Any attempt to construe my critique as merely the rant of the more technically minded against the elegant simplicity of OSX, is utterly mistaken! I love OSX and it may be the best UNIX desktop on the planet! Apple’s praxis has been to setup distribution in such a way that it creates an artificial supply bottleneck and thereby maximize the profits they are able to extract; while apparently legal and profitable, this tactic coupled with selling Apple (aka Jobs) as the Benevolent Dictator preys equally on the ignorance and fanaticism of their loyal supporters.

Style is a valid rationale for many choices, however, as you note, it is also an arbitrary method to arrive at a decision. Due equally to this admitted capriciousness and to what I belive is vacuity of Style I find it necessary to base decisions on things more validating and concrete. If this makes me hopless then so be it.

I really wanted to buy a Mac because it is very user friendly, and it doesn’t require me to do things like down load drivers, or configure stuff. Plus, when I saw some of the things you were doing in the way of putting together movies, slide shows, and what not, I thought, “that doesn’t require a lot of technical know how” which is attractive to me. Along with this, I like Mac style, which I realize leaves me open to the critique of preferring style over substance. In responding to such criticism, all I can say is that it matters to me. I can’t justify why it matters in any rational, quantifiable way. I just like the Mac experience, and I connect with it.

The thing you both fail to understand is that we buy Apple computers for the same reason people buy Jaguar cars. Jaguar drivers could get a nice ford or a Hyundai for half the price, but it’s the design, the finish, the quality and the flat out status that they are buying into. They buy a Jaguar because it says something more about them other than “I need to get from there to here.” I put it to you that this is much the same reason people purchase Macs. They’re simplicity and uncomplicated ease of use marries up well with the gaddam sex appeal of that pure white milky plastic finish that makes people say “Ooo” when you take a MacBook out of your bag at a meeting. Yes a cheap Nitajuitsi could have done just as well in that meeting as the MacBook, but then we could have gotten to the meeting in a Hyundai couldn’t we?

Is the MacBook an over-priced computer that you need to toss and turn in your sleep about, worry for your brother in-law’s eternal soul being lost to Macness? Well I doubt it. Plenty of MacBooks are selling and more and more Apple Stores are opening. As a businessman I can tell you that this spells one thing very clearly - success. Apple have sold themselves beyond the sum of what it cost to put their product together, just as Jaguar sold themselves beyond the concept of needing a car.

If there comes a day when I ‘need’ a laptop then maybe I’ll get that cheap-ass Nitajuitsi. The truth is Josh, my desire to own the MacBook exceeded my ‘need’ and my bank balance was gracious enough to indulge me.

I must say a small measure of satisfaction courses through me to note that your “beautiful, beautiful Mac” (does this remind anyone else of golum’s my precious mantra?) bounces just like every other laptop. Come to think of it, it doesn’t do anything that a “PC” laptop doesn’t. Its a good thing you think its so pretty because thats about the only difference to account for 3x the price.