A friend of mine recently asked on LinkedIn about whether to buy Apple or Windows for his company’s new computers. Sadly LinkedIn didn’t allow me the opportunity to write this full response but I felt that I ought to just share it here since I know it’ll likely upset the Apple cart:
“The problem with Apple products, in my experience, is that, whilst they are typically very reliable, you end up having to pay Apple to do almost anything since they absolutely control what you put on (or do with) your machine(s).
Buy Apple and you’ll open up your wallet to them forever.
Not only that, but Apple very cleverly load their products with something that switches off your common-sense modulator. What then happens is that whenever Apple launches any kind of new product you almost instantly, and totally irrationally, have to have that new thing.
On the flipside of that: Microsoft have a much more relaxed approach and pretty-much give you carte-blanche to mess up your computer as much as you want. And plenty of people do just that, hence the huge IT support industry.
But here’s the clincher for me: I use a lot of open-source (thus free) software on my Windows machines, which is simply not comparably available through itunes (and don’t let the Apple fanatics try to convince you otherwise).”
So, if you’ve any thoughts on this debate (and I promise that you’ll be biased) it’d be great to hear from in the comments below.