In case Apple doesn't release a Netbook on October 14th...

..Wired's Howto has you covered.  They show you how to turn a $400 EeePC (+$15 for USB sound) into a "pretty snappy" Hackintosh netbook.  These are the most complete and thorough instructions we've seen so far though the process has existed for months.

The end result is surprisingly good with expected limitations...

The good news is everything else works. Except for Flash, no apps have caused any problems. Although, be aware that Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Contribute and possibly some other graphics apps require larger screens and won't install on your EeePC.

The other good news is, even with the stock 1 GB RAM in the EeePC, Mac OS X is surprisingly snappy. Based on my own experience, the EeePC feels about as snappy as my Macbook. On the other hand, benchmarks actually put the performance on par with late model G5 Macs.

Battery life isn't quite such a happy story. On average, my EeePC Hackintosh gets about 3.5 hours. Firing up Photoshop or Lightroom can reduce the working time to something around 2 hours -- a far cry from the 6-7 hours some people can eek out of XP.

We're not sure we'd even want to run Illustrator on something like this - even if it did install. 

Overall, however, this is more an exercise of what Apple "could do" more than a actual hack.  With optimized drivers, some expertise in the realm of power management and, of course, Apple hardware design genius, this could be a smash hit for Apple.  There is obviously a desire to get the best OS onto "everyman" machines that are also super-portable.

But only if Apple decides to play...would you buy a $500 Mac(Net)Book?