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Apple's move from Intel to ARM processors may be closer than you think.

The highly rumored iPad 3 is said to be doubling the current iPad 2 pixel resolution, moving from 1024 x 768 to 2048 x 1536. The move effectively increase the pixel count by over 4x, which is stunning for a device this size. Apple is likely to upgrade to a quad-processor to help things along, but a massive boost in graphics processing power would certainly be required to push that many pixels.

Apple has a knack for great timing. On Tuesday, Imagination Technologies publicly announced it's newest line of PowerVR, which may boast up to 20 times more of the performance vs their current core of GPU cores.

Such power integrated into a quad-core A6 processor would be able to make the iPad 3 roar, but it may deliver enough power to justify landing into Apple's Mac product lineup, starting with the MacBook air.

In an odd move, Intel is scrambling to eliminate it's own processor sales, shipping in Apple's MacBook air lineup. While that makes little sense, it becomes crystal clear when seeing how Apple quickly turn the tables on Intel, dropping the chip gorilla off at the PowerPC history museum. At CES, Intel apparently faked a race car video game demo, in an attempt to showcase the power of their new UltraBook technologies, not yet arriving for several more months.

Whether Apple quickly moves to drop Intel from it's Mac lineup, or keep them onboard for years is likely irrelevant to Intel's UltraBook play. Intel clearly understands that whether Apple sticks with the x86 platform for it's laptop and desktop computers is irreverent. What matters to Intel is making the UltraBook massively popular, and cheap as quick as possible. Intel can ill afford to watch tablets of all kinds grow into a monster of an accepted long-term market and have no play in the space. Rather, Intel would like to have consumers dive into UltraBooks, finding no need to own an iPad or Android tablet device. 

We are seeing this bear out to be largely true for the Apple user. Many of my colleagues who have iPads, which have also added MacBook airs to their lineup, have found little to no use for their iPads any longer. Intel gets this, and it is why they are racing to make UltraBooks the only computer you'll ever want. Apple is highly likely to pre-empt Intel's big push, by moving away from their power hungry chipsets, and launch their own in-house solutions for Macs by the end of 2012. Intel may look like they are scrambling, only because they are.

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