If you could buy a $1,199 iMac or a $1,199 clone, why would you buy the clone?
Oh, unless you mean the clones would be priced LESS than Macs, in which case you're talking about killing Apple's revenue and destroying the company.
The first way seems pointless and the second way seems suicidal. I'm not sure which way you meant it, but neither seem very attractive.
Man are you short-sighted. No wonder Apple can't seem to get past that 5-8% market share hurdle. I mean, why in the Universe would you want to bring over say 300 million PC users to the Mac operating system over say 5 years time with Apple getting 30% off the top of those sales (becoming standard practice for them it seems) when they could INSTEAD directly sell 50 million Macs instead? Why get 250 million MORE potential users of iMac, Logic Pro (or Express), Final Cut, etc. etc. when we can have 250 million LESS? Yes, killing Apple's revenue and DESTROYING THE COMPANY. Give me a flipping BREAK.
This is NOT the same Apple with zero interest and an AWFUL operating system from 15 years ago. Back then Microsoft was just coming onto the scene with Windows95 and then 98 whereas right NOW, Apple has a HUGE opportunity given the MASSIVE UNPOPULARITY of Microsoft's VISTA clunker OS plus its never-before capability of being able to run XP or Vista IN ADDITION to MacOSX or even at the same time (Fusion/Parallels). Add onto that Apple's huge popularity with the iPhone and iPods and Apple has an opportunity it hasn't had since the mid-80's to grow leaps and bounds in the PC market and over-take Microsoft within 10 years.
But it flat out CANNOT do that selling the numbers it's selling right now. It either has to ramp up its lines and productions and offer the MISSING tiers in its line or it's going to just flat out give Microsoft time to correct its errors and nothing will change in the long run.
Short-sighted Mac users keep talking about stupid things like why would you want a tower if you could have an iMac like the iMac is something great. I own PCs and tower Macs and I have to tell you some of us don't WANT a damn laptop stuffed into a flat-screen monitor!!!!! How many? Well, let's look at the popularity of such systems in the PC market (yes they DO exist over there). They represent 1-3% of all PC 'desktop' sales and that's being MIGHTY generous. That means 96% of all desktop sales in the MAINSTREAM computing market are NOT all-in-one laptops-in-a-monitor systems. Who would pick a 'clone' over an iMac?? I sure as heck would! A LOT of people would. You keep thinking like a LONG TERM Mac user and NOT like a mainstream PC user. Now maybe you PREFER the Mac community to be small and cliquish (Hey, I run Linux too and I KNOW a LOT of Linux users LOVE feeling superior to the general computing population by knowing nerdy Linux shell programming and some aschewing GUIs entirely. It's snotty-computers-are-us all over the place. Many Mac users like feeling 'smarter' for "just working" instead of "computing". Well lad-ee-dah. Guess what? Different people have different needs. You can't base marketing assumptions on niche markets. And that's what Apple has been in the PC world in the past. A tiny niche.
But what some of us see is HUGE potential right now for Apple stop being a tiny niche in the computing world and play off their huge popularity in the phone and ipod worlds and start getting MacOSX all over the place.
What is missing from Apple's lineup? The #1 home user desktop environments out there are in the $300-800 range. Apple's purely delusional entry-level computer known as the Mac-Mini only cuts it for people willing to hack it into home entertainment centerpieces or other niche uses. It's USELESS compared to the same computer you could get for $700-800 in the PC world. That's just a fact.
You've also got a HUGE gap between the prosumer and Pro Mac markets. There's something slightly ridiculous about the notion that to get a Mac that can simply run a current Mac or Windows game well, you have to spend over $2200 that just smacks of 1990's Macintosh. Actually, it's a LOT worse. Most current Macs can't do 3D worth a darn PERIOD whereas at least back then you could expect a NEW Mac to have SOME value in those areas. The problem is that the $1000-1900 Mac range are all iMacs and Macbooks and have NO 3D capability what-so-ever. This is done ON PURPOSE to try and FORCE you to buy a high-end $2000+ Mac. Guess what? Not everyone on this planet can AFFORD a $2000+ Mac. You talk about cannbalizing sales? How can you cannibalize something that does not exist when the person cannot or will not buy a $2000+ computer PERIOD? That's called a *LOST SALE* not a cannibalized one. I can vouch for myself there again. I upgraded my old PowerMac a bit instead and bought a brand new $800 PC instead last November which lets me run the Windows software and Windows games I wanted to run through Boot Camp, etc. on a new Mac, but COULD not in the same pricing range. Until the following January/February range, you couldn't even get a decent 3D card for a Mac Pro no matter the price range.
But these things don't matter on a Mac you might cry! Mac users aren't intersted in 3D or gaming or anything of the sort! They're happy just doing iMac and then going to bed! Well once again, you're talking OLD Mac and not thinking ahead to the future. Heck, even Steve Jobs touted the return of Electronic Arts to the Mac, but then did NOTHING to support that return and so it's going nowhere once again. There's a HUGE GAPING WIDE HOLE in the Mac lineup. Other than extreme gamers (who expect something DIFFERENT for their $2000-3000 than what a Mac Pro offers), gamers do not buy $2200 PCs to play Halo3. They just don't. Not when an $800 PC will run it and all their home office and business software just fine.
So really, no I don't expect someone like you to see the big picture I'm talking about where Apple has the predominant OS and Microsoft is a has-been. You only see the past where Mac is a niche market for so-called yuppies with too much cash on their hands and too little interest in learning what makes a computer tick. Hopefully, Apple won't be so short-sighted. They have many options they could explore and I don't mean just licensing the OS for ANY clone maker. They could make a specific deal with just someone like Dell to fill a niche they're not willing or interested in filling and dictate their terms to Dell. No way does it have to be a disaster. It'd only be a disaster if they went back in time to the OLD Apple of little interest to anyone and did it all wrong again.
probably figured that Samsung could just take WebKit use it and get no credit. So if they offered the Safari branding that would be better then nothing. Probably better then Samsung taking the source code and calling it ... hmmm... Excursion or something 
