My family owned the original Macintosh. It was pretty awesome for a mid-80’s computer. We owned one of the earlier Performas in 1990 or thereabouts. It was also a really good machine for its time. The Macs of the late 90’s were in my school’s computer lab. They were slightly more stable than Windows 95/98, but still crashed fairly often.

Ever since then, the Apple products I’ve used have only been just barely above the Windows curve. And different versions of OSX have been in use for how many years now? Granted, having the same OS for a very long time is pretty nice (look how long Win XP was still popular with users), but Microsoft has been making more progress with its OS development than Apple over the past decade. The writing is on the wall.

In high school, I had an electronic day planner that cost maybe $15 at the time. The tiny keyboard was kind of a pain (and I have small hands!) but it worked, and it beeped when it was time for something I’d scheduled. So that’s a portable electronic device that does the same thing as an iPhone, and pre-dates it by about 7-8 years just as an affordable device. The Palm Pilot was even older.

Hell, the ‘dumb’ phone I had before I bought my android had calendars and reminders. They were a pain to use, but they existed.

Your 300 computer surfs the web just fine, but I paid 150 for a 3 tb hard drive last week, so Im not sure how much you can do with a 300 machine. It all depends what you need and where you want to spend your money.

Apple prices are high because they can compete with more than price. They always have. Take a look at corporate evaluation these days. Apple is at the top of that list in the world. There are a lot of people buying Apple. A lot of us are paying a lot of money to keep Apple at that top spot. Maybe we are suckers! Or Maybe we think the extra money we pay for Apple products justified.

Not every successful company or person promotes leading edge design. I know many people who find Apple design difficult to deal with, and prefer the PC/Android approach, because it focuses more on function than aesthetics. Thankfully we have choices, and companies who cater to different segments of the population.

My point was that a large part of the “Cool” factor ( or Kool-Aid, if you prefer) is based on the design of the hardware and the software, and that is, I think, a large part of why Apple is so successful.

( and to go back the original post: I also think that they advertising they employ works to support, and enhance, the Cool or Kool-aid factor of their products)

This article is not about whether or not there are poor working conditions oversees, how corporate profits are generated, or how slave labor does and always has made the world go ’round. The article assumes that the person interested in such a topic enough to read the article already has an understanding of these truths.

For every thousand or so people who point out the obvious but don’t have a solution to offer, there are likely 100,000 people that don’t know there even is a problem. Apple’s ironic image in the eyes of the collective (lack of) consciousness as one of a cuddly teacup poodle that you carry in your purse that craps art, science, and dollar bills is evidence of the fact that we are getting much, much more ignorant, which will eventually lead to the corporations extending the abuses of labor and human rights to cover the globe unchecked. That’s the point of the article as I understood it.

Missing the point was my point – nothing more, nothing less – and you missed it.

You can get a PC of decent quality for $300 nowadays. You can get one of Apple-level quality for about $1000-1500, less if you’re building it yourself. If any individual component breaks, you can replace it yourself with very little training and expense. My Dell laptop cost me $500, plus $100 for a 3-year warranty that covers any damage, even if I were to deliberately drop it onto concrete from 20 feet up. In my experience, a laptop that’s being safely carried in a padded case and not being banged-up will last you a good 4-5 years nowadays, regardless of brand name.

An iMac, last I checked, ran a good $2000-2500, and isn’t that much better than a brand-new Alienware PC. Plus, the hardware components are so closely integrated with each other that if any one of them breaks, you can’t fix it yourself AT ALL. You have to either buy a whole new computer, or take it to the Apple Store and pay out the nose to get it fixed.

And no, GarageBand and Safari aren’t enough to cover the difference in price, either. I can get Firefox or Chrome for free, and music-editing software at the GarageBand level is only about $200.

The “Macs don’t get viruses” thing won’t fly, either. It is not only possible to make a virus that targets the iOS, but it’s no more difficult than making a Windows virus would be. It’s just that most virus-coders don’t bother, because a lot more people use Windows. That’s also the reason why there are even fewer viruses that target Linux; it’s still currently a smaller share of the computer-user population, so fewer people bother to make Linux viruses. I can pretty much guarantee you that if iOS became the dominant OS, that Macs would be more susceptible to viruses than other PCs.