This is a voting public that appreciates shiny over functional

Once again, Gmork, I have to challenge you to come up with something, anything, worthwhile to say about post-Woz Apple.

Apple is literally the worst piece of shit tech company on the planet and it embodies the absolute lowest values that any corporation could ever adhere to. It's entire business model revolves around selling over-priced, under-powered children's toys to the tech-illiterate masses, and to do this it relies entirely on a creepy, quasi-dystopian marketing program that, if we're going to be honest here, is pretty much tantamount to brainwashing at this point.

And those are just the sober, objective facts. Don't even get me started on my opinion about those bastards!

The real story here is how an entire generation of venemous bitter platformist nerds saw a series of colorful and annoying ad campaigns by Apple and became instantly convinced that they were right about their insipid prejudice.

It's a computer. What you can do with it is only limited by your ability as a user. If you bought a computer mostly for gaming, a PC is obviously the way to go. For everything else, there is a fully functional equivalent for the mac. For people whose lives dont revolve around gaming, and who have the extra money to spend, it suits their needs just fine. My life does revolve around gaming, so i'm using a (relatively) cheap PC that can play crysis 3 on decent settings with my huge TV's native resolution. Doesn't stop me from having had positive experiences as a developer and gamer on both platforms.

If a computer is famous for being easy to use, and not virus prone, it stands to reason people naive about computers would _also_ choose them. It's entirely possible in this universe of chance that stupid people and smart people can sometimes share likes. Sex. Money. Endorphins. You get the picture.

Jam a bastard in it, you crap.

And happy festivus! :P

We discussed the "easy to use" myth before, Gmork, and as luck would have it that discussion also touched upon the main point in your second paragraph, ie. "it is only limited by your ability as a user". A computer, sure, a computer is only limited to your ability as a user. Whatever it is Apple sells these days, they are limited by a good deal more things, including (but not limited to) their anti-consumer hardware design, their anti-consumer OS design, Apple's totalitarian software development policies, and Apple's quasi-legal terms of service and enforcement policies.

Ultimately, yes, I guess you could make the argument that what you do with your Apple product is only by your ability as a user. If you have the ability to, say, jailbreak your iPad to run on Ubunutu, then bust the thing open and reconfigure the entire hardware structure to give the stupid piece of shit a USB port or two, then yeah I guess TECHNICALLY your ability has overcome Apple's inherent design flaws. But for that much effort, why would you drop a half-g on that Chinese sweatshop tablet in the first place?

Saying that there's "a fully functional equivalent for the mac" for most things is unsatisfactory, as well. That it can do ALMOST as much as a PC is not a point in Apple's favor, it's simply an admission of the platform's limitations. (why would anyone want to pay more for a less powerful machine that can almost do as much as a different company's model, but not really?) Also, the reason why people generally don't get viruses on Apples is because nobody cares enough to write viruses for Apples. No-one who owns an Apple product has anything worth messing with, so why go to all the effort coding and looking for exploits?

The only thing you said that comes even close to being a valid answer is that Apple is generally the choice of naive users. But this isn't really a point in Apple's favor, it's just an admission that Apple's marketing strategy works, and good branding does not a good product make.

For the record, I don't really "hate Apple" (although my negative experiences with their products and bullshit marketing mean I will probably never buy another Apple product ever again), I just hate dipshits whose personality is somehow defined by the OS they use, which is a phenomena I have never understood.
In the 90s I used to tell people I used BeOS at home just to see people's reactions.

I dislike any advertising that treats the consumer (and teaches them to be) like superficial morons, especially when it comes to complex consumer products and/or durable goods.

Apple's campaigns are the tech versions of using boobs to sell beer, special effects to sell cars, and clowns to sell hamburgers. None of those tell you what the product actually is or does and why it's worthwhile beyond "desire me for emotional reasons."

I haven't seen many MS ads as of late, but I do recall being annoyed by their multicolored hazmat suited dancers a few years back for much the same reasons as above.

At least we can agree their advertising campaigns are shitty.

fcuk