i don't understand a lot of people that write in these forums. what part about OSX for Intel does not sound good to anyone? we're all macheads, and as such, we will always buy mac hardware. steve knows that, and whoever follows him down the line probably will to, and apple will always stay faithful to us because we're what makes the great company great. we don't buy macs for the OS, though that's part of it, but we'd all decided to be mac lovers for life long before OSX ever existed. we buy macs for different reasons altogether, and we always will. apple doesn't need to worry about its fanbase swtiching to a PC with OSX just because they'd be cheaper. that said, apple hardware sales will not fall at all. in fact, they'd probably increase. after a computer generation of PC users running OSX on thier intels, a fair amount of them would take the plunge and buy a G5 or G6 for their next computer (thinking way ahead here).
average joe dingus out there using a peecee doesn't really have any kind of OS loyalty, so when he sees that the $900 P4 dell he's about to buy comes with either the evil m$ OS or the "think different, trust us, look how snazzy our OS looks" apple OS, he might just opt for the second, and if he doesn't someone else will. apple could easily cover 25% of the PC OS market, and that'd be plenty to satisfy me, not to mention the wonders it would to for everything apple.
yeah windows is familiar to a great portion of the population, but like a recent windows convert said in another thread on this site, if every windows user just spent a few hours sitting with OSX and learning the way the OS thinks and works, they'd never go back. familiarty is a powerful thing, but so is usability, and if people see that one OS is more user friendly than the other, they'll be willing to grow familiar with the new guy.
think about it: how many times has a friend of yours mentioned that he's thinking about getting a new computer, and you say "ooh ooh ooh get a mac!!!" and they sort of laugh at your suggestion and proceed to the gateway website. that's because people like their pcs and aren't willing to venture out into the great unknown to get an apple, not to mention the extra cash they'd have to throw down for a better machine that they know they won't take advantage of. but now imagine that instead of saying "buy a mac!" you could just say "dude, get OSX on that new dell, you'll love it" and they'd go "eh, i don't know, windoze is familiar to me" and you'd go "dude come over to my house and check out my powerbook, i'll show you OSX, it's easy as hell." sure, dell still gets the sale, but windoze doesn't. apple may not have sold a new tower, but it made at least a small sale where none would have existed before. something is always better than nothing.
so to conclude this rant, i'm tired of people shooting down good ideas because they're sick of seeing them in every forum. an apple PDA is a fantastic idea. you'd buy it, just like you bought an iPod, even though there are better deals on MP3 players out there. why? because they're something about a mac, whatever form it takes. OSXtel would be beneficial in so many ways that most completely elude me. so quit getting turned off to ideas just because you're not the first to think of them or the 9043rd to submit an opinion on them.