Yeah, we ‘know computers’. Specifically, we know enough about computers to know that when you buy cheap white-box hardware, you’re going to be making up the difference in time and headaches.

Which is one of the nice things about Apple- for all their faults (and the occasionally bizarre design decision), the hardware they sell is decent and fairly reliable. You can buy (or build) a similarly reliable PC, but the people who do that don’t call us for help because their stuff doesn’t break all that often, so we get a disproportionate impression Re the reliability of PCs.

Does that clarify things?

As an Apple shareholder, I am very happy with their increasing popularity.

What I find ironic is that Stephen Green, iconic Libertarian, is devoted to a platform which is, to date, a relative failure in terms of “free minds & free markets.”

I don’t see how Apple could possibly be termed a failure in terms of “free minds & free markets” in any sense. If you don’t like their “closed system”, don’t buy in. Not to mention the fact that Apple’s the reason you can buy DRM free music. And do I need to mention the Microsoft’s antitrust violations?

The main reason for MicroSoft’s dominance is market network effects, and their pre-installation arrangements with the major PC vendors.

‘there’s not many things that someone cannot make a little bit cheaper and a little bit worse’

Lots and lots of people will settle for a little bit worse if it means they can get it a little bit cheaper. These people appear to be a majority of the market for computers.

Personally, I think it’s worth spending a little more on the hardware if it means I’ll be spending less of my precious, limited, recreational weekend time dealing with crapped-out hardware and flaked-out software.

Ok, something more serious: I think OS X is a magnificent operating system. If I had the money, I would buy an Intel Apple system. The excellence of OS X, alas, does not explain why Apple still can’t even break out of minor league status market share in the PC market.

Given the quality of OS X and Apple production, just why aren’t their systems selling better? Given that MicroSoft produces such terrible operating system software, shouldn’t Apple be enjoying a far greater market penetration these days?

…This actually relates to Stephen’s most recent response to Mojo; Apple may actually employ state of the art tech, but it still charges more for an equivalent hardware platform, just to use OS X. Back when Apple relied on Motorola chips, they could hide behind some smoke’n'mirrors, but now that modern Apple systems use the PCI bus, IDE/SATA hard drives, Intel processors, there is no legitimate hardware excuse for the premium Apple price.

I don’t even want to hear about Linux. OS X is based on FreeBSD, which is based on BSD Unix. Sure, *NIX is a stronger enterprise system than NT -especially considering Apache- but that doesn’t invalidate the utility of Wintel as an end-user platform.

Linux is still a hacker/tweaker/adjuster platform. It is optimal for those who just love to spend their time mucking around with grungy details. Linux is good in the same way that having a manual choke in your car is good. If you enjoy that level of detail, knock yourself out. The rest of us just want to start the car, go to Krogers and pick up the groceries, then go home. Push on the gas; push on the brake; put the car into Park; then turn off the car. Most normal human beings don’t want a Porche Boxter or a Ferrari.

MicroSoft has pushed the “it’s just a car” paradigm for quite a while, and despite OS X’s technical superiority, MS still dominates the marketplace. Have we reached the “MS is just another stinking Chevette!” stage yet? No. Will we ever? Perhaps. But Apple has yet to attain the level of Honda or Toyota in the automotive sphere.

What I find ironic is that Stephen Green, iconic Libertarian, is devoted to a platform which is, to date, a relative failure in terms of “free minds & free markets.”

I’ve noticed it myself on the iPod side (I’m not a Mac user). Things are slipping.

The 1200% increase Apple delivered me was a nice ride. But alas, all good things must end.

And no, it has nothing to do with Job’s liver.

Well, maybe a little….

The low-end MacBook CPU is 2.26 and goes to 2.8 as standard equipment on the 17″ Pro, upgradeable to 3.06. I got all that in 15 seconds at Apple.com.

Blaine: PCs can have HD failures too, you know. And while I’m not sure what’s going on with the mini display port, the rest of the video mess isn’t Apple’s fault. He’s just lucky he didn’t have to toss HDMI into the mix.

But yes, it’s mostly open source, like Linux, with most of the advantages thereof, like a few thousand people who know operating systems poking around and saying, “Gee, that will probably break someday” instead of the few hundred you get at BillG’s place.

By “tacked on”, I mean it’s not an integral part of the OS – no X-based GUI is. And again, nothing wrong with that. It’s a beaut, much slicker that Gnome.

Current Macbook proc is “2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed”, which is the same as what’s in a Dell XPS-grade system. Apparently they’ve upgraded it, last I saw was a 1.8GHz single-core unit.

There’s something wrong with Linux? You coulda fooled me. All the various *ix systems seem to be more stable and secure than Windows.

You say “tacked on” as if good GUIs happen by accident. Judging by the dreck MS puts out, I’d say that isn’t so.

But, you know, other than the facts and stuff you’re dead on the money there.

As for the OS, it’s GNU linux with an (admittedly very nice) fancy GUI tacked on.

If Apple had had the brains to port their OS to the i386 platform back in the day, they’d be rolling in Billy Gates’ cash right now. But no, they had to lock it down to THEIR hardware.