On 10/10/11 11:59 AM, John Smith wrote:
On 10/10/2011 4:21 AM, Joe from Kokomo wrote:
On 10/10/2011 3:13 AM, Alan Baker wrote:

Or it could be what I've observed year after year: someone who switches
to the Mac almost never switches back to the PC.

Have you also considered economics? Macs ain't cheap...and once people
have all that Mac money invested, they might be reluctant to change.

I had my first Apple II back in 1981. Loved it! Then along came the Mac
-- closed architecture, NO expansion slots.

IBM PCs then came on the scene with -- whadda ya know -- open
architecture and expansion slots, an idea that Apple abandoned and IBM
adopted.

To this very day, IBM has TONS more ham radio, astronomy and science
software, expansion cards and applications than the Mac.

If you like a toaster/appliance, the Mac is just fine.

Valid point(s.)

Except that some of them are not entirely correct.

I'll agree that Apple's hardware isn't cheap in comparison to
Windows-based PCs, but you're getting a fast, stable OS that is pretty
much tailored to run on the hardware - and while the hardware uses much
the same componentry as you'll find in any x64-based PC, the hardware
has been designed to be supportive of the OS, not the other way around.
This leads to a longer useful life of the hardware even once it's been
relegated to a secondary post-replacement role.

Apple has not abandoned the open architecture idea: it lives on in the
desktop machines outside of the iMac range. Last time I opened mine up,
there were slots. Lots of them, and compatible with various flavours of
PCI, SATA, and other standard architectures, as it happens. Yes, iMacs
are sealed units (effectively, though there are still upgrades that can
be performed on them), but so are the all-in-one PCs from major
manufacturers such as Dell.

As for the Windows platform having more software available for any
purpose (not just the ones mentioned): well, yeah. It does. But how
many variations on a theme are actually useful? I can't think of a time
where it's been better to have multiple software packages installed that
all do about the same thing rather than one that just does it well.

Also note that OS X can build and run a large chunk of the software
available for *nix systems as well (see: Macports, Darwinports,
Homebrew, and other port managers), so tools and applications already in
use on other platforms can typically be installed and used on a Mac.
End result: more software choice.

Please don't take away from this that I'm a Mac zealot (I'm really a
UNIX bigot) - it's just tedious to hear the same things said about the
platform over and over that aren't factually-accurate.

- x.