“They stop supporting older technologies too quick”

Not sure exactly what this one is about. There was a time I only replaced my Mac every 4 or 5 years and it usually supported the latest OS when I did finally replace it… the replacement didn’t come from a lack of support but due to the fact that newer machines were so much faster. This might be an argument for the fact that they drop some technology faster than PC makers like floppy disks. But by the time they dropped the floppy it was barely used, all software was being sold on CDs and anyone serious about sharing files used a Zip drive (100mb vs.1.4 MB per floppy, come on).

“They’re not open-source”

I can’t see a Windows user saying this with a straight face. But maybe a Linux guy would… Darwin, Webkit, and etc are open source. Know what the most popular computer is for Sun employees… MacBook Pro, why? BSD + solid GUI + software that just works… basically the reasons you like it.

“They dictate what you can build on it” (this is a huge argument against the iPhone)

First off iPhone != Mac… but assuming this is about all things Apple… most phones won’t let you do crap with them, so this argument can only really be made against the smart phone class of devices… I had a Treo back in the day, and it hella sucked compared to the iPhone, yeah anyone could make software and post a crappy installer on some website… but with the iPhone it’s a dramaticlly smoother process to the point that it’s laughable. I had to wipe my Treo several times from installs and upgrades that went sour… yuck! So what Apple is doing is far more like putting up a crap filter and managing the process… besides if it’s not the case already it soon will be that more software is avail for the iPhone than any other smart phone… so they dictate but you still have more choices.

“They’re too expensive”

Compared to what? Every time I hear this argument the person making it almost always is comparing a Mac to a system with dramatically different specs. When I got my current MBP, out of curiosity, I checked the prices of similarly equiped Dells & etc. Guess what? the Mac came out ahead or about even with what they had to offer. Speaking purely hardware here… and even then there were some really nice feature in the MBP the others didn’t have, like a small size, no crappy plastic case, no iSight camera, no mag safe, no remote, lighted keyboard… and etc.

As to arguments not mentioned here…
The two biggest ones I use to hear aren’t really valid anymore since we have boot camp, and vmware…
1. Less software (esp games)
2. Work requires certian software that isn’t avail on the Mac.

Next one is… can’t upgrade the hardware.
This one is semi-true. You can upgrade things like the hard drive and memory on all Macs, but some other things are a bit harder like the video card or adding PCI cards. Although I’ve found that by the time I want to upgrade my video card or some other hard to upgrade part, the rest of the machine is quite out of date as well (processor, bus and etc.), such that it just makes more sense to upgrade the whole thing (less money than trying to upgrade every part).

anyway… done ranting

G