PPC ideas...

[iThinkergoiMac]

I suppose my issue is that there is hardly any difference between Apple and Microsoft at the hardware level

Actually, there's a major difference between Apple and Microsoft at the hardware level: Apple makes hardware and, with the exceptions of the Zune and XBox 360, Microsoft doesn't.

and certainly not enough to justify purchasing an Intel Mac, which in my eyes does not make it a Mac at all...unless mere aesthetic appeal and the fact the machine runs MacOS makes a machine a Mac. Aesthetics are superficial, plenty of Wintel machines look appealing these days...so I suppose just install MacOS on any (in general) computer and it is now a Mac?

As others have said, it's about the total package. For one thing, you can't just install OS X on any PC and have it work properly. The quality of Apple's computers are much higher than those from companies like Dell that sell similarly specified computers at half the price. My PowerBook G4 is going on 7 years old and still runs like a dream. I don't know of a single PC laptop that anyone I know has had that, at 7 years old, runs that well.

You get what you pay for. You pay a lot for Apple's products, but you also get a lot. Some of it may not matter to you, and that seems to be the case.

This conversation reminds me of one I had with my boss yesterday at work. He likes his Macs and he was talking about how he doesn't use probably half the features it has, but he likes it because "it's so d*** reliable." That's what it comes down to for a lot of users, and is where Windows often fails to deliver.

 

[VoidSlaad]

Actually, there's a major difference between Apple and Microsoft at the hardware level...

I erred. What I meant to say is Apple computers and (Win)tel computers at the hardware level. Intel x86 family derived CPU, compatible motherboard, RAM, etc. Only thing different at hardware level is EFI (Mac) and BIOS (Wintel), and that has been more or less rendered irrelevant as there are EFI dongles and other "hacks" so that one can build their own "Mac." Microsoft never seemed to break and actually code Windows for Apple's previous PCs, but Apple has (understandably I suppose...profit=good, being broke=bad) by coding for Microsoft's core platform, Intel-based CPUs.