While flipping thru the reader comments on osnews.com I came across this little gem that pretty much exemplified what I and not enough others already know.
Macs are no more expensive than comparable PCs
The only real difference is that many manufacturers of "ibm-compatibles" allow you to strip more of the baseline components in order to further reduce the price, whereas Apple's computers simply come with more to begin with. All computers are expensive.
Also another article related to market-share vs installed-base really puts the screws to the whole 'market share' issue. I, thanks to this readers' succinct explanation, will no longer put any faith behind a simple 'market share' explanation that does not also include installed-base figures. It's really this simple.
My PowerMac 7600/132 that I bought new, over 8 years ago, is still fulfilling most of my needs. Although I do want to upgrade, simple economics (i.e. my lack of a steady enough paycheck) prevent me from even opting for anything else. Thus, I am content to wait until my financial situation improves. However, I am now brought to awareness by this users argument that while Windows afficionados may have purchased two or more computers during this period to replace aging systems, neither of our 'installed bases' have changed — they still have their one PC, I still have my one Mac.
'Market share' is meaningless. Period.
I can't even begin to tell you how tired I am of hearing these shallow arguments repeated over and over again against Apple and the Mac, (as if merely repeating them would make them true), but I am reminded of Terry Goodkind's book from the Sword of Truth series, Wizard's First Rule.
Basically, Wizard's First Rule, is this:
People will believe anything; either because they want it to be true, or because they are afraid it might be true.
His latest book in the series, Naked Empire, has both given me cause to grin in Apple's direction, as well as offering a cautionary admonisment for Mr. Jobs, et.al. —
Wizard's Eighth Rule:
Deserve Victory.
I'd like to know what manufacturers that person compared them with! Dell? Overpriced. Gateway? Also overpriced. Alienware? Geared towards the hardcore gamer and massively overpriced.
I always build my own systems because it always saves me money. (Unless I'm looking for the very cheapest thing money can buy, in which case, I would pick up a $200 - 300 PC off of the net either without an OS or with Linux installed.) This is an option that Mac people just do not have.
I found a great reply that pretty much sums up the rest of my feelings on the issue (laptops, configuration of the PC vs lack of configuration of the Mac, etc).
But don't get me wrong, I have nothing wrong with the Mac itself, just the price and lack of options. I have used a few Macs over the years (remember the small grayish-white one with the monochrome screen? Ugh!). At my last place of employment, I had to maintain the PCs and the one Mac. That's where I discovered that MacOS is not so bad.
If it wasn't for MacOS 9, I'd still think that it was horrible. OS X is pretty nice too. It's fairly intuitive, something that long-time Windows users will have trouble dealing with.
