I could easily see Apple wanting to buy or closely partner with AMD in a few years, if things go well for AMD. Certainly, their graphics business is going quite well these days, but the future of their CPU products is uncertain. If both their Bobcat and Bulldozer architectures are successful, then Apple might well be willing to risk alienating Intel. (Not that Intel has been showing any sign that they care if they alienate Apple.)
There would still be the problem that AMD always lags behind Intel in fab technology, which is why they have trouble going after the highest-performance and lowest-power segments. No matter how much cash you have on hand, there's no quick fix for that. At least with Intel CPUs, Apple products can generally match the performance of any competitor, and any price premium can be attributed to the better industrial design, integration, and software. If Apple switched to AMD processors, most of their computers would now be afflicted by a performance deficit in addition to the existing "Apple tax".
NVidia doesn't seem like a tantalizing acquisition for anybody except perhaps Intel, if they can admit that they don't know how to make a good GPU. NVidia has been mostly squeezed out of the chipset and integrated graphics markets by Intel's shady tactics and the awkwardness of AMD now owning ATI, and the discrete graphics war hasn't been going well for NVidia for quite some time, with no respite in sight. (This month, AMD will be releasing their third consecutive generation of GPUs that soundly beat the competition in price/performance comparisons at most price points. NVidia can't really do anything about it in the short term, because their chips are simply bigger for the same performance, so their profit margins are lower. They've been trying to mitigate this by focusing on HPC, but that's not catching on quickly enough, either.)
"If Apple switched to AMD processors, most of their computers would now be afflicted by a performance deficit in addition to the existing "Apple tax"."
Apple could potentially transition parts of its line to AMD processors, without completely abandoning Intel.
It seems likely that Sandy Bridge will be the CPU of choice for workstations, while Bulldozer will be the throughput winner (hence server oriented), and Bobcat the performance/watt featherweight. Of course, none of this is certain until the actual products are available.
Bobcat might not have the performance to match up to Sandy Bridge, but having an AMD/ATI graphics processor could potentially make it a good choice for a souped up AppleTV product aimed a little higher. Ok, quite a bit higher. Serious 3D gaming higher. And I'm pretty sure that AMD would LOVE a design win like that!
The competition from AMD plus the the narrowing margins in CPU's is part of what's leading AMD and Intel toward system on a chip solutions, but although that's bad for the likes of nVidia, it's good for OEM's like Apple.
There would still be the problem that AMD always lags behind Intel in fab technology, which is why they have trouble going after the highest-performance and lowest-power segments. No matter how much cash you have on hand, there's no quick fix for that. At least with Intel CPUs, Apple products can generally match the performance of any competitor, and any price premium can be attributed to the better industrial design, integration, and software. If Apple switched to AMD processors, most of their computers would now be afflicted by a performance deficit in addition to the existing "Apple tax".
NVidia doesn't seem like a tantalizing acquisition for anybody except perhaps Intel, if they can admit that they don't know how to make a good GPU. NVidia has been mostly squeezed out of the chipset and integrated graphics markets by Intel's shady tactics and the awkwardness of AMD now owning ATI, and the discrete graphics war hasn't been going well for NVidia for quite some time, with no respite in sight. (This month, AMD will be releasing their third consecutive generation of GPUs that soundly beat the competition in price/performance comparisons at most price points. NVidia can't really do anything about it in the short term, because their chips are simply bigger for the same performance, so their profit margins are lower. They've been trying to mitigate this by focusing on HPC, but that's not catching on quickly enough, either.)