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MacOS was a successful attempt to improve on Xerox's work. Windows was an unsuccessful attempt to copy MacOS.

Absolutely incorrect. Both Apple and Microsoft were given tours at PARC at pretty much the same time. Both borrowed heavily from Xerox' work and both borrowed from each other.

Statements like the above expose the Mac fanatics true bias and lack of perspective.

Have you compared the price of iWork and MS Office? have you compared the upgrade price of the OS itself, especially if you're upgrading multiple machines?

So you can cherry-pick a couple of examples of cheaper software, ignoring the various other products that either don't exist on the Mac or are more expensive for that platform. Sounds fair.

Going to the Mac as my main machine was a major relief in every way.

I'm more of a CP/M guy myself but I'm having a little difficulty staying current.

Seriously, though, I'm not knocking the Mac per se. I'm just not buying into all the hype. The Macs are solid, well engineered machines with lots of great features but they aren't perfect, they aren't cheap and they aren't a panacea.

Plus they generally attract the same idiots that buy Volvos or Prius' and slap John Kerry stickers on the back.

Apple has made a lot of mistakes since the late 1970s and they are just now looking like they might be able to recover from them as a company. They aren’t doing it on their computer line, though.

They should have realized long ago that they are a software company. The real competition in the OS space would have done everyone a world of good.

Absolutely incorrect. Both Apple and Microsoft were given tours at PARC at pretty much the same time. Both borrowed heavily from Xerox' work and both borrowed from each other.

Do you swallow every myth you hear, hook, line and sinker?
Both Apple's and Microsoft's CEOs were invited to tour the Xerox PARC facility. After the initial tour by Steve Jobs, he asked Xerox for a return visit with some of his engineers. The truth is that Apple PAID Xerox for the 8 hour tour with the engineers and the rights to use what they observed with 1 million shares of pre-IPO Apple stock (worth about $3,000,000 at the time of transfer - Xerox sold it after the IPO for about $15 million). Microsoft did not return for another visit nor did they pay anything to Xerox.
Incidentally, the Apple engineers walked away with absolutely no code or even screen shots of the PARC work. Two years later, Apple hired some of the research engineers that Xerox let go from PARC in an "economy" move.

So you can cherry-pick a couple of examples of cheaper software, ignoring the various other products that either don't exist on the Mac or are more expensive for that platform. Sounds fair.

Cherry picking? I don't think so. We are the ones who are buying the Macintosh software... and we see the prices. You are repeating FUD you've heard and cannot prove. You have been challenged to come up with software that is more expensive on the Mac than it is on the PC... do it. Find us a software title that is more expensive on the Mac. Prove your allegation.
Let's see:

Microsoft Office for Mac from Microsoft's online sales $399.95
Microsoft Office for Windows from Microsoft's online sales $499.95
SoftwareKing offers Adobe Indesign for both Mac and Windows for $255.
They also offer Adobe Illustrator for both Mac and Windows for $214.99.
Best Buy is selling World of Warcraft for both Mac and Windows for $19.95

And I could point out that every Windows title is also available for the Apple Mac when run under BootCamp, Parallels or Fusion... at the same price... which shoots down your "don't exist" claim. Did you know that there are more internet browsers for the Mac than for Windows?
Right. Mac software is more expensive than Windows software.

Seriously, though, I'm not knocking the Mac per se. I'm just not buying into all the hype.

When you repeat canards that have been proven false time-and-time again, especially when evidence is produced in the very same thread that you are wrong and then you repeat your FUD, you really cannot say that you aren't "knocking the Mac." You are.

Apple has made a lot of mistakes since the late 1970s and they are just now looking like they might be able to recover from them as a company. They aren’t doing it on their computer line, though.

"...just now looking as they might be able to recover..." Sheesh. Have you even BOTHERED to research anything? The fact is that Apple has been on a roll since 2001. That's six years, Filo. Apple's Stock has risen from $15 a share to over $380 (accounting for splits)! Apple stock has increased the second largest percentage of ANY company offered on any stock exchange in the last ten years. (The number one company increased from 7¢ a share so really doesn't count.) It is selling record breaking numbers of Mac computers and making record breaking profits (incidentally, 60% of Apple's profits come from their computer division, so it is indeed coming from the computer line), its growth in computer sales is two to three times the industry average and it has more than doubled its share of both international and US sales in the last three years, Apple's notebook sales are ~18% of the market(!) and climbing, and YOU say "[Apple]...are just now looking as they might be able to recover..." from mistakes made 30 years ago. When do you think you might put a "Buy" on Apple stock, Filo?

"Oh, sorry Filo, you said It was 2 to 3 times more expensive... Not 50%..."

I said both, but in different contexts. Perhaps you should learn to read instead of misrepresenting what others say?...

...The PC costs 1/3 of the Mac for comparable usefulness.

Excuse me? Learn to read? Did you not just say you did indeed say both? We have continually provided hard facts and price comparisons of as close to equally equipped computers showing that Macs are either less expensive or comparable to the PCs prices and you continue to spout nonsense about $500 computers being somehow comparably useful as $2500 workstations. Filo, if that were true, then no one would be wasting their money on $2500 workstations be they PCs or Macs.

Her new 3K Mac won't give her any more than her 1K PC except for the fact that she's a Mac person and can't get her stuff done on the PC. It's not that it's not possible - the PC has all the same software - it's that she, being a Mac person, can't do it.

So you allege that Mrs. Filo could be just as productive on a $1,000 single dual core computer as she could be on a $3,000 dual dual core computer? I don't think so. If she does any rendering, transforming, apply any filters, then the dual dual will be much faster making Mrs. Filo more productive. When I was doing graphic arts production, I charged about $100 per hour. The difference in price of those two computers is a mere 20 hours of work... it would not take too long of me twiddling my thumbs waiting for the slower machine to complete some rendering over the useable lifetime of those two computers to waste the short sighted, false economy purchase of a much slower computer... and after that I am eating productive time while I twiddle.
We've already shown you that trying to duplicate that Mac Pro in the Windows world actually can cost you almost a $1000 MORE than the fully configured price of a Mac Pro... so to duplicate the power and functionality of the Mac Pro in a PC is considerably more expensive... I really cannot understand your assertion that a $1000 computer can match either one of those.
If what you claim is true and that she can do her job with a less powerful computer, since she is a Mac person, buy her a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz iMac with a 24" screen, 320GB HD, and an ATI Radeon Pro HD-2600 256MB Graphic card for $1799. Have one of you enroll in a college course for a semester and buy it for $1699. Add a couple of external 320GB Firewire II drives (I just bought one for $97 at Fry's) and Max out her RAM with memory from Crucial and save yourself $1200.

Absolutely incorrect. Both Apple and Microsoft were given tours at PARC at pretty much the same time. Both borrowed heavily from Xerox' work and both borrowed from each other.

Microsoft didn't do anything for quite a while. It was Apple that first came out with a GUI, which Microsoft tried to copy. I'd like to see any evidence that Apple borrowed from Microsoft. Microsoft announced work on Windows after Apple released the Lisa, the GUI forerunner of the Mac.

So you can cherry-pick a couple of examples of cheaper software

I can keep going. My VMWare Fusion for the Mac cost me less than half the price of VMWare Workstation for the PC. IIRC, all the Adobe apps are priced the same across platforms. Can you actually come up with evidence of Mac software generally being more expensive?

Apple has made a lot of mistakes since the late 1970s and they are just now looking like they might be able to recover from them as a company.

They looked like they were going to recover a few years ago. In case you hadn't seen the stock price and constantly rising marketshare (far more than any other in the industry), it's obvious their recovery is not only finished, but they've far surpassed where they've been before.

They should have realized long ago that they are a software company. The real competition in the OS space would have done everyone a world of good.

I know, their hardware sales are just so pathetic, only accounting for a majority of their income.