gellenburg's Journal: The whole "Macs are more expensive than PCs" Argument

Every time there is a /. article about Macs, inevitably the argument ensues that Macs cost more money than PCs. This has the side-effect of bringing out Apple & Microsoft fanatics on both sides.

I present to you today a simple idea: I am *glad* Macs cost more than PCs. God help us all the day the Mac costs the same or (shock! horror!) becomes cheaper.

Why?

It raises the bar for entry.

The old adage goes that "if you lay down with dogs you'll wake up with fleas." PC users deserve everything they get. They made their allegience early on. The companies they work for made those same allegience.

Let 'em continue to deal with spyware, trojans, pop-ups, and other malware, blue screens of death, crappy looking hardware and crappy working software. It's not Apple's fault that the PC industry hasn't had an innovation since Ctrl+Alt+Del.

I'm done comparing Macs to PCs. To me, a Mac is a Cadillac and a Dell is a Kia.

Both are not inherently *bad* car manufacturers.

Both have models that will get you to the store and back without many problems.

They both have air bags, anti-lock brakes, power steering, CD changers. One comes with XM Satellite radio, and the other can be easily fitted for one without too many problems.

One also costs $40,000 and the other $18,000.

However, after spending 8 hours working with one (or riding in one, driving, what have you), at the end you'll be less stressed and more comfortable with one than you will be with the other.

Few college students and most workers (when the average salary in this country is $40,000 a year anyway) can afford a Cadillac. It doesn't mean that the Cadillac brand should be dropped.

Something doesn't have to gain incredible market share for it to be successful. Just look at Farrari, Porsche, and Hummer.

No sir, you can keep your Dell. You can keep your Windows.

Personally, I don't *want* you to have a Mac. I don't want my favorite brand being diminished and commoditized.

Am I being smug? Hell yeah. I'm proud of it, too.

You see, what makes the Mac more valuable isn't its price, or even the computer itself.

It's the software that runs on it.

And no, I'm not talking about specifically OS X here, but the thousands of other pieces of software which there will never find an equivalent on Windows because Windows simply doesn't have the architecture to support the features.

Sofware like Circus Ponie's NoteBook, Intaglio, Audio Hijack Pro, Nisus Writer, OmniGraffle, Ulysses, Ecto, NetFlix Freak, etc.

I haven't even begun to touch on the "features".

So, all you Dell jockeys: continue on with what you're doing. Installing your 100MB of patches and hotfixes every 3 or 4 Tuesdays. Continue having to shut your machines down each night and reboot so your machines stay stable.

Continue living with 2 hour battery lifes on your laptops.

You'll get no argument from me. You have what you want and you got what you paid for.

Now...

Shut the fuck up.