But I do understand people who say that apple are primarily a form / design company with a few techie bits thrown in for good measure!
Must be one of the oldest myths around in IT land. A Mac/OS X computer is at least on the same technological level as anything Microsoft sells on PCs these days. In fact, that Mac/OS X combination is technologically very comparable to a UNIX/Linux system since OS X is based on Mach, FreeBSD and NetBSD. Don't let the ease of use of a Mac fool you: behind the screens there is a very modern, powerful and reliable operating system. And that is why a full OS X could have made the iPad so much more interesting and useful!
And what is wrong with a well designed, good looking computer
?
I have been using PCs with Microsoft operating systems and Linux since a long time but when my portable PC was stolen one day I 'confiscated' my wife's Macintosh and since then I have never felt the need to go back to a PC/Windows system. For professional reasons I do need the ability to run my customer's Windows applications but this was easily provided by running a virtual Windows system on my Mac using VMWare's Fusion software.
Johan
PS It's always nice and good to have a choice whatever your preference is!