"...that’s why Microsoft’s recent Laptop Hunter commercials really never made a lot of sense. ... people who are shopping for computers where price is the key factor, were never going to buy Macs anyway..."<p>It perplexes me that Apple products sell as well as they do. I find Apple's value proposition to be questionable. For example, compare an iPod to just about any comparable media player, or a Mac to a comparable PC (in terms of HW power).<p>I think Microsoft is very smart to point this out, as I do not think this perception has reached the general public. Also, there's a line in the commercial like, "I guess I'm not cool enough to be a Mac person." A clever way for Microsoft to imply that Mac owners are paying extra for the Apple image. This is also an idea that I do not think has really reached the general public.
Last time I looked almost all non-Mac high-end PCs suffered from "Klavierlack"-Syndrome. I don't know how it translates into english, but it is that cheesy shiny coating.<p>There are competitors who can create good high end PCs, but at the moment they suffer from a severe case of bad taste. Maybe most producers being Asian doesn't help either - nothing against them, just the tastes seem to be different.
I think it's pretty clear if you want something without the viruses/spyware and is less annoying you get a Mac, as long as you can afford it. If you are short for money you end up on a Windows PC. Or at least that is perception amongst the general public.<p>I don't think Apple have any interest in selling something at lower price points, because like Sony, Porsche etc. their brand is of a better quality product which of course should cost more.<p>SGI, Sun, HP all used to sell high end workstations at the top the market (~2-20x more than what Apple charged at the time) - that market got eaten by PCs when they couldn't differentiate anymore. Unlike those high end machines, Apple has no performance advantage over PCs. Apple's only real difference is the OS.<p>Apple's emerging threat is Linux/Open Source, which has many of the same advantages OS X over Windows does and of course was good enough for Apple to take a kernel, browser and printing system from. Linux/Open Source doesn't have to be better than OS X - it just has to be better than Windows and good enough that people don't want to spend extra on a Mac.<p>Edit: this is classic "The Innovator's Dilemma": <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology</a>
The Porsche/Camry analogy is slightly flawed, because it doesn't take into account the effect of OS adoption and app availability.<p>It's more like the choice between a hydrogen Porsche and a gas Camry. In that case, even if Porsche are content to sell a few, high-margin vehicles, they will have to worry about whether the model is sustainable given that if customers can't find a place to fill it up, they're not going to buy one no matter how nice they are.
I think the author spun his article with the concept that a Mac is 'better'. In my opinion the real point of the article should have been that Apple is branding their products as 'premium'. Just like anything in life just because someone has branded themselves as 'premium' certainly does not preclude the possibility there is something better out there. In fact I think Lenovo markets their laptops in a similar way by catering to the business user. It isn't to say Dell/HP don't make a products that can easily compete with a ThinkPad, it's just that when you think of a 'business' laptop Lenovo wants you to think of a ThinkPad.<p>Having said that I own a ThinkPad W500 and a Macbook and think both have strong/weak points, but given a choice of only having one I would probably stick with the Macbook, simply because I can do anything I need to with it (a la bootcamp).
"Things are more like they are today than they have ever been before."<p>There are only two considerations, really: do you (or the end user you are helping) prefer OS X or Windows, and are your skills/available time competitive with the Apple hardware premium?<p>The 'debate' consists of large numbers of people insisting that their answers to the foregoing questions are somehow 'objective'. They're not. If I won the lotto tomorrow I'd buy the most expensive G5 and install Windows 7 on it.
I'm a little shocked by the continued focus on aesthetics and form rather than purpose, especially from this particular audience. You guys are typically not the ignorant masses, who gives a damn what lacquer is used on your notebook, do you use it so you can sit back and stare longingly at it or so you can <i>use</i> the thing? Who cares what it looks like!<p>I recently was given the opportunity as a reward from my employer to name my next notebook, it could be anything at all, I didn't have any set price limit, I specifically got asked to just pick whatever would be the "ultimate" in computing power for me. I had a look at the mbp lines, did a few enquiries on notebookforums, and ended up with <a href="http://www.p4laptops.com.au/main/D900F_P4laptops.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.p4laptops.com.au/main/D900F_P4laptops.pdf</a><p>It looks like a big, black laptop, the vast majority of reviews I could find on it spent about 50% of the article pointing out how it was not very pretty and size and other form factor related nonsense I didn't care about, then another 25% raving on about how heavy and loud it is, and then the last 25% of the article actually examining how the tool performs for it's intended purpose! Man I hate the world at times, you people are all f*cking crazy. It's like I bought a fork and spent all my time pointing out how it wasn't very well chromed and I didn't like the way it sat in my hand, and then just toward the end there mentioned "but hell, it's really good for picking up food"<p>Eugh.