Nothing is “idiot proof” because we seem to keep breeding increasingly clever idiots. Where Microsoft is concerned, they have a whole engineering department filled with idiots, starting with the guys who can’t seem to get their heads out of their posteriors on the Registry design. But let’s not quibble about technical details right now.
I’m still focused on time. Time is irreplaceable, and some computers, rather than saving time, eat it up. There’s no question in my experience that when I recommend a Mac and someone GETS a Mac, that’s pretty much the only involvement I’m asked for. Because after that, folks seem to not have anywhere near as many problems as the cheapest-possible-PC sort of buyer.
I’ve built many computers over the years, some of which are still working. I’ve seen some PC laptops that were well made (the IBM Thinkpad, for example). And I’ve seen some absolute pieces of crap as well. The Thinkpad my wife used to run as her every day machine wasn’t cheap when we bought it, but it lasted. How much did it cost? More than a Macbook Pro will set you back today.
As for “unix theft.” So what? It isn’t as tho AT&T is doing anything with it any more. Even when AT&T tried to commercialize Unix, they did it so poorly that it was laughable. At the time when everyone else was running BSD 4.3, AT&T comes out with SysVR2 on their 3B2/5/10 platforms... for a guy like me who had seen Unix on VAXen, it was like going back to V7, only with slower hardware. Apple has put a better display manager onto the front of Unix than any other Unix vendor I’ve seen or worked with, including Sun. Apple didn’t bring nothing to the table here; they’ve actually done quite a bit of additional work. It isn’t as tho they just slapped BeOS, Mach and BSD together and called it a release.
Here’s a pic of the 3B2/300, a system I worked on at that time of AT&T trying to commercialize Unix:
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/3b2/
Brings back memories. (shudder).
I’ve seen some PC laptops that were well made (the IBM Thinkpad, for example)Before I bought my Macbook Pro, I had an IBM ThinkPad T-60, which I also liked very much. I think that the ThinkPads have the best keyboard of any laptop I've ever used.
Interestingly, my ThinkPad, which was comparable to my MacBook, cost over $2200. So, there really isn't much difference in price between a good Windows laptop and an Apple.