My wife and I have owned Macs since 1989 when she brought home an Apple II for the summer (she teaches 1st grade ) and our 3 year old was playing games on it. My wife told him if he wanted to change games to call her. Once as she checked on him he was playing something different and she asked how he got there and he said you click here and here just like you did.
My point is that was system 6 and it just worked. We have Apples since ( we have had more than 65 Macs as we maintain a Mac lab in her classroom ) not to say we have not had issues, we have, but have found that Apple has service that is top notch. I have an iBook G3,1 PowerBook G4 1.67, 1 MacBook Pro, 11 eMacs, 2 iMac Flat panels, plus 5 iPods of various types and 1 Power Mac 533 tower (dead) at this time.
We have had Windows machines and found that if it weren’t for the OS they would be great machines.
Does Apple make mistakes? Yes. It is like all things manmade, it has flaws. I personally think that Apple does it’s best to make computing as pleasurable as possible to as many as possible, it’s just good business practice. All you people that bash Apple need to look at whether or not satisfaction was achieved.
I have had to learn how to service Apples because most of our machines were used and to keep them running at their best.
True Apple doesn’t tell you some things as most people would be scared right off, the same as with Windows.
For me and mine we will use Apple.

I bought an original iphone for $500 bucks. I then find out u had to get the data plan which I didn’t want because of the price. Brought the phone home. Thing was slower than molassass. I felt like I was just robbed. I took it back but lost the restocking fee. Apple blows.

Feel free to flame me all you want people…

In my experience people that say “Apple sucks” are those people that don’t know how to use them.

When first time Apple users come into contact with OS X, they expect there to be a start menu, a taskbar, all that fun stuff. When there isn’t, they panic. When they panic is when they start putting Apple down.

People need to do some reading. They need to know that most Windows software will not work on OS X. (Unless you have an Intel Mac with the right software.) They need to know that things will be different.

Personally, I love Apple. Apple has never let me down.

With Apple, you pay for quality and you should expect to.

Software is up and down. Over the years, some mild OS problems, all routinely resolved; zero viruses.

Have also owned some highly reliable PC compatible hardware. But the OS always gives me fits. It requires a lot of attention, upgrades and diligence against viruses.

I think a lot of computer hardware is pretty solid, regardless of manufacturer. What sets Apple apart is the reliability of the OS. It seems I am always fiddling with DOS/Windows, trying to resolve conflicts/upgrading/networking/de-virusing.

My household has a 3G iMac G5, 2 Apple TV’s, 2 iPhones, iPod Video, iPod Nano, Airport Extreme, 2 Airport Express’. The Apple experience has been unbelievable. In my case everything “just works”. In the 3 years I have had the iMac, I have had 2 logic board issues with capacitors. Each time I took it into the Apple Store they replaced the $900 logic board out of warranty and no Apple Care at no charge. What company does that?

A capacitor that fails will fail in any piece of hardware.

Obviously at work, it is a Windows world and I hate it everyday. It use to be great when everything ran on SCO Unix but alas we migrated our software over to Windows in ‘98. I really am tired of my Dell laptop not being able to shutdown gracefully or find wireless networks without a reboot.

I went Apple because I was tired of being the “IT guy.” I have better things to do. Some say that fixing a PC is therapy. My therapy is being able to spend a weekend with my wife not hosing around with my digital world.

All I can say is that my experience with Apple has been “Seamless Integration Bliss” and unbelievable customer support. In my eyes, that is what “just works” means.

I’ve had disk drive failures on all but one of the six Macs that I’ve owned in the past 10 years. However, all but one of the failures were after 2 to 4 years of use. The exception was the MacBook that’s my current main machine that had a drive failure after 6 months.

He (Xavier) could be another case of “magneto man”

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/02/12-year-old-magneto-man-breaks-every-computer-he-touches/

two apple ipods (both video) a 30 gig and and an 80 gig, dead due to hard drive failure….both out of warrantee.
THANKS APPLE!!

My Powerbook G4 12″ Just Worked for a good chunk of time. OS upgrades were smooth as silk, apps ran fine, it was overall just a very nice piece of hardware/software.

My big problem with it was a year later, when the battery started flaking out, and Apple claimed that it counts as normal wear and tear, treating the battery as a disposable resource. 50% capacity loss in twelve months? I don’t think so.

Suffice it to say, Apple won the battle, but I bought a NewerTech battery for a little less cash, and a little more capacity, so I’m not sure if they can chalk that up in the Win column.

Powerbook g4 15″: Kept overheating and freezing
Powerbook g4 12″:- Perfect to this day!
ibook 14″: wouldnt detect hard drive
2 x Imac 20″ generation 1: Noisy fans
1g ipod nano, shitty scratched screen.

I grew up on Apple products and then switched to PC (Windows/Linux) 13 years ago. Two months ago I finally started an attempt to switch back. Everyone around me was using Apple laptops, and I started wondering what was going on. I have had so many headaches learning of things work in the OS X world. I’ve come to the conclusion that Apple “just works” in one way, and by golly that’s the right way and any other way you want to do it is just wrong. I’ve had to cave several times to reboot into XP to get things done. All in all I’m right on the middle of the fence, not sure if I’m happy about the switch, but not overly upset by it. It’s another computer, it has problems that seemingly all machines/OSes have. It’s just a matter of what you’re willing to put up with and what works for you.

I had several problems with my first mac, a macbook that was 1st gen. I have a later gen one now and it’s rock solid.

I have mixed feeling about their service, it’s obvious their machines are well crafted, but when there is a problem, it’s not acknowledged as one until it’s approved from on high. And obviously, a large part of the Apple mystique is that the style isn’t as embarrassing on a marketing angle as most pc manufacturers or Microsoft.

It also doesn’t hurt that Mac OSX is several levels better than anything Windows puts out.

After 25 years in the computer industry, supporting PCs, Macs, and their predecessors… yeah, Macs pretty much “just work.” While there are occasional problems, even bad Macs (Power Macintosh 5200, anyone?) those few don’t invalidate the statement, as the Wintel guys would have you think.

In fact, more often than not (and confirmed by comments above) the problems are caused by former Wintel users who can’t accept that OS X is NOT Windows!

I own 2 macbooks and have had at least 4 ipods over the years. Apple is no better than the other PC mfgs. In fact my experience with HP and Fujitsu has been better than my apple experience. They make cool stuff and have a nice cult that worships them blindly- but they are no diffent than the rest.

I tend to think people just overlook the issues. A coworker had 2 bad imacs and took them back. Heck I both my girlfriend and I had bad ram in our new dells. We replaced it and still thought our machines were great.

I think people just tend to overlook issues with devices they really like.

Other than the yellowish TFT bottom and 2mm gap under the right side of the closed screen, my MBP LED works.