[X4U] Couple questions on Apples move to Intel

[Steve Self]

The last thing Apple would want is a poor, marginalized, windoze-like  
user experience under the OSX brand. I think they would keep the OS- 
hardware integration so tight and exclusive that by the time hackers  
got OSX to run on other Intel boxes it would really no longer be OSX.  
Kinda like VPC that is so kludgy and buggy that only the twisted  
promote it.

Now running Longhorn within an Mactel box will be a semi-useful  
selling point to the arcane and fearful. And maybe encourage  
switching more and more.

> From a PR standpoint, though, even if Apple makes that message  
> clear (particularly if the message is more about the benefits of  
> Mac hardware over generic hardware rather than a "use at your own  
> risk" message), you know who's going to get the bad press when it  
> doesn't work well on cheap boxes, and comparisons start being made  
> to Windows stability, etc. I think this is a potentially difficult  
> line Apple is going to have to walk - can they do enough marketing  
> to keep the potential complaints of poor compatibility with generic  
> PC hardware at bay? Or are they better to avoid it by making sure  
> it's not an issue, and thereby frustrate (perhaps alienate) some  
> who would like more choice of hardware?