Yes, you are right. Much of it, in my view, is a hangover from the early days of the GUI introduced with the Mac. At the time there was an enormous howl of antagonism from ‘typists’ and other office users who were speedy and accurate users of the command line interface and had generally learned their keyboard skills on the typewriter, thus expecting and being used to having their hands on the keyboard for virtually every activity.
Both the introduction of the GUI and its associated tool, the mouse, changed all that. “It will never work” said its opponents, usually WordPerfect & Lotus aficionados.
Allied to the typing and data entry occupational kick-back, there was that of the generally younger — do it yourself to make it better- group. This set very much disliked the less accessible nature of the Mac and its OS for they were ‘tinkerers’. This was partly inevitable because the PC clones were generally minimally configured and required the addition of various boards to provide even simple amenities such as sound and networking. The limit of DOS of 640k also required an ability to manipulate extended memory and such which meant users with some interest and ability to understand what was ‘behind the scenes’ were generally in a better position to make the use of DOS type operating systems.
These differences also caused what became a ubiquitous myth that Apple products were super expensive. In reality, Apple computers were ready to go and fully equipped, ‘out of the box’, whilst the competitor PC’s required many additional cards and such, all of which were additional costs on top of that of the base machine. Furthermore, because of the sheer quantity of different brands of both computer and of add-on boards, etc., there was very much more room for incompatibilities and other problems with what were, in effect, ‘hybrid’ machines and often of dubious quality.
When all these factors were taken into account, it was quite possible for a buyer to end up paying more for a sub-standard PC clone than for a top quality, integrated Apple machine and that is even leaving aside the extra benefits of having a single company responsible for both hardware & software. Though rarely mentioned in debates among the supporter of Apple compared to ‘the rest’, that one factor is possible the most significant advantage that Apple has always had, save for a short period when under an ex soft drink CEO they chose to licence their software and a disastrous number of generally poorly assembled and barely supported Mac clones were sold. Fortunately, that period didn’t last for too long.
Despite all of this, the doom-sayers and Apple detractors persist and, sadly, as some grow out of it others grow into it. It is silliness, unproductive and misleading. Today, many of the differences have disappeared or lessened, at least between Apple and major PC brands of quality. We are fortunate that we have a wide range of products available from a variety of sources that facilitate the production of many different types and configurations of devices such that almost anyone ought to be able to find a product that suits their needs and particular predisposition.
In a nut-shell, that’s why I find the whole debate so insufferable.
