People buy for the following reasons:
1) They want to be non-conformist so they conform to Apple's minimalist image/the 'pop culture'
2) They (for some reason that is BEYOND me) think Microsoft is evil. I mean sure they nearly have a monopoly, but that's just good ol' American business right there
3) They think (this is more for the libs) Apple is a more friendly company. I recall reading a story (I'll see if I can't find it in a bit) about Apple having horrible pollution and not cleaning it up
4) They don't realize that Apple rapes people on charges
5) They don't realize that Apple forces you to use their crap when PC's are MUCH more customizable
6) They don't care to learn linux
All in all, it's a hugely lame conforming society of "coolness." College kids trying to be "in" and old people trying to look young.
What a horribly gross generalization. I'm pretty sure you are incorrect, and that definitely doesn't apply to me.
1) I'm not trying to be a non-comformist, nor conform to pop culture. I do love the minimalist
design of Apple's computers, but that is available with PCs as well. (see
this link about Intel's new notebook, which is the thinnest in the world.)
2) I highly doubt anybody but the most devoted of Apple/Linux fanboy's believe this. I love capitalism, and love that Microsoft gives back so much of their wealth to the community. I think they are a great business and definitely don't see them as evil. If I did I wouldn't have 3 PCs in addition to my Mac, or be running office on my Mac.
3) Well Apple does take a lot of initiatives to be more environmentally friendly (such as LED backlights, and other recycling programs (for instance you can send them hardware and they'll recycle it.)) Either way though I doubt environmental friendliness is really a deciding factor when consumers go computer shopping. I do get the impression that Apple is a more "straight forward"/honest company than other PC vendors, but that's just my personal perception and I really don't care how honest a company is if I still get a product I like for a price I like.
4) It is probably because they don't. My computer was $999 after the student discount, and it's a nice little machine. My total in the Apple store was $1403, and that included my laptop, a printer, an iPod nano, a USB cable for the printer (HP doesn't include the cable, wtf?), and a DVI to mini dvi converter to hook my monitor up to the laptop. $300 of that I will get back. Once you add in the price of the monitor I bought and the cost of upgrading the RAM (2gb of ram costs $80) when/if I do it, I'll still spend less than had I bought the recommended system from Dell with my school discount. The school offered two computers, one at a $1100 price point and one at a $1400 price point. The Macbook compares to the $1400 one iirc, especially after the RAM upgrade. But for that price I was able to also get an external monitor, webcam, printer, and iPod nano. I also didn't have to deal with a bunch of bundled trial software (I had trial versions of Office and iWork, but that's it and they weren't annoying or anything. iWork doesn't even show up on the dock natively, but office does. ), but instead I got a lot of useful programs out of the box (such as iLife, which is iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, iPhoto, iTunes, Garageband, and maybe a few others?), I got Frontrow (equivalent of Windows Media Center Edition, only I didn't have to buy a separate OS). Apple does get a lot of profit on some of their items (hundreds of percents on somethings, like I think that'll be their profit on iPhone) but they quickly and regularly have price cuts. They offer a lot of specials, and are friendly to students (I will get Leopard for half price when it comes out, for example...which will probably be around $60 bucks...compare that to the price of Windows.) There really is no argument for Apple being more expensive, sure you could get a cheaper Windows laptop but factor in build quality and part quality. As an example, my $500 Compaq laptop had case screws fall out after a couple of weeks. It was a decent laptop for what I used it for, but was clunky and poorly built. Plus Apple has GREAT customer service, if I have a question I can get it answered easily at the Apple store or with a phone call. Not only that but the two times I've needed to get parts from them (iPod) I had them VERY fast, the next day on the first occasion. Edit: I forgot to include you also get free personal in-store training and can attend a variety of classes for free.
5) You really aren't forced to use anything besides their Operating System (duh). Apple has great support for external peripherals so they don't even force hardware usage (see Mac Mini.) While it comes bundled with Apple software (useful software, mind you) that's only to be expected with an operating system...it's no different than Windows coming with IE or WMP. Like I said earlier, they don't even put the iWork trial on the dock to start with, instead they put MICROSOFT office on the dock. They definitely don't force you to use anything and there's plenty of third party software to use if you don't want to use whatever they've put in (and a lot of it is freeware.)
6) The majority of consumers don't know what Linux is so I doubt that is even a factor in their reasoning. But just for sake of debunking the statement, I've used Linux and ran it instead of Windows for a time. I've used Ubuntu, Slackware, and a couple other distros.
Please let me know of any other made up generalizations you have. I doubt I'll change your mind because you are obviously predeterminately closed minded about this, but whatever.
(just a BTW, I'm typing this on my PC so it's not like I'm some Mac head now or anything.)
