A square piece of duck tape appeared where you might expect the Apple logo.
We bought laptops for our two kids in college this Christmas. We found two Dell laptops actually in stock for the sale price advertised at Best Buy - they went through the whole attempt to sell us extended service plans, and we said, no, no, and hell no - if one of the kids break the laptop, it’s on them to pay to fix it. The guy then rings up the laptops and tries to charge us $69 more for an “optimization fee.” When we asked, WTF is that, they explain that the computers had been already “set up” by whatever it is they call their IT people. At that point, the laptops were only $100 less than the MacBooks our kids really wanted (they’re $949 with student/educator discount) so we told Best Buy to take a flying leap and ponied up for the MacBooks.
We were in and out of the Apple store, with two MacBooks in 10 minutes, despite the store being crowded as could be...no gimmicks or bait and switch.
It still runs Vista.
As far as competing with Apple, it is pretty hard competing with a cult. I have a nephew that has joined the Apple cult. He showing me his laptop the last time I visited. It was nice, and did some nice things, but he was gushing over it as though it was some huge advancement. I was thinking “So, I’v seen the same thing on both Linux and Windows platforms.” I didn’t tell him that, because I didn’t want to deflat him.
The really interesting, cutting edge stuff is happening on Linux, not Apple. The problem is there is too high a learning curve for most people to even start using Linux.
IMHO, Apple is the computer for people that don’t know much about computers/technology. They make a nice system with an emphasis on ultra ease of use. The irony is Apple started out as the geek/hackers computer, and now it has become the favorite computer of the non-computer literate.
If I had to buy my grandmother a computer, it would be an Apple.
If I had to buy a computer for someone studying computer science, it would run Linux.
If I had to buy a computer for a business, it would be a Windows machine.