the vast majority of users will never upgrade anything besides maybe RAM. therefore this "flexibility" is irrelevant to them. i agree that Apple's negative campaign is stupid, but any objective person will admit that their OS is better.
the real problem with Apple is their machines are very expensive. you can get PC notebooks for $399 sometimes, maybe even less. easy to find PC notebooks for under $600. by contrast, the cheapest Apple notebook is $1099, and that is with too little RAM (512MB) and a small 60GB HDD.
of course, this cheapest Apple notebook has a lot of features you don't get in the $399 PC, like 802.11n, gigabit wireline ethernet, built-in camera and mic, etc. if you actually match the features on a Dell with the features on a Mac notebook, the prices are quite similar.
but with Dell, at least you have the option to buy something at half the price, which many, MANY people prefer, despite the terrible quality of Microsoft OS's.
Windows is mainly designed for large corporations with IT departments. if you want all your machines to network together properly, share calendars etc. through Outlook, sync emails and email settings and contacts, etc., you need to buy a separate Exchange Server machine and expensive software, and you need an IT professional to adminster it. Mac gives you all that functionality for just $99 a year for a family, along with 1GB virtual storage and many other features. i enter a calendar event and make some changes to an Excel file on my Macbook at some cafe, and those changes are automatically updated on all my Macs at home. there's just no way to get that functionality from MS as a home user. i think those are the things Apple should be stressing, but their marketing dept probably decided it was too complicated, and people would like to see an ad where a fat guy with glasses who sort of looks like a younger Bill Gates wears a camera on his head. |
