Are you passionate about your computer?

Chances are that if you are a Windows user, your answer would be "no." However, people that own Macintosh computers might very well answer in the extreme affirmative. Why is that? What is it about Macintosh that promotes such an emotional response? Macintosh spends a lot of money on design (their products look really cool), their software is extremely user-friendly and updated constantly . . . the list goes on and on.

Overclockers.com recently posted a article regarding the turning of a G5 Macintosh into a PC. The article goes through how a user that wanted a PC for Christmas (but instead received a G5) pulled the guts out of the Macintosh G5 box and replaced the guts with PC components. This morning Wired posted anarticle about all of the e-mail death-threats (yes, I did say "death threats," and, no, I am not kidding) the author of the G5 article has received. Some might say that sending death threats about a computer is a little sick (and I would agree), but what is really, really important is how passionate and emotional the Macintosh users are about their product. You see beyond the reasons I listed above about why Macintosh is cool, Macintosh purchasers/users feel like they are part of an exclusive club. Don't believe me? Tell me about the Windows club you belong to. Tell me about the last time you had a strong emotional response to Windows software. Explain to me why, after year of iterations of the software, you still go to the "Start" menu to turn the computer off.