10.20.2006

Apple Owners Code of Silence?

I've been chewing on the idea for this post for quite a while now and have been hesitant to ask this question...it's a bit off topic but here it is: are Macs really that much better than PCs? Not software wise, that's not really what I'm thinking about. I'm talking about the inherent components of the computers.

Here's why I'm even thinking about this, I know several people(I'm thinking of four specific situations) where Mac owners have had trouble with their computers. Two of the situations were hard drives dying, one was a case of a bad processor, and one was a laptop that broke and the screen would no longer stand up on its own. But here's the thing I noticed in these cases...the Mac owners were at most apologetic and at least hesitant to complain or say anything negative about their computers. Are Mac owners just more optimistic about the woes of computer hardware or have they taken a code of silence the rest of us don't know about?

The Mac problems mentioned above represent a third of the people I know who use Macs, so in my world, one in three Mac users have had significant problems...and in three of the four cases the Macs were only a year old.

Let me state for the record (anyone keeping a record?) that I'm not against Macs by any means. I use one (iMac) at work every day and Apples were the first computers my family ever had...so I've been around them for 15 years and have always thought they're good products. My question is simply this: do Mac owners defend their computers (or other Apple products for that matter) more than PC owners? If so, why?

I hope to get some good comments on this post but here's my answer to these questions:
Yes, Mac owners defend their computers more than PC owners for three reasons...

Macs are cool: Macs are considered cool products. It's not cool to say bad things about Macs. If Macs are what all the cool kids play with, then to say something against a Mac would be to stand against the cool (and be, therefore, uncool)...and who wants to be uncool?
Macs are chosen: Mac users choose their computers whereas PC users may just take what they can get (whether because they had no choice in the matter or went for the cheapest option their budget would allow). I think anyone who chooses a product on purpose will be more apt to defend the product even when it doesn't work properly because it's a reflection on their own decision making process.
Macs are work horses: One of the common denominators in all four cases of broken Macs I am aware of were on computers that were heavily used on a daily basis. I don't know what the average PC user's time spent on the computer is but would guess Mac users use their computers much more than PC users...leading to more wear and tear on the computer and the higher likelihood for problems.

Note: I bounced the idea for this post off two of the four Mac owners I mentioned in my broken computer sample and they both affirmed the fact that there is something to Mac defense. One was more quick to defend the Macs than the other but each felt at least some hesitation to really blame the computers. What did Apple do to get this kind of loyalty?

4 comments:

Welcome to our crazy blessed life said...

While we were in California last week at an apple farm we came upon a box full of Macintosh apples. Bobby said "Here we have Macintosh apples they are twice as expensive as the others and the people that buy them get a superiority complex." He and I though it was funny. I think we would like to get a mac but Bobby has built all of our computers from scratch. The people we know that have Macs have not complained about them so it is difficult to comment on the original question. Maybe they do have problems and they do have a code of silence written into their buyer agreements. :)

Bill Seaver said...

We can always count on Bobby to give us hilarious commentary. Thanks Karen!

Anonymous said...

Dude, you just outed "the man". The Illuminati are coming after you now. We were supposed to stay in the dark. You threw a spotlight on mac world. Watch out!

Anonymous said...

shhh.... code of silence. And if Mac hears that you have uncovered the mystery, there could be trouble.

Peter
ps- I have owned a MAC for a few months, no problems, other than how much dirtier white computers get than the grey ones...