Intel processors. Intel chipsets. Nvidia or AMD graphics. Foxconn produce the PCBs and the gubbins fitted to those. Samsung flash storage in Airs, maybe Hitachi or whoever is supplying the HDDs in everything else. The underlying hardware is no different from any other computer. Only the chassis, fit and finish is custom.
Apple is a business and profits are all that matter. Sure there will be quality standards they have to match or surpass. But whoever got the production gig (usually Foxconn, older Apple used Asus) did so by providing the lowest cost production quote to a standard that Apple was happy with.
Let's not kid ourselves that the internals of an Apple product are made from rainbows, wishes and magic. No matter how much Steve Jobs might proclaim parts of their range are.
If the hardware is no different why is the Air the thinnest computer around?
The casing, the screen on the Air (1366x768 on an 11" screen), glass trackpad (which I think some companies are copying now), multi-touch (scrolling webpages is so smooth I hate going back to Windows even for that!
Quite, but profits are made in different ways - customer service and providing a quality product that people are happy to buy and continue buying in the future is part of that.
Not noticed these irritations myself, why not see if
THIS helps.
Haha, I get angry quite easily sometimes when things don't go my way, more of a case of persistent irritance getting my wick. The OS is just smooth, like two finger scrolling, four-fingers to move everything out of the way, tidy installs and uninstalls (using the one icon for a program and unified uninstallations), the dock (can't stand the Start Menu). I know you can turn them off but it's a case of changing so many things in Windows to get it working in a way that isn't obtrusive, the alerts that black out the whole screen and pop up with a Yes or No for allowing a program to make changes is jarring.