What I use:
13” MacBook Pro 2012
2.5 GHz Intel i5 with HD Graphics 4000 1028 MB RAM
16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 (very useful for virtual machines)
240 GB Intel 520 SSD
my situation:
I’m currently a student in the IT Kolleg Imst, Austria. Main use of my laptop in college is server virtualisation, programming and taking notes. I also use it for general media & web consumption and light audio editing. No gaming. No video editing.
I don’t want to change OS
My first computer was a used Powerbook G3, that my parents got me for school when I was 14 or 15. Before that I didn’t have much computer experience other than a few minutes on my Dad’s Windows 98 PC. My neighbour gave his old laptops to his kids and when they were done with them I got the scrapps. I grew up using an assortment of used Apple Laptops that were on the brink of breaking. I hate to admit it but I had my first real facetime with Windows in technical kolleg for computer and communication (in Austria its like a High School with an emphasis on a practical field) with 16. Now I have used Windows XP/7/8 and several Linux distros but I’m so used to to Mac OS that I find it heavy to change.
I’m invested in the ecosystem
My phone, my tablet and my pc are from Apple. They work together without a lot of setup. If you are used to that convenience it is not easy to use something different.
ease of use
Part of the appeal of Mac OS X is that everyone with a bit of pc experience can use it. It is basically fool proof. Especially the system preferences are so user friendly compared to Windows. Most of the things you need are easily accessible and in my opinion logically constructed. Another thing are the preinstalled programs. You don’t get a lot of bloatware. Some of the useful programs are:
Preview, a picture and PDF viewer (a good PDF viewer is more useful than you think)
iMovie, for video editing
iPhoto, a photo archiver
GarageBand, audio editing
iTunes, well known
Safari, not the best but miles better than IE
Time Machine, backup software
Pages, Numbers & Keynote, MS Office equivalents
They are all not the best in their class but they work and are relatively easy to use.
nice hardware
Apple computers are nicely built. There are not a lot of companies who put as lot thought in design and material as Apple. To some that mae not be as important but I appreciate that. The actual hardware components are not the cheapest so you can expect some level of quality. The biggest hardware advantage is the battery. Up until Haswell not a lot of manufacturers could match the battery runtime of Macs. Even with my entry level model I get about 5-6 hours of use. I have disassembled and changed parts in pretty much every laptop i had and several of other people. It is acceptably easy and there is an abundance of guides to do so. Apple SW is tailored to the HW. That makes if feel a lot snappier to an equivalent pc with Windows on it.
multi desktop feature and trackpad gestures
I have a small screen on my laptop just because it is more comfortable if you carry it around all day. With that comes a disadvantage of missing screen real estate. Mac OS X makes up for that with a multi desktop feature. You can have several apps open in full screen on different “desktops” and switch between them with a simple trackpad gesture. That eliminates a lot of window clutter.
The trackpad gestures in general are very useful and easy to learn:
tap/click with two fingers for secondary click (left mouse button)
scroll horizontal and vertical with two fingers
pinch to zoom with two fingers
rotate with two fingers
navigate back and forward in browsers and Finder (like Explorer) with 3 fingers
switch desktops with four fingers
pinch with four fingers to get the “app tray”
Apples Trackpads are imho equal to multi button mice in general use and productivity, although not as precise.
resale value and a big second hand market
You can get a cheap second hand Mac for a low price and if you buy a new one you know, that it will keep a value a long time.
UNIX kernel
Mac OS X runs on a UNIX kernel so the terminal/command line is nearly the same as on the Linux distros. You get a lot of the useful command line features and the great guides from the Linux community.
there are a lot of reasons against a Mac:
they are f-ing expensive
Apple is sparse with ports
you can’t change a lot of the parts on the newer and higher end models
only one year warranty
a lot of apps don’t have a version that runs on Mac
small amount of games
…
I’m not one of the Macintosh snobbs that thinks its the best OS, because it definitely is not. Mac OS X and Apple Hardware are not the best but they fill my computing needs. I hope you can see my reasoning in using a Mac. I’m looking to get into a well mannered discussion. No OS racism please.