Apple computers are reputed to inspire fierce loyalty among users, but that may be due more to a highly vocal, rabid fringe of fanboiz than anything else.
More than 12 per cent of US homes have at least one Mac, according to NPD’s latest Household Penetration study – a rise from nine per cent the research company polled in 2008. But of those Mac owners, nearly 85 per cent have at least one Windows-based PC.
So the die hard Mac loyalists are… about 15% of Mac users. Since Mac comprised well less than 10% of PC sales, that yields a core of Mac loyalists that is a minuscule and very nearly irrelevant class of computer users. Just sayin’.
*heh*
(Just think, though: with high-end Intel-compatible hardware and PC-BSD, current Mac users could have their [possibly] preferred GUI, or something very like it–and the security of the base Unix OS they want and lower cost, too. Of course, they could always install a VM in the PC-BSD machine and plop Windows in there, too.. :-))
Hmm… this doesn’t feel right. I wonder if the survey asked if they USE any Windows PCs? I’d bet many of these folks own a Mac, but use a PC at work. Most Mac fans I’ve talked to are pretty steeped in the Kool-Aid…
Woody, the survey considered folks who reported both Macs and PCs at home. I know several of the folks who fit this profile. One, a middle manager for a major corporation has two Mac “computers” (one is his iPhone, but it does qualify and the other his Mac Air) and a Sony Vaio he has had for three years which he wants to add a couple of cards to in order to convert it to a HTPC… because a Mac configured as an with the full features he wants would be far too expensive.
As I said, I suspect most of us have had an impression of Mac user loyalties based on rabid Mac fanboiz and their loud and aggressive “evangelism” for their beloved idol. I’ve come to think of ’em as the Jehovah’s Witnesses of computer users.
Ah, here we go:
(Emphasis added)