Mac vs PC: Does it matter anymore?

What I find very interesting about this is the possibility that it cuts both ways for Apple. If the two are interchangeable, you can buy based on price and features, which can be an advantage for Windows, since there are many manufacturers who can offer a larger variety of form factors and feature combinations.

But the flip side of that proposition is that if there is no Windows lock-in forcing consumers to buy Windows, so they can also choose Apple based on good design, Apple branding, the iPod halo effect, and perceived security.

Personally, I think that there is a big difference between saying that there are no factors forcing consumers to purchase one or the others and saying that the differences between them don't matter any more.

My web browser, E-mail client and terminal of choice, for instance, are not available on Windows; and no, I'm not using Apple's Safari or Terminal. So when I pull up these applications, I'm seeing what is (to me) a superior Internet experience. Even Firefox on Windows, or PuTTY, just don't quite deliver what I like most.

And cross-platform applications are still platform-dependent. For instance, I love Thunderbird on Linux...it works well. On the Mac, however, despite using Thunderbird for months, it always felt a little clunky (e.g. emulated UI appearance, doing everything itself instead of integrating with OS services such as Keychain). In the end, the combination of platform and application made Apple's Mail more useful to me.