Amen.
It's all those small things indeed, such as:
- enough grunt to actually be usable, unlike those crappy sub-notebooks with win7 basic. eow...
I'm using a so-called crappy sub-notebook right now, and is fine. I mean what, people once moaned that Windows was bloated, but for OS X, 1GB and a 1.6GHz processor isn't enough?
But what's Apple's offering in the same mobile market? An Ipad, which has even less grunt, and has an OS far more basic than Windows 7 starter.
But anyhow, the choice is not "Apple laptops versus cheap netbooks". Other companies have been producing a range of PCs - desktops and laptops - long before Apple started doing their PCs. Choice is good - why stick with just one make of PC?
Yes, some people like Apple PCs - some people like Dell, some people like Sony, some people like Samsung, others just buy what fits their particular needs best. As long as we're agreed that they're just another brand of PCs
What I really don't get is this myth of them "not being PCs", as if this was still back in the days when we had IBM PCs, classic Macintoshes; and that somehow this makes Macs special above all PCs.
I like my Samsung N220 for its small size, long battery life, light weight, decent keyboard, and running a full OS. It has a decent sized hard disk to actually be usable (unlike the Apple Air). I like my custom-built desktop PC because it gives all the power I need, and doesn't cost loads. Apple have nothing that could come anywhere near supplying either of these needs.
- cooling system that doesn't melt the laptop if you place the system on a soft surface
Not had this problem on my netbook, it doesn't actually have fan holes on the bottom.
- magnetic power connector that prevents disasters (has saved 2 different macbook pros for me already)
Actually, this is a negative for Apple - the reason you won't see this on other laptops is because, believe it or not, they have a patent for "Magnetic connector for electronic device".
No other "normal" laptop would have survived the beating this one received: busted_macbook_pro.jpg
My cheap Advent took quite a beating. And Thinkpads are reportedly quite robust. But I'm curious why you say "normal" - so there are other laptops that do, after all?
@runequester: What's the point in any brand of PC, when you could just build your own from bits?
The answer is that although enthusiasts and geeks like us do that, most people do not. They happily pay money to have a complete all in one ready made solution. And in particular, even for those of us who are geeks, it doesn't seem trivial to make a custom Commodore 64 or Amiga case, for modern PC hardware...?
It's also not clear to me why someone needs to be writing their own OS for them to be "interesting". Let's face it - whilst Apple do right OS X, it wouldn't be off character for them to dump that technology, and use something else, yet the new machines would still be branded as "Macs", which they'd insist "aren't PCs". Consider how all of the pro-Apple PC comments here have been about the hardware, not OS X - at least one person said how he runs Windows 7 on his Apple PC.
When - exactly - Apple sold "Macintoshs" with an vanilla BSD distro, an Apple desktop backdrop and Sheepshaver for running 68k MacOS software?
See above on my comments on why is it so important to write your own custom OS. And they did use emulation to provide backwards compatibility - again, is it better to reinvent the wheel? There are plenty of other areas where Apple have moved from custom hardware to standard 3rd party hardware, in that "Macs" are now straightforward PCs. Why must the OS be custom, but not the hardware?
I'm not interested in a computer in a keyboard, it's a silly idea in 2011, but if you come up with an interesting OS, well, that's something different.
I'm not sure it's that silly - there is some market for PCs that are desktops, but don't take up much space. I've seen both "small box" PCs, as well as PCs combined with the monitor. Why not with the keyboard? That means you can choose the monitor separately, whilst still avoiding the need for a separate box.