Since I talk to a hundred users a day I believe I am qualified to say why people choose PC's over a Mac. The reasons are:

1) It is what they're familiar with; they use it at work, and their friends and family use them.

2) Take a computer course, see what they teach you?

3) They can build them, tinker with them, and think they're geniuses for doing so.

4) The endless horizon of software available, especially games available to them. A lot of that they can steal off the internet.

5) Some people, about one-in-ten, actually think Apple computers no longer exist.

I've done my part introducing people to the Apple, so much so I believe I should have a Apple spokesman card. As one person, I've gotten a dozen confirmed switchers under my belt, and probably more I don't know of that I have influenced.

On the otherhand, I am not sure I should support Apple that fanatically. The only reason I am an Apple user is that the Amiga failed. While I cheered the arrival of OSX (Cheetah, Puma and Jaguar), my enthusiasm for later versions is less so (Panther and Tiger). Why? Bells and Whistles, bells and whistles.

As an Apple users I am on the fence. Apple wants to stick an Intel Chip (Ghast!) in a Mac that would require some crazy finagling under the hood that would wreck performance. Maybe not for the machine, but that expensive software will. My software costs more then the machine - think about that when buying your next Mac.

It's all about economics.
 

Since I talk to a hundred users a day I believe I am qualified to say why people choose PC's over a Mac. The reasons are:

1) It is what they're familiar with; they use it at work, and their friends and family use them.

2) Take a computer course, see what they teach you?

3) They can build them, tinker with them, and think they're geniuses for doing so.

4) The endless horizon of software available, especially games available to them. A lot of that they can steal off the internet.

5) Some people, about one-in-ten, actually think Apple computers no longer exist.

I've done my part introducing people to the Apple, so much so I believe I should have a Apple spokesman card. As one person, I've gotten a dozen confirmed switchers under my belt, and probably more I don't know of that I have influenced.

On the otherhand, I am not sure I should support Apple that fanatically. The only reason I am an Apple user is that the Amiga failed. While I cheered the arrival of OSX (Cheetah, Puma and Jaguar), my enthusiasm for later versions is less so (Panther and Tiger). Why? Bells and Whistles, bells and whistles.

As an Apple users I am on the fence. Apple wants to stick an Intel Chip (Ghast!) in a Mac that would require some crazy finagling under the hood that would wreck performance. Maybe not for the machine, but that expensive software will. My software costs more then the machine - think about that when buying your next Mac. Freakonomics.
 

Interesting, I too ended up on the Mac after being an Amiga and UNIX (AIX, HP-UX, Irix, Solaris, SVR4) user for many years. I did not switch to Mac immediately though - my Amiga was still superior in every way except for Quicken and Civilization II until Apple released OSX. Suddenly I had a familiar UNIX (BSD) environment and shell, with a GUI on top. Shortly after OSX 10.1, I stopped using my Amiga (though I still miss a few of the more creative applications).

The familiarity argument is a strong one, especially for people who are not in the computer professions. Their computer professional friends are letting them down. Friends don't let friends run Windows.

Computer courses will always use the absolute cheapest hardware they can to teach the course. Even my UNIX courses use crappy Wintel clones with either Linux or hacked up Windows to teach the class. Not much can be done here, except to demonstrate the total cost of ownership scenario (most Wintel lab/classrooms require far more maintenance than a Mac lab/classroom).

Man, I wish I could build my own Mac. What an awesome option - can you say Mac ultralight!!! Apple really needs to address this. I have kept Erci's old beige G3 for tinkering with raw Darwin OS, and to get some of that build (rebuild) and tinker excitement going... but you are right: many people learn by building, and right now Apple is not a good solution for them (though one could tinker on cheap wintel hardware, install open Darwin, and have a separate, more reliable machine to actually use applications on).

With the notable exception of games - there is more software in every category of software for generic UNIX than there will ever be for Windows. That has always been true, and it will always be true. Because Macs can run UNIX software since the advent of OSX, this myth of more software available for the PC is pure crap. Except for games. Furthermore, most UNIX software is not only free, but legally open-source. People steal it all the time because they are supposed to.

On your 5th point, I am stunned. What rock are people living under to think that Apple computers no longer exist? That is astonishing, unless they are thinking about Apple II and the like (which did go the way of the Commodore 64 and Atari 8 bit, and Coleco Adam). Is it possible one-in-ten misunderstood the question and assumed you were asking about Apple II computers?

I am also on the fence about Apple's operating systems, they seem to only get the odd numbered major releases right (10.1, 10.3, etc). 10.2 offered nothing I did not already have in 10.1, and 10.4 is bloatware. 10.3 gives me fast user switching, which allows me follow better security practices with ease (installing applications as 'admin' - running them as 'scott').