Funnily enough, John Hodgman is a Mac user.

They really ought to go back to the gay pride Apple logo.

Next hipster gadget: Babbage's Difference Engine

"You're an unpleasant and unlikable little pseudo-hipster creep! ...And they've been insulting your intelligence since day one!"

That's like 90% of the Gawker commenter community... you still love US, right?

this post would have been so much more awesome had you concluded it with a video of Blakeley - shirtless and bodypainted green - drunkenly smashing all 20 or so macs in Gawker HQ.

they may charge more for pretty but they get what they ask for so they are doing something right.

Whoa! Touched a nerve and now the whole nursery is crying!
Geez, Apple has not been cool since Steve got fired and like Hillary came back to the game lesson learned!
Time for a cookie and a think...

Points off for reusing the tired old "one mouse button" thing - Macs have two mouse buttons now.

I find that my $120.00 extra (the price difference between a MacBook Pro and an identically-specced Dell) goes a long way in reducing my exposure to viruses, hacks, etc. - and it runs all Mac software, all Windows software (XP and VIsta) and I can put Linux on it as well if I chose to, which I don't.

Besides the nice aesthetics and the very friendly, non-annoying OS, that's where my money's going - flexibility. And I think $120.00 is a small price to pay over the three years I'll use this machine.

Nice rant, but like so many rants, your incoherence over the subject blinds you to any real benefits Mac users might get.

This rant was awesome! I hate Apple now.

THANK YOU, Pareene. But you'd better join Cheney in his bunker. The fanboys will be coming for you.

Oh, you've done it now! Note: Belkin dock.

You can tell the difference between hipsters and pseudo-hipsters?

J'accuse!

I don't understand what anyone could possibly mean by saying, "I feel that Apple condescends to me!"

What context could there be for such a remark?

"Other corporations such as GlaxoSmithKline and General Mills treat me like their intellectual equal. But I can tell that Apple really doesn't respect my opinions."

Is this some sort of post-modern "pathetic fallacy"?

@Hamud: Well, judging by the most recent maze on the back of my Trix cereal, I would say that General Mills is most certainly not underestimating my intelligence.

Why does everything Steve Jobs makes have to be revolutionary? The mac book air? Groundbreaking. The iphone? Earth-shattering. The ipod touch? Mind-fuckingly paradigm shifting. Also that smug asshole Justin Long makes me feel nauseous.

Wow, really? We're reviving this dinosaur of a discussion?

have they put the old apple logo on a t-shirt at urban outfitters yet?

I'm 100% sure I've heard of quite a few people associated with Gawker who use Macs. But anyway... for a larger hard drive, faster RAM, and Photobooth (HOURS OF FUN!), yeah, I'm willing to pay a few hundred dollars more for a Mac. This discussion is ridiculous.

"Crypto-fascist?"

You'r both accurate and original. Or maybe not.

Actually Macs aren't all that overpriced, except for the case of the Macbook Air. I mean its like Alienware, Apple puts top quality processors, more than the standard amount of ram (most macs have 2 gb of ram), and an abundance of memory (most macs have over 150 gb of harddrive space). So its kind of hard to say that paying $2,000 is over priced for a mac when pc's equipped in such a many would cost more that $3,000.

Personally, I use only Windows 98 running on a Dell laptop. How's that for retro-chic ironic hipness, bitches?

@slackerina: Steve Jobs would make human sushi out of them if they tried it.

@jagorev: Windows 98 on a Pentium III, my friend.

The Macbook Air is revolutionary. Think about it, now Rove and company don't have to delete their email, they can just put the computer through the shredder with everything else.

Pareene: we will totally let you off the hook about the Vista thing -- you're too clever otherwise... and sometimes anyone is going to make such a mistake. (You did make a bad one...) But no more about the subject. I live in the bucolic countryside in Virginia, have my funny life, read Gawker for amusement, and (believe me) practically never take anything seriously!

If you are bent out of shape about your computer, no matter what the extraction, then you are plainly not having enough of a life --

Namaste!

I've always used Apple computers, I've loved each and every one of them. And when I get to work on log onto that wretched Microsoft Windows thing I have to use, ugh. I also love my Iphone, I think it's my favorite possession. There's a reason people are so loyal to the brand, Apple gives you the products you want.

But in the interest of fairness, I should say the one Ipod I had died after two years of minimal use. And I mean died, worthless to try to fix it. Secondly, the graphics chip or card or whatever in my Ibook G4 stinks. I wish I had know, I would have bought the Macbook Pro.

And I never use the stinking disc drive on my laptop. I would gladly buy a Macbook Air if the hard drives were just a bit bigger.

I simply don't buy the assertion that Macs are somehow bad because they're designed to be easy to use. Isn't the purpose of all this technology society has created that it makes accomplishing things easier and less of a hassle? So is it unreasonable that I choose to pay for a machine that works better and more intuitively? Or is technology supposed to be difficult and frustrating, and if my laptop does exactly what I want it to do without giving me Vista-style headaches, then I don't really get credit for being modern?

Apple doesn't condescend to me, they give me a product that does what I need it to do with minimal problems. To me, that's a successful product and one that is worth my dollars. I had a Vista laptop for 6 months. It was very highly rated and well-reviewed, with specs similar to the MacBook Pro I'm currently using and all the bells and whistles that I wanted - but it was an enormous piece of crap. Did it cost less than my Mac? Yes. Did saving a couple hundred bucks buy me 6 months if irritation and technical problems? Yes. Did that craptastic thing buy Apple another loyal customer? You bet it did. If that makes me a pseudo-hipster and the object of ire for Vista users, I'm happy to be that.

Also, if you don't think every huge corporation on earth condescends to you in their marketing, you're not paying attention. Apple just does it with a better soundtrack.

apple condescends its consumer, who in turn condescend me for having a pc. my computer does all the same things (and a lots more). it just isnt silver...

You'll pry my abacus from my cold, dead hands.

Yeah, I used to think all this and more of Apple.

Dealing with my first Dell changed all that.

@CaliforniaCajun:
Points off for failing to realize that PCs have two mouse buttons & a wheel that's also a button.
IBM mice have three buttons & a fat little stick you move back & forth instead of a wheel.

speaking as someone whose had two mac laptops just basically die on them (one a month or two after purchase), and someone who thinks the all-in-one iphone type thing is actually creepy and a terrible idea (if it gets stolen you lose EVERYTHING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! wtf!), and someone who actively finds out-of-the-box OSX offensive in how obviously it tells you that steve jobs thinks all mac users are retards: wtf?

do you honestly think that most of the people buying the computers think this way? i'll buy it for iphone/ipod thing but seriously? a computer is an investment, they cost thousands of dollars!

uh except my new one cos i talked the mac genius guy into giving me a discount until it cost $900ish. thanks genius guy! i <3 u!

I've had plenty of problems with my Mac.

They fail all the time.

This meme is already out there, and Apple's producing some new "I'm a Mac" ads to seize on it:
[www.irider.com]

Wait Wait...

Macs are awesome...check out the sheep in this slide show.

It is with great shame I admit this happened in my hometown...

[media.gatewayva.com]

Pareene, I'm all for iconoclasm. But most long-term Mac users simply want a reliable OS. And since it's open source, it will continue to improve. But feel free to stick with your broken-down, ever-patched and never-improved, proprietary jalopy. So, maybe the interface was designed from legal specs, rather than GUI concerns. At least you can shake your fist at the bourgeoisie, which has never been a hipster pretension.

iPhones are probably a better trend for assholes than BlackBerrys is the new black.

Nice linkbait. I'm surprised no one at Gawker thought to do this before!

Having been a college-aged young person during the heyday of the "DUDE YOU'RE GETTING A DELL!!1!ONE!" marketing campaign, I can definitely say that those bitches DEFINITELY pandered hardcore. They just sucked at it.

Can the next screed be about ABC Furniture? There's a store down the street from where I work, and there's all this "A zillion acres of rain forest are destroyed every second so buy our sofa" marketing all over the place.

My 8-core Mc Pro will make your ass bleed.

Thank You Pareene!

So... consumption doesn't really actually confer the status promised by advertising? Surely you've broken new ground! Rail against Starbucks - Quick! Before people capitalize on this newly-blazed trail!

@CGrant: PCs with 2 GB RAM and hard drives "over 150 gb" do not cost $3000! I just priced out a very nice laptop at Dell with a nice amount of RAM (2 GB), 250 GB hard drive, webcam, and software (MS Office and Adobe Photoshop Elements) for only $1306. Not even close to $3000. Then again a comparably priced iMac from the Apple store was only a little more at $1478.

Yeah, I'm not buying the "prettier and easier sucks!" line of logic. I'm no fanatic, but Mac clearly makes the superior gadget, and usually ends up changing the tech landscape in the process. I watched a woman on the bus this morning reading her digital watch of a Blackberry and actually felt sorry for her. Who wants to read everything in blocky black on grey when you can have a technicolor design experience, and get exponentially more functionality out of an iPhone? It's not a religious experience, it's just an obviously superior product - even evil geniuses can understand that.

Pareene, this is your Pastures of Heaven.

I don't mind if people want a Dell or a whatever IBM thing. It certainly doesn't make you inferior to me (hard to resist joke right about now).

I just like my Mac, no I love it. I've loved every Apple computer I've ever had. I've never gotten a virus, I've never had problems with any of them. Some of you are saying you have had problems with your Macs, hey, my friend says she has problems with hers. I just never have.

And as for my Iphone ... I wanted one from the second they were announced. I think it's the one time someone has given me a product I really wanted. I mean, really wanted, it is everything I could have possibly wanted in one. Phone? E-mail? Internet? Ipod? Yep, its all there. And the design is cool, the display innovative, it's just beautiful.

Fine, blah blah blah, your blackberry trio sidekick does the same thing. Great, I hope you are happy together, again, that doesn't make you bad. All I'm saying is, Mac gives me the products I want and I like them a lot.

I will end on a negative, to be fair. They are too frickin' expensive. I've been trying to be more intelligent with my finances, I really want a new iMac and they are so bloody pricey. I even get some sort of corporate discount, I have an apple gift card in my pocket, and damn, I was thinking of dropping money on a refurb to save some cash. Still, they are flippin ... yes, overpriced. My next computer will still be a Mac, though. All of them will. I just have to wait till I can afford it, or until my ibook dies.

Oh yeah, and the ibook has a crappy graphics card which they DON'T tell you.

And the bashing continues... :||

i have no problem with people hating on mac. there are so many viruses for pc's partly because the majority of people own pc's (the majority of people that click ads and spam links that would set off a red flag to most even minutely computer savvy people). stay away potential mac buyer.

I just wonder if we had left it to MS & Bill to push the frontiers of computing just what the progress might have been for the users.
I'd guess MSDOS would still be around, why go GUI? Even that took some several years.
I cannot understand why good design should be harangued. Though I note it's only the hardware here.
Why not rant at Toyota or Honda or Audi or others for pushing the design envelope?

Soon we'll see the iPhone merging with TomTom and the iPod. And more; as memory gets smaller and circuits less hungry then the power in your pocket will rise. The blind ally of some of the smart-phone progress will be seen for what it is - hype looking for users.

I realise that smugness based on facts is hard to handle, get over it and get over progress too, it happens.

This post is totally Gizmodo-like. But without all the stupid accuracy.

Having always been an anti-Apple kinda guy, I have always wanted to join in one of these pointless debates. You say they aren't overpriced...I recently just purchased a brand new computer part by part. Quad core processor, overclocked to over 3.4 GHz on each core. GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card, 500 GB hard drive, and 4 GB ram. This is all for under $900. Let's see you get an equal Mac for anywhere near that price.

If Mac users and PC users got in an all out war, PC would easily win. While the Mac users were doing full on assaults and claiming that they were the superior force, PC would just be using Guerrilla warfare to take them out, not really even caring about the war. And besides that, the Mac side would never have any tanks or big weaponry because they would never be able to make a modal pretty enough for their liking. There just really is not competition.