The New York Times has offered details as to what happened in the Apple Intel deal.
Quote
Several executives close to the last-minute dealings between Apple and I.B.M. said that Mr. Jobs waited until the last moment - 3 p.m. on Friday, June 4 - to inform Big Blue [IBM]. Those executives said that I.B.M. had learned about Apple's negotiations with Intel from news reports and that Apple had not returned phone calls in recent weeks.
The NY Times also confirms that Apple looked into other chips, Apple reportedly met with Sony regarding the Cell but Jobs "was disappointed with the Cell design", might have something to do with it being built for gaming, whatever we still love you Steve.