I'm fairly sure that every mac except the air and pro with retina display have user-upgradeable RAM. It's just standard DDR3.

I don't know if I buy into the planned obsolescence thing. Anecdotally, I know lots of people who have pretty old Macs that still use them. I'm actually surprised at how long the batteries in some of them have lasted. My girlfriend's mom just got a 3-year-old white MacBook and the battery still lasts 2-3 hours. My Aunt had a black MacBook (must be circa 2006) that was in great shape, she just replaced it a month ago.

Obviously the more you buy, the better, but I think Apple's M.O. has been to try to entice you to buy the new shiny thing because it's new and shiny, not because your old not-so-shiny doesn't work anymore.

Repairable by me, true (according to the user manual in my Mac Mini, all I'm supposed to touch is the RAM).

I like that if my computer fails, I can walk into the Apple store and make the "geniuses" fix it.

In the end, though, it's a personal preference. That just happens to be mine.

This.

I am probably what you'd call a "tech person" - I'm a programmer, and I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable.

I bought a Mac Mini in February for this exact reason. I do not want to have to screw around with my main PC. I don't care about upgrading it, and I don't want to have to be an IT guy for myself. With the AppleCare warranty, if anything happens to this computer hardware-wise within the next 3 years, I can take it to the Apple store (which, luckily, is about an 8 minute drive), and they'll fix it.

If anything happens software-wise, worst-case scenario, I reboot, hit command+r, and it'll reinstall the OS from the recovery partition, or, failing that, thesc internet, I can restore my latest time machine backup, and I'm up and running.

Now, that's not to say that Windows is unreliable, I've found Windows 7 to be just fine. Best Windows yet. But I've found OSX to be really solid.

Also. Unlike other Apple users, I actually don't have any issues with people using PCs, Windows, Android phones, etc. I bought a Mac because I wanted one, and I won't look down on you for buying a PC. In fact, I really couldn't care less.

I love computers, but I screw with them all day. I don't want to have to deal with them at home. It is for this reason that I'd hate to be a gynecologist.

I don't think that's a fair generalization.

This is actually a thing:

From this:

Personally, I use a Mac and I own an iPhone. I use an HP laptop with Linux for work, and my server at home is FreeBSD. I couldn't care less what type of computers or phones other people use. Maybe I'm the minority?

But seriously, folks. We've got bigger problems than to worry about what kinds of electronics other people buy for themselves.

So, you're exactly right, hairyfeet. It is a personal preference!

I never thought I'd read something that would make me feel so bad about my keyboard chioces. :(

And that's the problem - by default, it's a 4-digit pin. You can enable a more complex passcode that can be longer and include other characters, but that option is turned off by default.

You can use a more complex passcode that is as long as you want and contains more than just numbers - but it's optional. In settings -> general -> passcode lock, turn off "simple passcode."

For those of us who don't really know much about tapes - can you point us to some drives and media that don't break the bank?

Gatekeeper is not mandatory.

I actually like the idea of that, and I like that they've called it that. It acknowledges that real life sometimes intrudes on our time at work, but still ensures that it's kept to a reasonable minimum.

There are also still (for the time being, at least) other models in the Macbook Pro line to choose from.

What type of home server do you have? Is it a Mac of some sort using Time Machine, or can you access the volumes on your Airport Extreme using other means?

You can purchase phones that are unlocked and unsubsidized in the US. Just very few people do it.