Why are there so many Mac users?

1. Ease of use.
2. Iphone remote.
3. Competitive Sonics to PC.
4. Ipod compatibility.
5. Whole house integration.

As someone who builds his own Windows-based PC's, which have always worked out very well for me, I nevertheless second the comments offered above about Mac's being much more user friendly, and the more practical choice for many people.

Re the comments about lack of stability and poor performance in Windows-based PC's, though, my feeling is that there are three major reasons for that:

1)Windows-based computers built by the major manufacturers are typically delivered with bloated software configurations resulting in large numbers of useless processes running in the background. That can be remedied by reformatting and re-installing all of the software, but doing so obviously requires significant time and some expertise.

2)One way in which the major manufacturers of Windows-based pc's try to keep selling prices as competitive as possible is to offer default hardware configurations which are underpowered (too little RAM; slower cpu's, etc).

3)The fact that most users are not aware of, or don't have the time for, the fundamentals of proper computer maintenance and good computing practices (as necessary for Windows-based machines). See my post dated 11-22-09 in this thread for a list of what I think that means. As I said in summarizing that post:

I have five Windows XP computers in my house, 3 desktops (which I built myself), and 2 laptops (which I reformatted and reinstalled the software on immediately after purchase, to get rid of the crapware that they are inevitably delivered with). These computers range in age from 1 year to 6 years. Every one of them works very fast, very stably, and as well as when it was new. And I have never had to do a re-install of the operating system on any of them.... Obviously all of this will be impractical for many computer users, but my point is that the performance degradation of Windows computers over time, that is often reported, is both explainable and avoidable.

What do I get in return for the time and effort I invest in these Windows machines, relative to what a Mac will offer? Mainly more speed and performance per dollar (which assumes greatly increased importance if the machine is used for computationally intensive applications such as video editing, which I do); much better customizability to my own requirements; and much broader compatibility with third-party programs, including some that are necessities to me.

It's ironic, though, that the much less user-friendly kind of computer has the much larger installed user base.

Regards,
-- Al

Simple -- you can spend your time working WITH your MAC instead of workin ON your PC.

I have had one MAC freeze/crash in 7 years (my personal computers) versus an average of 1 per month with PC (work computer) -- talk about economy problems, I bet if my employer would switch to MAC we could save probably over $100,000 per year in computer related WASTED time!

Could I rip with EAC on the PC, store the files on an extarnal HD, and have the Mac play the tunes?

Someone correct me here if I'm wrong: You can rip using EAC, but you would then have to convert the files (I think from FLAC) to an iTunes-recognizable format like AIFF or Apple Lossless or WAV (In order of my personal preference). This method STILL sounds better (than the same file ripped in iTunes to the same format), to my ears, at least in the case of one experiment a friend and I conducted with one file on two systems. This was at the suggestion of Steve Nugent (Empirical Audio) - who has done a lot of work around this aspect of audio reproduction and makes some of the best devices out there to implement digital audio. He contributes here so perhaps he can chime in on this, as he may have something new to say or correct me if I've misstated anything. Anyway, I believe EAC is among a few PC ripping solutions that have superior error correction over iTunes. I think that actually hearing these differences will depend entirely upon the system/components you are using to listen to the files on. What may be obvious on a very resolving system, might not be on a less resolving one, for example.

Here it is in a nutshell:

FUN = MAC....

WORK = PC....