There are a couple of things about this article I don't buy. First off is that a second major revision in the Apple world in four years would be a problem for app developers. Bull. Unless generic app development in OSX is so radically different from Windows that I cannot even fathom it - 99% of the code at the VERY least is programming language conventions + API calls to the operating system & supported/ported 3rd party APIs like OpenGL/SDL. I highly doubt that remaining 1% is going to kill anyone, especially with the glut of x86 coders serving coffee at Starbucks these days.

Secondly, there's the claim that Apple doesn't want to shift to x86 because Microsoft would eat them alive. Ok, hold onto this because I'm about to get crazy here: #1, you're telling me that people will shift away from easier to use? AOL has how many customers (or had how many before they trimmed costs too much)? Much more importantly - how about just porting OSX over to the x86 and having developers write the very minor amount of platform-specific code necessary twice. Madness, I know, but game developers coding for the PC have had to put up with writing specific code for SIMD, 3DNow, MMX, and generic processors for sometime now. Assuming these concepts translate AT ALL I'm trying to think of code that the overwhelming majority of your Win32, MFC, or VB apps use that necessitates giving a flying fuck about what platform is running it . . . and outside of the need to compile two versions of the executable I'm coming up with a gigantic nothing hanging in my face like an engorged prick.

Countering the last point shouldn't even be necessary, but here goes: COST. People want an AOL machine and they want it at the prices that pimply kid next door can put it together for. Moreover, if Intel's Pentium 4 aka Giant Lump of Shit proved anything it's that consumers judge performance solely by that amazing '2.4 GHZ FOR $999!!!!!' at the top of the sales flyer. Sticking to these low clockspeeds might not hurt Apple's performance that much from an objective vantagepoint, but it is cruficying them in the minds of the retards buying P4s and the demi-retards selling them by the dumptruckload.

I'm an x86 user. I will be an x86 user until Palladium hits. Give me OSX on the x86. Give it to me now so I can leave this wretched hovel. Windows 2000 will only last me so long before everything is XP and .NET and the Palladium-enabled .Manjail. I want off this sinking ship and I swallowed the roophies on purpose so show me the way home, honey.