The thing that annoys me about Apple is that aside from the OS, all of the products are inferior in everything other than design and maybe usability, around double the price of the equivalent, yet they still sell. The brand counts for a lot, so they'll have to be very careful IMO.
On another note, I can't recall the last time I had issues with windows crashing or clogging up. Maybe Windows 98 illegal operations or Windows ME?
Whilst I see where you're coming from it's not quite correct. Yes some Apple products are over priced for what they are, but then again compared to similar products some arent (and some even look positively bargainous(!?)).
You can't realy compare a 15" MBP to a £500 Acer laptop, they are leagues apart in terms of build quality, however compare the same MBP to a high end business Dell or Vaio and they all appear about the same price.
The 27" iMac is currently almost cheaper than a comparable windows machine (27" screen and decent case as well as same internal parts) and compared to the VAIO all in ones the 20" and old 24" ones weren't exactly expensive either.
The iPhone is only a little more expensive than comparable smartphones (although the iPhone 4 has increased the gap), it's just the contracts that still rip you off. iPod nanos aren't much more than a similar sized Walkman. Yes there is a slight premium but not much.
Now the 13" MBP (and standard MB) seem like bargains at the moment, yes their specs aren't quite as good as the competition but they are usually cheaper. Take the Z series as mentioned earlier, comparableish product. That
starts at over £1000 with an average spec being around £1600 (remember this is still a 13" screened machine). I recently had a play on Sonys site and went all out on the Z-Series and managed to spec a £4.5k version (Yes £4500 for a 13" laptop!), makes the macbooks seem cheap in comparison (obviously the specs were severely better than the MBP).
Apple still have this allure of being "expensive", while this is partly correct it's also not. The reason they are expensive is because they still insist on pretty much only making high end gear. Most other companies have watered down their products and created bargain basement products, whilst still selling the expensive stuff too (some, like Acer just do the bargain basement). This IMO is why Apple are still seem as "cool", because they only sell the more expensive kit. As long as they live by this model and don't start dumbing down their products then they
should be fine. Personally though I think the Apple brand is becoming less cool at the moment because we are starting to reach saturation point, that, along with the "i'm better than you" attitude of certain mac/apple users is what is going to cause a problem in the future.
EDIT: A bit like Bang & Olfusun (or however you spell them) and Aston Martin. They may not be the best products but because they are stupidly expensive they are seen as "cool" because you can't just buy a cheap product from them.
Having said that it's funny walking into a uni library and seeing half a dozen people sat round a table typing on identical laptops, I always wondered how they knew which one was theres. Either way I'll be sticking with something that I can identify as mine...
If I wan't to render up a scene, and I'm using a low performance laptop, then it isn't very usable.
