Well, our own views naturally come out, because your general issue is hardly a new one, but different people have different experiences. You think this is the first time a computer company has seemed to have hardware problems like this? or trouble providing service? It's not as if Apple themselves actually make hardware: it's all farmed out, so if there are reliability problems this year, there will likely be a different OEM supplier next year. Dell and HP are the same - but Apple controls the hardware specs more tightly (or used to?), so I think Apple customers are right to have higher expectations of reliability, for the higher costs they pay. They position themselves as "the computer for the rest of us who don't like computers" - an appliance, like your washing machine or your TV.
I'm not really qualified to talk about Mac hardware, but I do have concerns about Apple's corporate behaviour (DRM, hardware lock-in, superiority complex). I am more qualified to talk about Microsoft Windows (I'm a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer in Windows Server), but that doesn't blind me to Microsoft's faults. IMHO Vista currently costs too much money and disruption for what it delivers - but I said the same about XP, back in 2001AD.
I've worked on PC servers for many years - until recently I worked for one of the big makers - and I find myself recommending Linux more these days, because I've had it up to here with paying a lot of money for stuff that should just work. Linux is hardly trouble-free, but you can't beat the price: you can afford to experiment. All I mean by this is: things change, and last year's heroes might be next year's zeroes.
Last edited by bnt; 10th November 2007 at 22:18.