>> I would be fascinated by seeing Linux running on that level of an arm SoC instead of the glorified mobile shoved in laptop silicon.
I think the arm-based macs are probably great for non-power users that get by with 8gb of ram (ie. most mac users), run no vm's (including Fusion for windoze office, etc), and in general don't do much that isn't a basic app. Same folks that love to show everyone how they function on an ipad exclusively as ultimate fanbois, but ultimately don't do much with a computer anyways.
Everyone else still needs Fusion+Windoze, windoze apps, etc in an enterprise as microsoft and others still treat them as a second-class citizen. Plus I can't imagine these are very good for video or audio editing (yet), which others seem to love macs for, but maybe when they get to the 64 core chips, some more (expandable) ram, and everyone rewrites/optimizes their software for arm instruction instead of intel.
Apple devices always seem more of a fashion statement than anything imho, but whatever one likes... It's as much a religious debate at this point as linux vs. windoze.
-mb