It pains me to admit it, but I think Apple may have just passed their 'XP' with Lion.
I've been an Apple user since OSX Tiger and before that Windows user since DOS and quite frankly, I think the quality of Apple's software and hardware releases has dropped dramatically.
I recently ordered a new iMac near enough maxed out but upgraded the RAM with Crucial... crazy kernel panics. Tried with Kingston too, same thing. I found lots of other people with the same issue (unstable after 24GB or more of third party RAM) so after wasting three days trying to resolve it, I packed it back up and sent it back to Apple.
I re-ordered with 32GB of Apple's Exploitation RAM (at least £200 above anything else with the same spec on the market) in order to fix the issue.
Machine received yesterday and the screen is mottled/patchy and has a dark line about an inch thick running down the screen close to the centre (and a touch of yellowing in the bottom corner).
I think they have forgotten (or don't care) that most of their longer standing customers who buy lots of products (between me and my girlfriend we have an iPhone 5s, iPhone 5, iPad 3rd Gen, iPad Mini, iMac (though this is being replaced again), Macbook Pro) care more about quality than the 'oh it's pretty' factor and are focussing too much on the mass market which means they cannot guarantee quality.
I mean, this latest iMac looked like it had been packaged in the dark... the cellophane covers were not tucked in properly (twisted and dirty looking), there was what looked like grass/dirt under the sticker seal on the main box.
There's a perfect opportunity available for anyone who can produce great quality hardware on a great operating system (even at a premium) as whilst Apple is still selling 'premium', it would seem the quality does not match.
