{"id":761,"date":"2009-07-24T00:01:07","date_gmt":"2009-07-24T07:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=761"},"modified":"2009-07-24T06:37:46","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T13:37:46","slug":"pcs-for-the-poor-macs-for-the-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=761","title":{"rendered":"PCs for the Poor, Macs for the Rich"},"content":{"rendered":"

The popular myth is that a Mac is more expensive than a PC. The truth is that when you configure a Mac and PC with the same hardware and software, the cost is the same. Even so, when people bother to configure comparable systems, they go with the Mac. That makes sense to me.
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\nAccording to an article<\/a> (which I’ve listed as a Wambooli News<\/a> link), Apple literally owns the PC market for computers priced at over $1,000. Of that market, 91 percent of the computers sold are Macintoshes.<\/p>\n

That’s incredible, but does that make the Mac a computer for snobs?<\/p>\n

I visited the U.K. back in 1985 to do a survey of the various computers available. The most popular PC was the Acron, which was kind of like the English Apple II. It was very popular, had lots of software, and a huge hacker base doing all sorts of wonderful things to the system.<\/p>\n

During my visit, I popped by the London Computer Faire and saw many, many Acrons. Then I went across town and saw a small gathering of Macintosh enthusiasts. The Mac had its fans, but they were few. Because of the price, the Mac was used primarily by those who could afford it. The Acorn users referred to the Mac users as the aristocracy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Aw, come on: Who doesn’t really, secretly want to be a Lord or Baron? And if you were a member of the peerage, well then, dammit, you could afford a Macintosh! Especially in 1985, when a Mac cost about $3000 or \u00a38700.<\/p>\n

Flash forward to today.<\/p>\n

The typical PC costs about $400 or maybe $800 if you want a faster CPU or larger hard drive. It’s most likely sold in a big box store or over the Internet. It’s ho-hum.<\/p>\n

The Mac is, well, of course, sexier than a typical PC. It’s also a well-integrated system, because Apple makes both the hardware and software. The thing just works, and it obviously appeals to people with money to spend on a computer, and who understand that making both the hardware and software is a Good Thing.<\/p>\n

After all, if you’re going to put down major coin for a computer, it makes sense to buy something that really works well. That’s probably why those people have the money in the first place!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The popular myth is that a Mac is more expensive than a PC. The truth is that when you configure a Mac and PC with the same hardware and software, the cost is the same. Even so, when people bother to configure comparable systems, they go with the Mac. That makes sense to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}