OSNews

You're absolutely right about the software part. Like I said, I bought it for Mac OS and was apparently so lucky to get the sleek metal casing. I was actually very tempted to address some integration with OSX, but I chose to draw the line with hardware alone.

To name an example, what I find very impressive is that if you let the battery get completely drained (ignoring the reserve power notice), OSX preserves your system's state. Even unsaved games like OpenTTD are preserved.

As you mention the technical aspect of OSX which - I concur - are amazing (the UNIX base is a really great advantage), Apple is also being very generous to developers in offering the free Xcode suite with a debugger that actually speaks human language and (NeXT's) Interface Builder. These are great tools, making development on this platform just so... comfortable.

i would disagree, i would say that the combination of hardware, software and service which makes a mac a mac.

I own an 07 iMac, an 05 Powerbook 15" and a white macbook from 06. The white macbook was upgraded from it's base spec to 2GB RAM and a 320GB HDD.

The white macbook i use everyday at work and at home, it's used for a variety of tasks from photos, video to email, surfing to watching and listening to media. Like i said since i purchased it in oct 2006 i have used it everyday.

The hardware i think is very good, the laptop is small but not too small (i used to use a Dell x1 but it was far to small to be handy). I think the 13.3" screen is big enough for good use whilst not making the laptop too bulky. I like that it has a magnetic lid with no catches, that the trackpad is nice and large (i find windows laptops trackpads far too small) The small about of gestures is nice (two finger scrolling) The port layout is good on the left hand side of the laptop. The speaker design i think is very clever, the speakers are on the back of the base part of the laptop, with the sound being bounced off the screen, i find the speakers under windows laptops very muffled in many cases. I like the magsafe connector as it stops the laptop being dragged via clumsy colleagues.

The software is really good, i won't go into too much detail because you've written the same reasons i love Mac OSX.

The final is service, which i think is overlooked. My white macbook's charger stopped working. I made an appointment at a Apple Genius bar in Cambridge (UK), which was very easy to use via their web site. I went into the store and was booked in by a friendly face, at the correct time my name was called up and i went up to the bar. I explained what had happened and the apple genius done some quick tests and said yep your charger is broken, he said that apple was aware of this and promptly replaced it free of charge. He also noticed a hair line crack in the case which he told me is also something apple was aware of and would fix free of charge, he then proceeded to tell me that the part was in stock and could be replaced within the hour. So after an hour i left with a new charger, new palm rest, new keyboard and new trackpad without it costing me a penny, with a three year old laptop which was out of warranty.