Funny thing is the “PC guy,” John Hodgman, plays an on-air character (on the Daily Show, for example) that makes him a literal “professional jerk.” 
Okay, as a Mac loyalist, here’s my take on the Mac OS and Hardware. Trying to be as objective as possible.
Most detractors here have their reasons, but the vast majority seems to be derived from things they’re used to doing in Windows, then gripe when it’s not done the same way in OS X. To me, that’s silly, as you’re in a completely different OS driven by different principles.
I could hop onto Windows, then lambast it when it doesn’t do things the same way that the Mac does. But I don’t, because I actually expect there to be differences big and small, for better or worse.
Now, the history of the Mac has a cult-like following, even to this day. I won’t pretend I don’t get excited by new Mac developments, or watch every Keynote with bated breath. But only because my Mac is my breadmaker. I’ve come to know and love this tool, over the 15+ years I’ve made my living off it.
I am a designer, animator, and work in the creative industry. I have a certain compulsion toward aesthetic things. It’s in my nature, so naturally, I’d be attracted to a company that takes design and aesthetics seriously. Even if you have to pay a premium for it (but Apple is getting much better about this). I find value in good design, and quality construction. I’ve had to use a Windows machine here and there, for various things, and while I’m almost immediately turned off by its stylings, I can’t fault it for an OS that can definitely get things done.
The gripes I have with Windows, aren’t really derived by differences between the interface or usability to that of a Mac. I can get used to those things. But mainly, the foundational philosophy behind the construction of its design principles; the way it implements its features. Also, the real-world headaches that are plaguing Windows at the moment. Things like spyware, viruses, bugs and security faults, not to mention an aging OS that really needs to be re-written from the ground up to catch up to some of the technologies Mac OS have been enjoying (and will be enjoying in the very near future). It’s bloated and awkward, underneath the hood, and that is already rearing its ugly head as MS tries to push their OS even farther, and making timely updates nigh impossible.
Mac OS X is sleek and modern, and feels open to great technologies to come. Apple makes updates often and is continually pushing the envelope. I like the thought Apple puts into the finer details. And while they certainly have taken missteps, as well have certain philosophies that I and most people tend to raise an eyebrow at, they are by far the superior choice for me when it comes to computing. Apple’s future is very bright.
Also, compared to MicroSoft, Apple is a very efficient company. From what I remember reading, they have a third of the money MS has in the bank, a tenth of their staff, and 10% market share, yet they continually develop and raise the bar on integration, technology and usability.
It’s not so much about things “Just Working” as it is, how nicely everything works together.
Anyway, for the most part, that’s “Why”.
I’m a PC person, and design to me is secondary over function and efficiency.
Good design is about form, function and efficiency. Apple has that in spades.
This misunderstanding is where PCs get hung up. To separate function from design is folly.
I work with PCs and Macs all day. While I appreciate the peace and love in this thread, the Mac is a better platform right now. Three years ago, I would’ve said PC was better, hands down. Three years from now, it may well be PC again.
As stated elsewhere, the majority of complaints in this thread have been about differences in the interface, not flaws. Macs have flaws aplenty, don’t get me wrong. But the average Windows box has more flaws, and more serious flaws.
The big benefits of Mac right now:
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Security. Macs are less attractive targets for hackers. That may change, but for now it’s reality. The side benefit is that there are far fewer security patches, which seems to make the OS more stable overall.
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Peripherals. Yeah, there are many that don’t work on Macs, but the ones that do tend to behave better. External hard drives are a great example. Want to safely remove an external on a Mac? Drag the icon to the eject icon and unplug it. On a PC, double-click on the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon, then double-click through the list of items (generally all called “USB Mass Storage Device”) until you find the one you want to unplug. Then, click “Stop.”
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Software. PCs have an overwhelming advantage in gaming. You can buy far more powerful hardware for the money, and you’re far more likely to find quality gear at deep discounts. Microsoft Office is also the best office suite, bar none. OpenOffice and iWork are toys by comparison. If your main use of a computer is gaming or office apps, a PC is the only way to go. That said, some of the best Mac apps simply don’t have PC equivilents. Transmit for FTP, TextMate for text editing, Quicksilver, TextExpander, Garageband, iMovie, iTerm, Expose, Coda, Handbrake… and on and on. These are remarkable apps that simply don’t have an equal on the PC. Believe me, I’ve looked.
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Build quality. Macs are better built than Dells, and most of the PCs seem to be Dells. Yes, you pay dearly for that quality, but you’ll probably have fewer hardware problems with a Mac. Again, that hasn’t always been true, but it’s true right now.
These things are more important than how windows maximize (the Mac way drives me crazy, btw), or how obvious the right click is, or which interface is cleaner. PCs are pretty great these days. So is the Toyota Corolla. But the Camry is still better.
I think on Vista you can right-click on the drive and pick Eject.
Do Macs have the problem where you try to remove the drive and it says something to the effect of “The drive is being accessed now, try later”? Sometimes on Windows XP it clears up, sometimes after trying several times I just unplug the darn drive.
Sometimes. In my experience, not nearly as often as Windows, but that may just be my luck.
I may spring for a Vista upgrade just for the external ejection.
Not really. If the eject fails, I just unplug the damn thing anyway. But 99.9% of the time, i can unmount discs without incident.
On a Mac, you can right-click on a disc to eject it as well.
And great post, initech.
Also, in any finder window, there a list of available drive, either network or local. The ones that can be unmounted have a little eject icon next to them… which makes it really easy to eject. Click, done.
You can do that in XP too. Well, maybe not from a right-click on the hard drive/thumb drive icon in explorer, but I know you can right click on the icon in the system tray. If you have more than one drive, though, then you’ll get the whole list like when you left click on it.
Single-click on the icon instead of double clicking. You will see a popup list of devices with drive letters. Click the one you want.
(I did the double-click business for years before I discovered the single-click trick).
Unless of course you buy Mac Office, the 2008 version being released in January with full cross-platform file support with Win Office 2007’s new Metro XML file formats.
I found a great article a while back which, although it’s about switching from Windows to Linux, makes a statement that easily applies to switching from Windows to Mac (just substitute “Mac” for “Linux” in the quote below):
To the comments about maximizing windows: This is a very fundamental difference in the philosophy behind the two OSs. Windows is “application centric” while the Mac is “document centric”. This is reflected in the Mac’s drag & drop functionality, as opposed to Windows’ cut & paste functionality. It’s difficult to drag & drop from one document into another if the target document is completely hidden.
Hiding, by default, the options for where to save a file? This is a “lowest common denominator” thing. I learned the reasoning behind this design choice when I asked on a Mac support e-mail list, “Why is a super-detailed search function like Spotlight even necessary? Don’t people know where they put their files?” The answer I got back was, basically, “Sadly, no they don’t. Most people just save their files willy-nilly in whatever folder pops up when they hit ‘Save’, and have no idea where it actually went.” To guard against this, Apple made it so that every app defaults to the “Documents” folder when saving. Keeping the other options hidden is done to reduce confusion until a new user is more experienced.
I use a Mac because it gives me a real Unix infrastructure (unlike Windows) and things actually work when I plug them in (unlike Linux).
We have to spend time for every single client who has a Mac to explain encoding and that the simplest way to send documents that everyone can read is in plain text. slams head on keyboard You have no idea how many billable hours are spent dealing with incompatibilities between PCs and Macs…it isn’t the client’s fault, but I feel that Apple needs to make more goodwill moves to make things play nice with Windows. Our clients don’t blame their Macs, they blame us.
Is it more billable hours than it would take to buy a mini and a copy of Office?
I’m just curious: what are the big difference you’ve noticed between OpenOffice and MS Office?
This makes absolutely no sense to me. Mac Office and Win Office have had compatible file formats since Mac Office 98 and Win Office 97. Unless you’re using Win Office 95 or Mac Office 4.2.1 or earlier (or files created in those versions), I don’t see how this can happen.
Seriously, incompatible file formats between Win and Mac office was a problem solved over 10 years ago.
This happens to my wife when I send her a Word doc I’ve specifically saved as Word 97-2004 doc and email it to her. It gets screwed up along the way and she can’t open it. I do the same thing with all my Windows-using instructors & classmates and they don’t have problems. Maybe it’s email?
I send a doc to my wife’s PC over our home network, go to her PC and I can open it just fine. She can’t.
I suspect I know where the problem is, but I ain’t sayin’. 
Unfortunately not entirely. Office 2008 (Mac) is unable to open Office 2007 .docx equations. Also, when in Excel, I always have to do a “Save As” on the Mac again as an .xlsx and it keeps popping up apparently irrelevant compatability errors. It might be a minor annoyance, but they aren’t completely compatible.
I’ve used some very modern and expensive Intel quad-core Macs this summer, and although I’m disliking them less with familiarity, the inability to truly make something full-screen is maddening. Their reliability is nothing special. In addition to the very picky network drives that disconnect themselves at random (extremely fucking annoying when you’re working in Matlab with active directory on the shared drive), they still freeze up and have to be restarted almost daily. I’ll grant that they’re doing more heavy lifting than my Vista laptop, but they’re less stable than Vista SP1 in my personal experience.
Also, is OS-X accessible to visually impaired or blind people? I don’t think it is, because there are plenty of thing where no matter what I simple have to use the mouse as far as I can tall, which is aggravating to me because I far prefer the keyboard to slower mouse inputs.