Absolutely. Neither of us are wrong. But only I–am right. (just kidding)

I guess I became an Apple bigot when at the university in the mid 90’s. It was to be my first and last somewhat prolonged experience with an Apple computer.

You see, in a dreary winter Art Ed class, I was forced to use a Mac. After a few frustrating minutes of toying with a mouse lacking a right click button, I managed to get a lot of work done. At the end of the class, I saved my work and leaned over to eject my floppy disk.

“What!? Where’s the eject button?!” screamed a terrified young Clay to himself.

I calmly pointed out to the student sitting next to me the absurdity of my buttonless disk drive. I mean someone at the Apple factory really screwed up.

She smiled and told me to drag my disk icon into the trash can. I smiled back and said, “thank you” while marveling how insensitive she could be–I mean I spent the last twenty minutes working on my masterpiece, and she wants me to erase it?!

After that girl was safely out of earshot, I told the teach of my predicament. He confirmed the girl’s lunacy and, having me restrained by campus security, he proceeded to drag my floppy icon to the trash can icon over the loud protestations of the young Clay.*

So, you see, I’ve become an Apple bigot. I guess my iPhone is a kind of therapy. I am slowly improving. Really.

–
* Ok. There were no security guards, but the event was traumatic.

I understand if you’re thinking old-school Macs. I also used them before OSX and *hated* and refused to use them. But modern ones are completely different, so if you get a chance to dig deeper than the “pretty” GUI you might be surprised at what you find (as hinted at above).

As for value, it’s all subjective I guess. Does the fact I paid closer to $3k for my Mac laptop mean I was ripped off? Not at all, I’ve had nearly 18 months use out of it so far for both work everyday, and pleasure, and it still feels and looks like new, even after updating to the new OS version; I’ve (touch wood) had no problems with it; and as an extra bonus it’s slim and metallic with a glorious screen and backlit-keyboard. It always works. Easily the best machine I’ve ever had, and has been well worth $3k *for me*. I will buy another when I need to without hesitation.

Just because we think different things doesn’t mean either one of us is wrong though. Right, on with the daily slog of my Japanese

@Mark - It’s too bad Japan and the US use totally different systems. I won’t be able to use my iPhone as a phone in Japan at all. In fact I have to take the chip out so I won’t be charged ‘roaming’ charges whilst abroad. I hope they add Skype soon!

>>I saw your comment as a bit of a hyped-up exaggeration

Perhaps. A friend bought his Mac laptop the same time I bought mine. Granted his laptop has a slightly larger screen and is a superior machine–but not by much. He paid almost $2k. I paid $600.

Maybe he just got ripped off and the average is nowhere near double, but I suspect on the whole Macs are much more expensive for comparable specs.

I guess what I dislike about Macs more than anything is they make me feel pretty computer illiterate. I’ve been around computers since the late 70’s. In the 80’s we usually got the latest TRS-80 model (trash 80) every year. Then came the 8088, the 286, the 386, etc. I’m not a computer expert, but I know my way around PCs and I don’t like feeling stupid. Besides, wouldn’t buying a Mac mean turning to the dark side?

But I have to say something about your “I see no rational reason for paying twice as much for a computer that won’t run any of the software I own” line.

That sounds to me like you’re talking about pre-2000 Apple computers or the current Mac Pro. The modern ones (iMac and MacBook in particular) have been shown comparable to PC prices many times - they even beat people like Sony and Lenovo out on price these days if you compare them with likewise specs. And the fact you *can* run Windows on them (dual-boot or VM), and therefore have access too all Windows software. I do this on mine for website testing using IE.

Sorry but I saw your comment as a bit of a hyped-up exaggeration, and saw fit to respond. And although I do like my Mac, I used Windows from v3.1 to XP before moving to OSX back in 2003. I also admit to hating my girlfriend’s brand new Acer Vista laptop, which I bought for her under the illusion it was cheaper than the MacBook - it was about half the price, but the specs are nowhere near similar and neither is the build quality; it can’t even play a DVD smoothly! I really do wish I’d stumped up the cash for a MacBook instead.