Muahahahaha, it's true. I can't believe it. They are really phasing out PPC in the long run and switching to that Intel junk. What a mess. Of course, Intel or AMD doesn't automatically mean bad computers - SUN has built some nice boxes and SGI had a few fine ones as well. And if Apple continues to be as stringent with the rest of the hardware, there won't be any major problems with stability and the system. And the fact that this will again open up the chance for clones is certainly not bad either. But who wants to see an Intel Inside sticker on their Apple? Disgusting.
The crucial thing remains, of course, the operating system - and OS X on Intel is still not Windows, just because the heart beats the wrong way and the processor wasn't co-designed by Motorola.
Oh, and of course, we will eventually be forced to use Intel's crappy DRM stuff...
Otherwise: there will be an emulator that will run PPC programs on Intel Macs if the application bundle doesn't already contain an Intel binary. Therefore, the transition will probably be relatively smooth for users - although PPC applications will then of course only run at a reduced speed. And it will probably become annoying for users that at some point various programmers will no longer generate PPC binaries - simply due to lack of hardware - and thus new versions and new programs will no longer run on the old Macs. Unless someone knits an X86 emulator for the PPC Mac in a similarly transparent manner (and with similar performance issues).
Update: whoa, the switch even made it into the Heute Journal