Nicely reasoned article up over at applematters, but the one reason there will be Apple Hardware in 2010 is that they are the only manufacturer who can seem to project a sophisticated brand and create aesthetically pleasing hardware. The more the computer moves into the living room, and the kitchen, the more important the look and feel of the hardware become. The 5% of market share that apple now owns will not disappear, because they like the feel of the hardware. If anything, it seems more logical that Apple abandons OSX and just makes hardware that people love. How many IMACs would they sell if they ran windows.

Also, I think this argument is contrary to the last 20 years of apple history. They have always leveraged their hardware to get users to buy the software and vice versa. It worked with the ipod. would 30 million people own ipods if they had rolled out the IPOD OS and not married it with the hardware that looked and felt the bill. The strategy seems to be more powerful as computing moves more towards appliance and away from the kit cars that PC’s are today. Of course I could be totally wrong.