Where is the hardware angle in this? One of the reasons that Macs lost the battle was because they couldn't compete with the latest and greatest hardware that that Intel churned out. Through most of the 90s Apple stuck with unpowered hardware while being clobbered by Dell and HP's prices (due to higher volumes and probably better supply chain management). This is no longer the case - in fact, because of Apple's massive iOS device volumes they can probably beat the bigger manufacturers on price this time around.

All they need to do is keep up with the hardware trends and keep refreshing their product line. So far they've done this (retina, dual core on iPad 2, cameras etc).

So, it's not like the old Win vs Mac battle since the hardware playing field is almost neutral (or perhaps there is a slight Apple advantage here).