[Maflynn]

That's a question I think about lately.

You have the argument that we pay the apple tax, i.e, its more expensive and regardless if you believe that or not. One thing can be said; prices for macs are on the high end.

Windows 7 is by in large Microsoft's best offering, very stable, has some very osx like qualities and I use it often enough to appreciate it. In fact it has some features that are better then osx.

What keeps you going back to apple, for your computers.

[P]

Because it's nice to have a computer that just works.

[Spheric Harlot]

1. They don't annoy me.

2. Logic.

3. iLife. It doesn't annoy me.

My time is too valuable for tinkering.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

3. iLife. It doesn't annoy me.

It seems the latest version of iLife is annoying people more then they hoped. It seems some people are incurring problems with iPhoto. I haven't upgraded since they did not touch iWeb and I use aperture, I see little reason to upgrade even with the discounted price.

My time is too valuable for tinkering.

Interesting point, I use Linux, for that reason, I enjoy tinkering. I also maintain a small server farm (about 30 servers) so I'm always tinkering there as well. I see your point in so far as that with a mac, "it just works." mentality.

[Atheist]

For me it's OS X... not so much the hardware since the majority of my experience has been on a hackintosh.

As P said, it just works.

[Person Man]

Because I've always used Apple computers since 1984 when we got an Apple IIc. Three years later I got an Apple IIgs for Christmas and I used it as my main computer until 1996. It saw me through three years of college and it would have seen me through the last year if I hadn't needed more substantial (read: graphical website) Internet access.

Even then the Power Mac 7600 I got in 1996 lasted me until 2001. I expect my current Mac Pro to last me at least 5 or 6 years, too.

We may pay a bit more up front for our Macs, but they seem to last longer and hold a decent resale value for a lot longer than PCs. I expect I'll be able to sell my Mac Pro for at least $500 in 5 or 6 years. How many PCs can you say that for?

I've been a fan of Apple's Graphic User Interface since 1984 and I saw the first Macintosh in the store. In fact, my uncle struggled with whether to buy us a Macintosh or the Apple IIc back then. I'm still a very big fan of the Apple II series. I learned how to program on the Apple II. I own several Apple IIs now and they are still fun to use to this day. I can't say that about any of the PCs I have owned.

To be fair, Microsoft and Apple have gone back and forth with their respective OSes. Windows 7 has caught up to Mac OS X in many ways but the Mac OS still feels more elegant, more usable. I use Windows regularly at work (on a Mac, of course). I do have a Media Center PC hooked to my TV, though, because I have a large collection of DVDs and now Blu Ray discs from outside the region and there is not yet anything to equal Slysoft's excellent AnyDVD HD on the Mac.

One other thing I should mention is that Apple's attention to detail extends to the Windows experience under Boot Camp. I think that the "out of the box" experience for using Windows (even XP and Vista) on a Mac is far better than most of the major PC manufacturers. This is for a couple reasons: Apple provides high quality drivers and since you install Windows yourself, there is *no* crapware installed. I think it's pretty funny that Apple is able to make Windows "just work" almost as well as the Mac OS and iOS "just work."

I understand those that like to tinker. I did when I was a student. Now that I have a job and family (i.e. very little free time), I want a computer that lets me do tasks in the least amount of time and with the least amount of hassle. That's worth paying the "Apple tax" for. I'd call it more of an investment than a tax.

Or to paraphrase the BBEdit slogan, Macs suck less.

[sek929]

Without getting into a long-winded reply I buy Macs because they've always ran very well for long periods of time. I've never had to re-install a Mac OS and since 10.1 haven't had a hard crash or freeze. Might be overused, but the phrase "it just works" honestly describes my feelings best.

[mattyb]

When Leopard came out, I remember a guy saying that he installed in onto a 6 year old machine. I'm not sure about Windows 7 but Vista sure couldn't install on a 6 year old machine.

I got a Mac in 2007 because a guy at work said "if you're fed up with fooling around with Linux then get a Mac". He was spot on.

[Eug]

In the days of Windows XP, I migrated nearly completely over to OS X.

Now that Windows 7 is out and actually half decent, I've bought a SFF Windows 7 machine to replace my Cube, and may buy another one to replace my other Cube. It's a heluvalot cheaper to buy an adequate SFF PC for a secondary machine than it is to buy a Mac mini - roughly half the price. And I'm currently debating whether to get the next gen 2011 11.6" Air or a Windows 7 11.6" netbook. The Windows 7 netbook would be much cheaper, but the Air looks nicer and is much lighter, something that is much more important on a laptop than on a SFF desktop.

However, even with two replaced Cubes, I'd still have 4 Macs in the house... for 2 people (and guests).

I am also considering getting rid of my 27" iMac because I find it is not ergonomic. However, it might just get replaced with a 21.5" iMac, although that isn't the most ergonomic either. Here's hoping for a new iMac design in 2011.

Linux has always been a non-starter for me.

P.S. I dunno about Just Works. Apple's support of Firewire these days is at best half-hearted. I've invested significantly in Firewire over the years, but every so often Apple releases an OS update that breaks support for some of my drives. I've had to resort to kext tinkering to get them back up and running at times. I'd be more than elated if Apple would only release a consumer Mac with eSATA support.

[Phileas]

Because Macs, and their associated peripherals, like iPads and iPhones, work the way a person thinks, not the way a computer thinks.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Phileas 

Because Macs, and their associated peripherals, like iPads and iPhones, work the way a person thinks, not the way a computer thinks.

...except for that one obvious feature that Apple leaves out, making the world rip out their hair in frustration. iDVD and external drives anyone? How about cut and paste on iPhones? Or how about just iMovie '08?

Yeah, Apple gets around to it eventually, but sometimes their obstinate approach to things really pisses me off.

[rickey939]

I buy them simply for the documentation and packaging.

[MrsLarry]

Would "because I'm a Mac" sound crazy? At this point, it's just sort of how I operate day-to-day. The thought of going back to a PC after all this time seems.... well, awful.

[imitchellg5]

For me, it's really because it's what I've been used to for the last 10 years. My parents bought a Mac when I was about 5, we got the first version of OS X when it was released, and I've been in the OS X ecosystem for so long that it seems silly to change. I do think the hardware is exceptionally well made though.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Eug 

...except for that one obvious feature that Apple leaves out, making the world rip out their hair in frustration. iDVD and external drives anyone? How about cut and paste on iPhones? Or how about just iMovie '08?

Cut and Paste and the iPhone are a great example. iPhone couldn't do a lot of stuff when it came out, but I what it did, you WANTED to use - they certainly took their time for copy and paste, but once it came, it was discoverable and actually usable.

When iMovie 08 came out, I instantly fell in love with it. It's just SO MUCH better than iMovie HD - albeit hampered by a comparative lack of advanced functionality. But the basic approach is so obviously "just right". Since iMovie 09, I've been doing rather a lot with it, simply because it takes so little effort to throw something together. Usable results in literally minutes. And 09 brought some necessary fine-tuning capability. With the audio stuff and return of the timeline (for when it's useful) in iMovie 11, it's a real winner.

Apple starts with the person and HOW he might want to work. THEN they go about listing specific things he might want to do, and implementing them.

The old iMovie took an existing tool and tried adapting that to normal humans. iMovie 08 turned around the focus - with great success, IMO.

[Eug]

iMovie '08 sucked donkeys balls. Even Apple knew that, so they provided the two year old iMovie '06 as a substitute. '08 was basically completely unusable for anyone who wanted to do anything more than string a few clips together. Even my completely n00bish Mac switcher friends were totally perplexed by it on their brand new Macs. I installed '06 on their machines and they were happy.

I haven't used iMovie '11 yet, but from what I'm told, it's what iMovie '08 should have been, just three years late.

Like I said, Apple eventually gets around to it, but in the intervening time period - years in this case, the world is left scratching its collective head. WTF was Apple thinking?

[Spheric Harlot]

Yes AND no. That really depends on your definition of "sucked".

iMovie 08 was radically new and awesome. It opened up video editing to a whole bunch of people who'd never considered it.

iMovie HD was offered for its functionality, yes, but it was patently obvious that the new iMovie interface was VASTLY superior (not to the Luddites, obviously - I remember very well having this conversation several times before, with varying degrees of name-calling).

For me, iMovie 08 was software I actually WANTED to use - but rarely did due to missing functionality. But iMovie HD, I didn't use AT ALL.


What sucks less: 15 functions I WANT to use or 95 that I can't stand operating?

Apple in a nutshell.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Yes AND no. That really depends on your definition of "sucked".

iMovie 08 was radically new and awesome. It opened up video editing to a whole bunch of people who'd never considered it.

iMovie HD was offered for its functionality, yes, but it was patently obvious that the new iMovie interface was VASTLY superior (not to the Luddites, obviously - I remember very well having this conversation several times before, with varying degrees of name-calling).

For me, iMovie 08 was software I actually WANTED to use - but rarely did due to missing functionality. But iMovie HD, I didn't use AT ALL.


What sucks less: 15 functions I WANT to use or 95 that I can't stand operating?

Apple in a nutshell.

Or how about software you wanted to like, but couldn't because it was hopelessly feature poor? That's Apple's iMovie '08 in a nutshell. Hell, you even said it yourself. Like I mentioned before, people are describing iMovie '11 as what iMovie '08 should have been.

Sometimes Apple values a concept over function. This is iMovie '08. Similarly, sometimes Apple values form over function, too. This is the no-button shuffle. We all know how well that went over, considering the no-button shuffle no longer exists.

BTW, it's not as if I'm saying iMovie '06 was all that either. Personally, I thought iMovie '06 was bloatware... but at least you could accomplish something with it, even though it had lots of problems.

P.S. I find it amusing that you use the term Luddite for someone who complains about feature poor technology.

[ort888]

Inertia.

At one point the Mac experience was vastly superior to the Windows experience. I'm not so sure that is true anymore, but I am so heavily invested in the Mac platform at this point that switching would be difficult and pointless.

[bstone]

Because of FreeBSD.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by ort888 

Inertia.

Me too. Whenever I find myself in Windows I feel like a retard because everything I've learned over the years is for Mac.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ort888 

At one point the Mac experience was vastly superior to the Windows experience. I'm not so sure that is true anymore, but I am so heavily invested in the Mac platform at this point that switching would be difficult and pointless.

Yeah, that's is part of what I was expressing too (re: XP and Vista). However, in my case, my secondary computers are so damn old that keeping them going is more trouble than it's worth. I have a Cube with "fast" G4 and Core Image capable GPU, but the latest Mac OSes no longer supports PowerPC, and it's still deathly slow compared to even the lowest end Windows netbook. My Cubes are being retired as geek art pieces, and being replaced by things that can actually do stuff... like download images over USB 2.

BTW, I'm gonna have to do the same with my G4 iMacs soon too, but that is my favourite computer form factor of all time, so I'll try to keep them going as guest machines as long as possible. Ultimately, they'll have to be replaced too though, or else simply retired with no replacement. I was using one lampshade iMac at work for image manipulation, but I'm thinking it might make more sense to just retire that one too, and get a $250 Windows 7 nettop instead.

My main home machine will likely remain an iMac, but I just wish Apple would design them better ergonomically.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Me too. Whenever I find myself in Windows I feel like a retard because everything I've learned over the years is for Mac.

That's one reason I bought a Win 7 machine actually. Took me a couple of weeks of use (as my VPN to work machine) to get the hang of it, but now I'm pretty comfortable with Win 7.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Sometimes Apple values a concept over function.

Sometimes?

Originally Posted by Eug 

BTW, it's not as if I'm saying iMovie '06 was all that either. Personally, I thought iMovie '06 was bloatware... but at least you could accomplish something with it, even though it had lots of problems.

And that's precisely why they offered it as an option to those who needed it until iMovie 09 was released.

You forget that most people only do this kind of stuff for fun, and if it's not fun, they simply won't do it.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by Atheist 

For me it's OS X... not so much the hardware since the majority of my experience has been on a hackintosh.

As P said, it just works.

SuperDuper!

The ability to create identical, bootable backups is priceless.

Plus, I don't have to completely wipe and reinstall after 8-10 months of use. We'll see if Win7 does better than XP (although XP Pro is pretty damned stable at this point, on BootCamp).

Unfortunately, MS Office for Mac isn't really compatible with MS Office for Windows, so I keep a BootCamp partition and work off of that, in XP Pro SP3. I just wish we had a bulletproof save and restore option like SuperDuper! in Windows. I've tried a bunch, but nothing comes close.

[Eug]

Ironically, the reviews called iMovie '06 the fun one, with some of the fun being injected back into iMovie starting with '09.

On the surface iMovie '09 doesn't appear that much different than the iMovie '08 everyone complained about. But when you start digging through the software, you realize Apple actually listened to all the user complaints.

Let's face it, iMovie '08 was a step backwards for the iMovie software, so much so that Apple even made it a point to keep iMovie '06 available as a download well after the software had been updated. The biggest complaint with iMovie '08 was it lacked all the special features found in the previous version that made video editing so fun and easy.

Originally Posted by finboy 

SuperDuper!

The ability to create identical, bootable backups is priceless.

Hmmm... I ran into some boot problems with SuperDuper! when Snow Leopard came out, and months later they weren't fixed. Are they all fixed now? However, it's moot for me now, since I just use Disk Utility.

Doesn't Ghost still work for identical Win backups? The annoying part is having to pay for Ghost though. Disk Utility is free, and Windows 7's built-in backup utility is completely braindead IMO.

[Lateralus]

Carbon Copy Cloner FTW.

[rickey939]

Originally Posted by finboy 

Unfortunately, MS Office for Mac isn't really compatible with MS Office for Windows, so I keep a BootCamp partition and work off of that, in XP Pro SP3.

Huh? What do you mean? Especially with Office for Mac 2011...

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Carbon Copy Cloner FTW.

Disk Utility Clone > Carbon Copy Cloner

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Hmmm... I ran into some boot problems with SuperDuper! when Snow Leopard came out, and months later they weren't fixed. Are they all fixed now? However, it's moot for me now, since I just use Disk Utility.

I have no issues with SuperDuper on Snow Leopard now. I don't mind the developer taking his time between releases because he is one of the few people to actually take the time to make sure the release is right the first time, rather than rush it out the door and have to release lots of bug fixes after people discover that their mission critical clones have been messed up.

People were screaming mad at him when Leopard came out because it took him so long to release one compatible with Leopard. Why? Because he was serious about getting a Time Machine backup to clone perfectly. People got mad and said, "Why are you wasting your time with cloning a Time Machine backup? Nobody will ever want to do that," etc. Well, Leopard made so many changes to the file system "under the hood" like multiple links to one file and more refined ACLs and metadata. So, if SuperDuper can clone a Time Machine backup perfectly, it's a good bet that if anyone else uses those file system features on a non-TM drive, they will be cloned perfectly too. It makes sense for a program of this nature to strive to get it right the first time.

I can think of one other company and product that is slower between releases than SuperDuper.

Alsoft Diskwarrior. Everything I mentioned above about disk utilities getting it right applies a thousandfold.

'Nuff said.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by rickey939 

Huh? What do you mean? Especially with Office for Mac 2011...

Oh, how many times did we hear that with the LAST version.

I haven't tried 2011 yet - I gave up after trying to use the last version for a couple of years.

Track Changes doesn't work, other collaboration problems, font changes, etc. Too hinky to worry about when trying to get work done. It's not a slap on the Mac, it's a slap on Microsoft - they blew it.

I'm sure there will be idiosyncracies with the new one too, but I won't be the one to find them.

Fool me once, shame on thee. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Oh, and another reason to buy Mac: they remain useful forever. I still use my Pismo all the time, and my blueberry iBook too. {My G3 icebook, not so much though - it's troubled.}

I figured that Disk Utility was all that we needed for a full-restore-capable backup these days, but I like SuperDuper's incremental feature (does DU do that?). Carbon Copy Cloner isn't bad. DiskWarrior has saved my cheese a few times, but I have yet to buy the updated version (not so necessary with the later OS versions, a must-have with Jaguar).

Ghost for Win may or may not work. You just never know. I used to have good results with it back in the old days, but not recently.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by finboy 

Oh, and another reason to buy Mac: they remain useful forever. I still use my Pismo all the time, and my blueberry iBook too. {My G3 icebook, not so much though - it's troubled.}

That's a good point, that you and others have made. I still have a G4 cube running OS9 and every time I fire that baby up, I'm pleasently surprised at how well it performs. A 12 year old computer running an ancient OS, has about the same through put as OSX. That is office, and photoshop that run on OS9 are just as snappy as my current versions.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by finboy 

Oh, and another reason to buy Mac: they remain useful forever. I still use my Pismo all the time, and my blueberry iBook too. {My G3 icebook, not so much though - it's troubled.}

Originally Posted by Maflynn 

That's a good point, that you and others have made. I still have a G4 cube running OS9 and every time I fire that baby up, I'm pleasently surprised at how well it performs. A 12 year old computer running an ancient OS, has about the same through put as OSX. That is office, and photoshop that run on OS9 are just as snappy as my current versions.

Why are you running OS 9?

You could just as well just run an old PC with Win 98 too. Very zippy, and actually more stable than OS 9 (but that's not saying much).

Anyways, as far as I'm concerned, my Cubes are basically obsolete, as are my G4 iMacs. I mainly just keep them around for nostalgic reasons and looks. And I'd rather poke my eyes out than try to run anything on a G3.

Originally Posted by finboy 

Ghost for Win may or may not work. You just never know. I used to have good results with it back in the old days, but not recently.

Hmmm... I used to use it with XP and it worked every time. I haven't tried it on Windows 7 though.

[olePigeon]

I use Macs mostly for the design. I like the layout and design of the OS, the thoughtfulness that goes into not just the aesthetics, but the functionality.

Likewise with the hardware itself. The insides of the machines are as cool looking as the outside, and I don't mean just the towers. Anyone who's taken apart a MacBook or aluminum Mini would agree.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Why are you running OS 9?

Maybe for the same reasons I still use my Power Mac 7600. Once in a while, I have files that won't open in modern programs and have to resort to opening them in ancient versions of files. Or I'll play games that are still fun to play that are no longer playable on modern computers. Or simply nostalgia.

[Lateralus]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Why are you running OS 9?

You could just as well just run an old PC with Win 98 too. Very zippy, and actually more stable than OS 9 (but that's not saying much).

If you somehow got 9.x to misbehave more than Windows 98, then I wonder about your geek cred. Though if you'd said Windows 2000, I wouldn't think twice before agreeing.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Why are you running OS 9?

because OSX on a 450Mhz machine with a gig of ram, would be down right painful at best.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Person Man 

Maybe for the same reasons I still use my Power Mac 7600. Once in a while, I have files that won't open in modern programs and have to resort to opening them in ancient versions of files. Or I'll play games that are still fun to play that are no longer playable on modern computers. Or simply nostalgia.

Out of interest, what kind of files?

Whenever I see an EOL'd program, if possible I convert the files to something that will have posterity. I did that with some of my Ami Pro files for example. I realize that may be impossible with many file types though.

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

If you somehow got 9.x to misbehave more than Windows 98, then I wonder about your geek cred. Though if you'd said Windows 2000, I wouldn't think twice before agreeing.

As far as I'm concerned, OS 9 was a steaming pile of turd. So was Win 98 though, but IME, ever so slightly less crashy than OS 9. But yeah, Windows 2000 was an epiphany for the consumer. I don't count NT4, because it was essentially useless for the home user.

I bought my first Apple laptop when 10.1 came out. It was a G3 iBook 600 (which incidentally still defaulted to OS 9 out of the box), but I could only take it for one year in OS X. The G3 was far too slow. So I replaced it with a G4. That was way back in 2002, so it confuses me how anyone in 2010 can say with a straight face that a G3 in 2010 is still usable. But then again, I'm biased because like I said I think OS 9 is a steaming pile of turd.

Originally Posted by Maflynn 

because OSX on a 450Mhz machine with a gig of ram, would be down right painful at best.

True. However, I'd rather run OS X 10.5 on a Cube 450 than OS 9. See above.

My guest room Cube was in fact a 450 until last month. However, that's now been retired. I was considering replacing it with my Cube 1.7 GHz, but I think that's pretty much obsolete as well, so that may get replaced by an Atom machine too. Strangely enough, Atom with the right GPU and Windows 7 runs circles around a 1.7 GHz Cube with Leopard for real world use.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

If you somehow got 9.x to misbehave more than Windows 98, then I wonder about your geek cred. Though if you'd said Windows 2000, I wouldn't think twice before agreeing.

You've got some very wishful thinking there to believe that OS 9 had a stability edge over Windows 98, or even 95. Mac users had to believe in OS 9's greatness because we had no other choice if we weren't going to sell out to Microsoft, but Windows 98 had surpassed the Mac OS, at least in the areas of stability and PMT.

Whether or not I buy another Mac is dependent on my future hardware needs and whether Apple satisfies them. I think I'll likely stay with Mac laptops where Apple is most competitive, but Apple has lost me as a desktop customer for reasons that I don't have to repeat here.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Out of interest, what kind of files?

Mostly files created on ancient versions of say, ClarisWorks, which have formatting issues when run through translators like MacLink Plus or don't open properly in programs which have converters to open old files. Or I'll open a document that used a font I don't normally use under Mac OS X and forget which one it is.

Easy enough to open the file on the old computer and see what the formatting is "supposed" to look like and then fix the converted document to match (happens more often than you might think) or see what font I used (my OS 9 system has the same fonts I used to use for years) and either move that font over to OS X or choose something similar or along the same general style.

It's the same reason I keep AppleWorks 6.2.9 around on my Mac Pro. Do I use it for new document creation? No. But it has saved my bacon a few times over the last 10 years.

[Eug]

Ah. That makes sense. Obviously the formatting with my Ami Pro files wasn't 100% maintained, but it's much less important since they were word processor documents. The more important aspect there was the content.

And it sounds like you converted your files anyway, but still keep the backup originals, with the original programs, with computers available to run them. Smart move in your context.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by Eug 

True. However, I'd rather run OS X 10.5 on a Cube 450 than OS 9. See above.

My guest room Cube was in fact a 450 until last month. However, that's now been retired. I was considering replacing it with my Cube 1.7 GHz, but I think that's pretty much obsolete as well, so that may get replaced by an Atom machine too. Strangely enough, Atom with the right GPU and Windows 7 runs circles around a 1.7 GHz Cube with Leopard for real world use.

I actually have a soft spot in my heart for OS9. It was the last of the "classic" operating system, and it was more or less the pinnacle of that OS. It represents something that I had when I was younger and still excited about computers. Now that I'm old, grumpy and bitter, its not the same

[sek929]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

You've got some very wishful thinking there to believe that OS 9 had a stability edge over Windows 98, or even 95. Mac users had to believe in OS 9's greatness because we had no other choice if we weren't going to sell out to Microsoft, but Windows 98 had surpassed the Mac OS, at least in the areas of stability and PMT.

I ran a tight ship with 9.2.2 and that mutha crashed more than any Windows 98 machine I ever used. In fact, I have fond memories of Win 98SE back in the day.

Win 2000 through and through beat the pants off the Mac OS, but we gained massive ground during the 10.1-10.4 years. I have yet to use Win 7, but even here there is a lot of positive reactions to it and it appears that the gap has once again closed.

[Eug]

I think the main problem with Windows 7 isn't Windows 7, it's all the bloatware the OEMs ship with it and with add on peripherals.

With the machine I bought, there must have been about 20 services I turned off because they serve no useful purpose. I have a bunch of stuff that Acer includes that is utterly stupid, but yet must run as a service. When I was testing PowerDVD with my LG Blu-ray drive the software install adds an LG firmware checker, that runs every single time the machine is booted, with no way of adjusting it or even turning it off. How many n00bs know how to disable Windows services?

If it was just Windows 7 alone without all the extra crap, I betcha companies like Acer would gain a few more customers. When will they learn that shovelware doesn't attract customers. It just pisses them off.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

I ran a tight ship with 9.2.2 and that mutha crashed more than any Windows 98 machine I ever used. In fact, I have fond memories of Win 98SE back in the day.

Win 2000 through and through beat the pants off the Mac OS, but we gained massive ground during the 10.1-10.4 years. I have yet to use Win 7, but even here there is a lot of positive reactions to it and it appears that the gap has once again closed.

I could wreck the 8 and 9 machines all day long. My first Mac, an iMac had some kind of meltdown that erased the contents of the HD the first month I had it. OS9 blew, which was why I jumped on 10 as fast as possible.

[lpkmckenna]

I love Mac hardware. Minimalist, sensible, and sexy. My first Mac was the graphite iMac, then the aluminium PowerBook, and now a unibody MacBook. I couldn't go back to Windows without my beloved MacBook trackpad.

I like OS X too, and I like stuff like Logic and iWork and iLife, but it was the hardware that got me, and it's always the hardware that makes me buy another.

[Eug]

I think the iMac G5 had the most well organized insides I've ever seen in a computer.

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

I could wreck the 8 and 9 machines all day long. My first Mac, an iMac had some kind of meltdown that erased the contents of the HD the first month I had it. OS9 blew, which was why I jumped on 10 as fast as possible.

OS 9 managed to corrupt my hard drive within the first week of use, too.

I could bring down 10.1 pretty easily with wayward driver installs, and those text regurgitations with the 10.1 kernel panics certainly weren't pleasant, but they were still a heluvalot better than having my hard drive erased by OS 9.

[The Final Dakar]

OS X was no saint, but compared to 8 and 9 it was like a fat person hanging around the morbidly obese.

[boy8cookie]

I buy Macs for the smell.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Eug 

I think the main problem with Windows 7 isn't Windows 7, it's all the bloatware the OEMs ship with it and with add on peripherals.

As I said much earlier, I think that with Boot Camp, Apple provides one of the best "out of box" experiences with Windows and I include XP and Vista in that statement along with 7. You get a cleanly installed OS and all the drivers needed to make all the Apple-supplied hardware work without any of the crapware.

Apple does a better job of making Windows "just work" than most of the other major PC manufacturers.