to so outmaneuver them? Is the performance gain Apple has delivered an inherent advantage of ARM over x86, and if so, does that imply that we are going to be seeing a migration to ARM in the PC space in the coming decade?

I'm deeply fascinated by these questions. I'd love it if someone in the chip design industry who is knowledgeable about the situation would comment.

AMD is fine. Its processors are competitive (often superior) and it's gaining marketshare.

Intel has been in trouble for some time due to its own failure to downscale, a failure which has little to do with x86. They'd be losing to someone else if Apple/AMD hadn't been there.

Intel still has some time to recover: it has plenty of money, and Apple/AMD are unable right now to take full advantage of their position. Apple/AMD rely on a supplier (TSMC) which does not have the capacity the supply all or even most of the processor demand, so Intel gets quite a bit of marketshare almost by default.

Given that Apple only has about 10% of the world desktop market, and zero server presence, very unlikely.

Apple isn’t selling to third parties, but I bet Google wants to. Google must be putting pressure on Qualcomm, and maybe Nvidia, to make something competitive. If they try, within a few years I’m sure someone can.

Imagine 3 years from now there are a bunch of Chromebooks selling at Chromebook prices, but offering intel performance. That would start to hurt Microsoft.

From the way they have been selling in Europe, there is a very long path to go.

Chromebooks are only relevant in US school system.

Chromebooks are actually widely used in schools in the Nordics.

Here in Germany they just do timid apperances in some consumer stores and then are reduced in endless offerings until someone finally takes them away.

Very few people are willing to pay the same price as a regular laptop for what seems just a big browser OS.

Is it though, or is it lacking the software investment that Apple made.

There are a good amount of chipsets that are now on 5nm processing. But only Apple made a full desktop OS to go with it.

Having used linux on High end ARM phone chips, my 4 year old Intel laptop, also runnign linux, is far more performant than they are.