mosx, You are missing the point about iLife and macs in general. The USER EXPERIENCE>
The USER EXPERIENCE for most people goes beyond technical specs and pure functionality.
Apple's programs including iLife provide a much better user experience than what is available on Windows. Apple's programs are simply easy to use (low learning curve), provide a consistent experience across different programs, and are fun to use.
Notice how for each of the iLife programs you had a program lined up that fulfilled that functionality. Great, but each program was from a different vendor, and each vendor has their own style of how they design their software. That means 5 programs = 5 learning curves. Apple provides one consistent style, once you grasp how to use one of the programs really well you can pretty much figure out the others in no time at all.
The problem with computer geeks is that they will be happy with a dull gray box with dozens of wires running an eclectic mix of software as long as it performs the FUNCTIONS they are looking for. Therefore, they think Apple is a rip off because it performs the same functions for more money.
But regular people do not think this way. Most people want a good experience which means they want to be able to do what they need to get done, they want to do it quickly, and they want to have fun doing it.
They don't want to spend hours researching software solutions, procuring and installing them, learning how to use them, etc. They want everything to work out of the box and that is what Apple does.
When you buy an Apple computer, assuming you got iWork pre-installed, you have every program you will ever need to fulfill every common home user task right out of the box. Just open up the computer, plug it in, and you're ready. There is a good chance you will never have to buy or download another piece of software again.
Compare that with a PC, with many downloads and/or trips to the software shop, learning curves for different programs, and hidden costs.
First you have your annual subscription to virus and spyware protection which can run $50-$60, then you have MS Office that runs at least $129 (compared to iWork at I think $41 if you get it at time of purchase for the academic discount). Throw in a decent sound editing program (to replace GarageBand). Also consider the resale value (macs while they lose value too, hold up pretty well. 4 year old macs are still going for at min $500. A 4 year old PC is probably worth maybe $150-$200 tops if you can even find a buyer).
Pretty soon you are realizing that you're not really saving all that much. And what you do save in money you lose in frustration, inconvenience, etc.
For most users (90%) who do not know how to fix their own PC, a single visit to the Geek Squad due to a virus infection that also requires a data back up pretty much wipes out any remaining savings from going with a PC. Another visit within the next year or two and they would've been saving some serious money going with a mac.
Sure you might get a few extra gigs of space or a few extra megahertz on a PC, but in the end, does it really matter? Probably not. Home user PCs do not require much.
If I snuck in at night to people's houses who only use computers to surf the net, check e-mail, maybe watch some downloaded movies or type some documents and replaced their sweet Quad Core home rigs with 1.6Ghz Core Duos with 2GB of RAM they probably wouldn't even notice the difference.
BTW, free Antivirus/Spyware programs suck, I say that as a technician who has 3 years of experience fixing spyware/virus infections sometimes from computers that had up to date "free" software installed. It is just not safe.
