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Originally Posted by irseg
Here's my analogy of Mac/PC people:
PC enthusiasts are like Camaro/Mustang guys. The underpinnings are often low-tech, the cars are generally considered rather unattractive, but given the proper modifications they can blow the doors off most other cars out there. And such mods are popular, cheap, and pretty easy to implement. They tend to not care as much as how their cars look, in fact some of them are proud of tearing up the streets in some 15 year old primer-covered monstrosity. Given a $3000 budget, they'd most lilkely spend it on a supercharger.
Mac enthusiasts come across as the Honda-driving ricer types. They brag that their cars are more modern, reliable, and make all their power through superior technology. It doesn't matter that they're only putting out 130hp, the point is it's accomplished with the help of variable valve timing and such. And that's beside the point anyway, because they're primarily concerned with how cool it looks, which they try to accomplish through things like neon underbody lights, giant wings, stickers all over the place, etc. Superficial appearance far more important than how fast it'll go--they'd spend $3000 on a body kit to make their '92 Civic look like a Supra.
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Your analogy started off so well. I was noddding my head all through the American muscle section relating to PCs. I wouldn't change a thing about the first paragraph. Well done.
As far as the second paragraph...You can relate Mac enthusiasts better to strudel rocket drivers (German made cars). Why? Well expense for one. A great deal of what defines Macs image has to deal with price. Obviously, Mac is pretty expensive. So is Mercedes or BMW. When someone says, "I bought a new BMW", or "I just bought a new Mac", usually you might think this person has a lot of money to invest. Market share for two. Mac has a total of about 2% of the market overall (including buisness and such, not just home PCs). Mercedes and BMW have very similar market shares. Third we have style. I know not everyoner likes how Macs look, but you get the impression that they put more effort into looking really good than other computer companies. They also usually lead the market in inovative style. Recently, we've seen Asian and American cars take a stylistic turn towards European style engineering. The Ford Focus and the Chevy Cobalt are evidence enough of that. Fourth, is an arguable point. Quality. General consensus on the higher quality of Macs vs. other computers or quality of BMWs vs. other cars is debatable. I would dare to say that they strive for excelence more than just average. Mercedes and BMW are designed for the Autobahn, the world renowned highway system in Germany. The Autobahn requires a higher qhailty in order to allow the higher speeds and performance. BMW and Mercedes have to design to that. Mac is the same thing. They have an OS that is unique to it's own company. That's a really big deal. Dell would or could nevewr do something like that. They are as much a slave to Windows as you or me. Even the lower end Macs do perform pretty well. The upper end Macs qualitfy as supercomputers.
Now there are exceptions to every rule. There are plenty of great American cars. The Vette and Viper are really amazing machines. They can keep up with Porsches, upper end Mercedes, and upper end BMWs for the most part. So what's the difference? More German cars are of higher quality and price. Of all the German car companies - Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Opel, Porsche, Volkswagen - even the cheapest cars are more expensive and of a higher quality than the bottom of America's barrel.
You can't compare Macs to pocket rockets because you don't see very many people modifying Macs with vesigal parts. There is no Mac equivilant to the cheap body kit or ground efffects. German cars are the least likely (besides Italian cars) to be modified. Macs are the least likely computers to be modified.
I rest my case.