You know it's an interesting thing about Apple, and my 2 decade relationship with this company.
On the one hand, you get a kick ass computer. But more than that, you get the software, which cannot be run (without great difficulty) on anything else.
With a Windows machine, you have so many more choices as to what your hardware is, and how much exactly you are willing to spend.
There are certain software packages, that I have been studying and using for years, and I am not about to switch camps. So I am automatically stuck with buying a Mac.
I have certainly considered a Hackintosh, but for some reason I always have this idea in the back of my mind, that after all the research, all the parts are bought, and all the trial and error and time it goes into building your own computer, it would end up costing me about the same amount of money. (and possibly my sanity)
As far as their personal devices go, it's a much different story:
I have avoided purchasing an iPhone for years now. For smartphones, I have no loyalty whatsoever to Apple. Also, I have owned 8 ipods, and 2 shuffles, and they are all dead now, useless space junk.
Same goes with the iPad...I look at all the cool apps, and I feel this intense resistance to it all. Mistrust, actually now that I really think about it. I believe that there is a level of built-in-obsolescence that happens with Apple, and you are EXPECTED to grab the latest version of the same product. Sell your iPhone 4, because you just know the Iphone 5 is going to be so much better.
It kind of like you already own a 2 slice toaster, but then you find a 4 slice toaster, and so you end up buying another toaster!!
Every year, you have to keep buying ultimately the same thing over and over again, just because they added some features.
I'm really old fashioned in the sense that when I pay this kind of cash for a product of ANY kind, I expect it to last for YEARS.
NOT 3 months out of the warranty period. With a company like Samsung, they have more to prove, it seems. Rather than stringing people along, donkey chasing a carrot, I would feel better buying a Samsung "rip off" version of the iPhone, simply because I expect it to last longer!!
Competition is always good for the consumer, and Apple just wiped out one of the key players, which doesn't at all help consumers. One of my students had a Galaxy, and I was blown away by it. It is clearly a superior product; bigger screen, removable memory, removable battery, those are the key ingredients missing from the iPhone. Even on MBPro, you havent been able to remove that battery, keep a spare around for field work, you've got to rely on expensive, 3rd party products to couple with the machine.
There is always a certain audience that will automatically buy Apple, not bother to do a market research, just based on faith that it is better, and that is what all of their friends have.
Not sure if I've answered the question or not, but it's FRUSTRATING that I won't be able to buy an alternative product to the iPhone, like the Galaxy, that IMHO was really a valid competitor.
There used to be a company called UMax back in the day that Apple wiped out for making desktop clones. That sucked, because people in poorer countries who hate Windows as much as I do, had no choice but to work on a Windows computer.
At the moment, if you need to purchase an awesome desktop computer, you only have the choice of a MacPro tower, which hasn't been updated for a half a century ! Are they even going to bother making a new version? One would hope, but one cannot assume!
I read today that there are more 13" retina MBPros being sold than 15".
I've never held one in my hand, but I'd bet that I would be more interested in the 15" computer, but if only a handful of people are buying them, pretty soon, like the 17" MBPro, Apple will nix this all together as well. I wish they' stop looking at their spreadsheets, and care a little more about who their user base is, and keeping those customers loyal, by giving us what we want, instead of TELLING us what we want.
TREATMENT