i'm writing a paper about apple's company image. they've built their image upon being the underdog, being an outsider, thinking differently and being revolutionary.

do you, the mac user, think that you exhibit any of these traits? do you think differently than a non-macintosh user? are you an outsider? did company image play into your mind at all when selecting your computer? do you view pc users as lemmings?

any help you can give me would be very appreciated.

I'm far from a Mac user, but I've been curious about this question as well. Let me know what results you find, Deanna.

you didn't tell me how you see yourself, nick.

As an iPod user, I'd say that in the past few years they've developed an image as being much more "hip" than a money-hoarding giant like microsoft. They are a very sexy company, and at least in the consumer audio department, they are by no means an underdog (70% of the hard drive MP3 players sold are iPods, I believe).

yes, ipods are hip and trendy. i'm not so sure that a mac is.

i think i went the wrong direction with the paper, but i'm seven pages in and it's a little too late to turn back.

I'm sexy because my computer is sexy.

You are not your fucking khakis

yeah. that's what's gonna go in my paper.

I think Mac's image has definately changed over the past few years. I think they used to be associated with the anti-Microsoft idealist standpoint, but thanks to the advent of Linux and their proprietary hardware and whatnot, they've lost that market. I think they do still go for the "underdog" image and still pull away a few unsuspecting Microsoft dissidents who don't realize that there's an alternative that allows them to go with the underdog/outsider without having to buy a whole new system--but Apple over the past few years has seen a significant decline in computer sales.

Most of the people I see with Mac laptops are college students, and "underdog" and "outsider" are hardly what comes to mind when I see them. I usually think "lemming" or "paid $2500 for what they could have gotten for $2000."

i love my mac and i dont think im an outsider. i just like them because as a teacher it is what is in school and i grew up with them. any other questions to help your paper.

I could care less about Apple's image. What I love about my Mac and my iPods is the simplicity. Apple takes complicated technology and makes it simple to use. Their interface design is so intuitive that I often find myself wishing that Apple's designers would improve and simplify the interfaces on things like cell phones and cameras. After spending so much time working with Apple software, it's frustrating when I have to work with a Windows program in which the developers were only concerned with adding features and spent no time considering how those features would be accessed. Apple realizes that it's ok to leave out some features if it makes the product too complicated or awkward to use.

There's a definite image association with the Mac platform, hence, "The Cult of Mac."

Personally, I don't associate my image to my computer or whatever, I chose the Mac because, dammit, I shouldn't have to install three security patches in a day. It works, the user interface is slick and I don't have to bear the entire burden of maintaining the product.

I think it has something to do with computers.

I think you're onto something.

Most people who are used to Windows would say the exact same thing about Mac. I don't find Mac's interface "intuitive" at all--in fact, as much as I hate Microsoft, I'd say their interface is better. It takes me like 5 minutes to figure out how to switch programs in Mac... Having a taskbar at the bottom of the screen is way easier to use than whatever Mac has (I still can't figure it out completely).

As far as your average Mac/MS application software, I can't really tell any difference as far as ease of use, besides the fact that Mac still uses those idiotic single-button mouses.

Oh, and developers are developers, no matter which platform. There's not a "Windows" class of developers that is entirely feature-oriented and a "Mac" class that is user-oriented.