I agree with you completely. I used to be a mac user for over 15 years, but in the end I just couldn't bring myself to give anymore of my money to Apple or for Jobs for the arrogance and the overall assholeness. It was very liberating to finally to move first to Ubuntu and then to Windows 7 (I use software that's only Windows and Mac) and find that Windows 7 is a great OS. OS X feels in someways suffocating, and perhaps partly it's because of the strict guidelines of the GUI, but probably much more because of the attitude of Apple and of its rabid fanbase.

Using Apple's products is like being in jail all the time, where other inmates are constantly telling with bright eyes how lucky they are to be there. Granted, I still think OS X is in some ways better (e.g. multitasking), but after few years of using Windows 7 I don't miss OS X at all. And I haven't been interested to buy any other Apple's products either. Of course Apple is now with iphones and ipads much bigger, and its userbase is much much larger than only with macs, and probably overall the userbase is not that brand faithful anymore. Apple itself is just getting worse.

Vertu, Lamborghini, Gucci etc. are premium luxury brands, Apple is not even close to them in terms of quality, even if some people blinded by Apple PR believe they are. I used to be a mac user for over 15 years (until I completely switched to Windows 7 a couple of years ago) and the amount of defective hardware I saw from Apple, both my own and the others' close to me, was staggering. I agree with the rest of your post completely. Apple only cares about money, and the blind followers, who think they are special for using exactly the same kind of Apple hardware with millions and millions of people, just eat everything up thinking they are part of something better. Branding really is everything. And I'm not saying Apple doesn't make good hardware or hasn't been a great influence in GUI development, but the halo attached to Apple is just disturbing. It's just a tech company with a generally better attention to detail, nothing more, nothing less.