I am a bit amused by the Mac hatred personally. Primarily because it seems so many forget, or simply do not know, that you are not required to use it as a "Mac-only" platform. I bought a new Macbook Pro last year for a few reasons.

Aluminum unibody construction is gorgeous and extremely well built.
Glass screens make the display very crisp and vibrant.
Battery life is amazing.
It has top shelf architecture (i7, Sandy Bridge, etc).
It is very slim and light making it exceptionally portable.
I can run any Intel-based OS I want.
A laptop that actually has resale value!

After owning a Macbook Pro, I will not be buying any other brand laptop until they can match Apples design and quality of construction. I am beyond tired of lame ass plastic boxes that can't stand up to business travel and look plain ugly. Their customer service has been ranked the best several times and I have personally used it once and found the experience refreshingly pleasant.

You are certainly not compelled to use a single OS on your Mac. I have OS X, Windows 7, and Backtrack Linux on mine. I use OS X for personal creative projects and app development. I use Windows for day to day business work. Finally, I use Backtrack Linux (running in a VM) for penetration testing as required. It is my experience that each OS offers its own Pros that serve to eliminate dealing with the others Cons. In other words, I have the best solution for whatever the task may be and simply can't understand why people insist on making it an all or nothing proposition. I can't imagine being bound to a single platform when it is so terribly simple to have the best of all worlds.

/shrug

 

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^agreed

Mac is just another line of computers, and Apple another company. No reason to love or hate them anymore than I love or hate Microsoft. It's all fun toys!!

 

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There are many good reasons to hate Apple and Steve Jobs specifically. But, you can't talk sense into a zombie or people who like to pay way too much money for consumer products.

 

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For everyone that says it about Apple, we got people hating on Microsoft. Who will be the big company everyone hates next? We shall see!

 

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This is very true. And the Microsoft hating stems from bad behavior of the company...and M$ deserves every ounce of that as well. In my opinion, it's the hateful business practices that cause mass amounts of people to vocalize malcontent.

 

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It was Microsoft, then Apple, now I'm pretty sure it's Google's turn.

I never personally understood the apple hatred either. Sorta like the nvidia/ati argument. Waste of time. Nobody wins.

 

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I totally get vocalizing malcontent.

I just don't get applying that to the actual products unless we just don't want to buy anything at all.

 

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In many ways...not buying a company's product is the only recourse. Or more importantly...buying competing products creates competition and innovation.

 

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But there is reason to dislike Apple other than them simply being Apple. I've disliked them since well before the iPod ever came out and started this whole Apple surge. It has to do with the utter closed source attitude that they have in regards to their OS. It's restrictive and, in the long run, limits what you can do with your computer.

There is a hierarchy of openness when it comes to operating systems.

Linux = all the way open.
Solaris = not quite as open.
Windows = about half and half. You can access certain system processes, but not others.
Mac = completely closed.

Mac = bad (imo)