SuperSite Blog : Mac

How We Really Designed the Look and Feel of Windows 7

pthurrott — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:04:20 GMT

While the Mac community has been chortling over a supposed Microsoft admission that Windows 7 copies the Mac OS X look and feel, the company decided to set the record straight, or at least provide a more official comment about this claim:

An inaccurate quote has been floating around the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was “borrowed” from Mac OS X. Unfortunately this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed. If you’re interested in learning more about the design of Windows 7, I suggest reading this AP story with Julie Larson-Green as well as these WSJ (membership required) and Fast Company articles. And here is one of many blog posts on the E7 blog discussing the design process of Windows 7.

That said, there is little doubt that Windows has followed Mac OS X into the world of hardware-backed transparent graphical effects in their respective UIs. And anyone who believes that the Windows 7 taskbar is anything other than a copy of the Mac OS X Dock just isn't paying attention.

Apple Delivers New Macs, Multi-Touch Mouse

pthurrott — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:05:42 GMT

Apple today unleashed a number of consumer computing products, all of which look quite interesting. The refreshed products include:

iMac. Now available with 21.5- and 27-inch (!!!) 16:9 widescreen displays, the new iMacs look impressive.

Apple today unveiled an all new iMac line featuring brilliant LED-backlit 21.5 and 27-inch widescreen displays in a new edge-to-edge glass design and seamless all aluminum enclosure. The new iMac line, starting at $1,199, is the fastest ever with Intel Core 2 Duo processors starting at 3.06 GHz, and Core i5 and i7 quad-core processors for up to twice the performance.*

Where "*" means "cough, cough". Twice the performance. Oh, Apple.

Mac mini. There's no separate press release for this one, but Apple also revamped its entry level Mac mini (and in Apple land, "entry level" of course means $600 to $1000, and not $299 as in the PC world).

The Mac mini is now faster, offers more storage and comes standard with double the memory. Starting at $599, the entry level Mac mini features a faster 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, a 160GB hard drive, five USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 800, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics and a SuperDrive. The $799 Mac mini features a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of memory and a larger 320GB hard drive. Apple now offers a $999 Mac mini that is specially configured with Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server. Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server features two 500GB hard drives for a total of 1TB of server storage in the tiny 6.5-inch square by 2-inch tall Mac mini enclosure.

That last option is really interesting, though I'd like to see an optical disc-less Mac mini for the desktop too. And I'll spare you Apple's claims about the "world’s most energy efficient desktop." OK, maybe I won't.

And last, and potentially most interesting...

Magic Mouse. A new multi-touch mouse. There's no mention of Windows compatibility anywhere, but this one looks good.

Multi-Touch allows customers to navigate using intuitive finger gestures. Instead of mechanical buttons, scroll wheels or scroll balls, the entire top of the Magic Mouse is a seamless Multi-Touch surface. Magic Mouse comes standard with the new iMac and will be available as a Mac accessory at just $69 ... Magic Mouse features a seamless touch-sensitive enclosure that allows it to be a single or multi-button mouse with advanced gesture support. Using intuitive gestures, users can easily scroll through long documents, pan across large images or swipe to move forward or backward through a collection of web pages or photos. Magic Mouse works for left or right handed users and multi-button or gesture commands can be easily configured from within System Preferences.

Magic Mouse isn't available yet, saving me a trip to the Apple Store. ("Dodging a bullet," as I say.) I am curious to see one in action.

Mac Market Share is Now 3.86 Percent

pthurrott — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:36:56 GMT

Apple just released the results of another phenomenal financial quarter, earning $1.67 billion on revenue of $9.87 billion. According to the company, "Apple sold 3.05 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing a 17 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter." This, of course, allows me to report Apple's worldwide market share number with some accuracy. And we can somewhat guess--since Apple doesn't break out US-only sales--what their US market share is as well.

For worldwide market share, the math is simple. PC makers sold 79.48 million PCs around the world, using my standard system of averaging the IDC and Gartner numbers. That means the Mac now has 3.86 percent market share worldwide. I'm guessing that's a lot lower than you were expecting. But math is math, and as I've tried to explain for several years now, strong quarterly sales growth (17 percent in Apple's case) doesn't amount to much actual real world gain when you're already starting from a very small position comparatively.

(For whatever it's worth, the Mac's 17 percent sales growth pales in comparison to the 26 percent growth experienced by netbook maker Acer.)

For the US number, I've seen a lot of silliness about the Mac hitting 10 percent this quarter. (This is a figure Leo repeated last week on "Windows Weekly," and I suspect that's because he gets his "news" from Mac sites.) Apple's US market share is not (yet?) 10 percent, though. Sorry.

At most, the Mac now has 9.1 percent market share in the US. This figure is obtained, again, by using IDC and Gartner's numbers. However, because I have to also use their numbers for Mac sales, it's a bit less accurate.

However you look at it, the Mac is continuing to gain market share. Back in Q1 2009, the Mac owned 3.36 percent of the entire PC market, and 7.49 percent in the US. Today's figures are actually dramatic gains.

Snow Leopard: Great news for Windows 7, too

pthurrott — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:47:21 GMT

I'm going to be writing about the Windows 7/Snow Leopard/Boot Camp experience soon as part of my recently revived Mac-to-Windows Switcher Guide, but I see I'm not the only one noticing the improvements in the latest Boot Camp release. Sadly, this particular review, while decent, gets a number of facts wrong. I'd like to correct them here.

As [Snow Leopard] is now a pure 64-bit operating system, expect the application performance to improve over Leopard as you add RAM or use it with a high-end desktop.

Snow Leopard is not a "pure" 64-bit OS. It is a hybrid 32-bit/64-bit OS, and it actually boots into a 32-bit kernel by default. That's a 32-bit OS, folks, even if it does have certain 64-bit capabilities. Imagine the mocking Microsoft would get from the Apple fan base if they advertised a 32-bit OS as a 64-bit OS. And now observe the total pass Apple gets for doing it.

The new Boot Camp includes all the drivers necessary to run both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 smoothly on the Mac hardware.

Sadly, you can only run 64-bit Windows versions, arbitrarily, on certain Macs. My Macbook gets support for 32-bit versions only.

[From within Windows,] Boot Camp 3.0 can be installed from the Snow Leopard DVD. Then, without further ado, you got yourself a great Windows computer.

In this case "without further ado" means 15-20 minutes of driver installs. It takes a shockingly long time. Fortunately, you only need to do it once, of course.

The last major improvement of Boot Camp 3.0 that I am very happy about is the battery life. Windows 7 now has much improved battery life compared with what it had with Boot Camp 2.1. I haven't tried Windows Vista or Windows XP, but Windows 7 now has about the same battery life as Snow Leopard.

This is absolutely not the case on my mid-2008 Macbook. In my experience, Windows is still at about two-thirds the battery life of Snow Leopard.

The MacBook's keyboard doesn't have two separate "Backspace" and "Delete" keys, which come in handy when you want to remove text.

As has been the case since the first beta of Boot Camp, fn + Delete works as "Backspace." Works great, in fact.

There's no separate "tab to click" options for the right and left clicks.

Well, assuming you mean "tap to click," one tap is right click and a two-finger tap is now right-click. I think this works very well.

Overall, I have to say Boot Camp 3.0 takes the Windows experience to a new high on Mac hardware. To me, this is about as exciting as the release of Windows 7 itself.

Settle down. :) Actually, the ability to run Windows 7 on your Mac is pretty exciting. Certainly, it's more exciting than Snow Leopard.

Anyway, it's a good review, I don't mean to be snarky.

Apple to ship Snow Leopard this week

pthurrott — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:17:51 GMT

In a weird last-minute announcement, Apple announced this morning that it will ship its $29 Mac OS X service pack, called "Snow Leopard," on Friday.

Apple today announced that Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard will go on sale Friday, August 28 at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, and that Apple’s online store is now accepting pre-orders. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard users for $29.

To create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers refined 90 percent of the more than 1,000 projects that make up Mac OS X.

Curiously, there are no major new end user features worth noting, which explains the "service pack" claim above. (Yes, it supports Exchange, but that won't impact most Mac users.) I've been using this thing all year, including the final version for the past week or so, and I have to say ... there's just not much there. It makes my "Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard" series somewhat ponderous to write because I can't focus on what's new but must instead just compare the two OSes more generally. In case it's not obvious, users expect things to improve somewhat with each OS release, that's the minimum, but Snow Leopard doesn't go beyond that at all. This stands in sharp contrast to Windows 7, which does indeed change the overall Windows experience in useful ways. Snow Leopard is just simple refinements. Sorry, but it's just not that interesting.

And while Snow Leopard is indeed priced right for those up-to-date Mac users who paid $129 each year to upgrade to the latest OS release, or even more to just buy a new Mac, it's going to cost the hold-outs a lot more: $169 for a package that also includes iLife 09 (which is good) and iWork 09 (which is pointless). That's the only way that previous-generation ("Tiger") Mac OS X users can get Snow Leopard. And that's only for those on Intel-based Macs. You didn't upgrade yet? Sorry, Luddite, you can't get Snow Leopard.

I raise this issue because there's been a lot of talk lately about how Microsoft won't support direct upgrading of an 8-year-old operating system (XP) to Windows 7, though it does support a very useful migration process. Apple, meanwhile, isn't supporting upgrades from machines that were sold as recently as two and a half years ago. I think this distinction is important, and doesn't get enough attention.

Anyway. I'll put up a short Snow Leopard article this week and then get back to work on the Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard series.

LOL! Apple demanded that Microsoft stop advertising PC price advantage over Macs

pthurrott — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:25:26 GMT

I'm sure you've seen the news. If not, I've written something up about it.

Microsoft COO Kevin Turner relayed a funny story about Apple. The Cupertino Mac maker recently called Microsoft and demanded that the software giant stop running its "Laptop Hunter" ads on TV. The ads highlight how expensive Macs are compared to PCs, and how much more choice there is in the PC market. That's a lot of chutzpah, even for Apple: Its annoying "I'm a Mac" ads have been running for years and often include inaccurate information about Windows and PCs.

Turner revealed how desperate Apple is to prevent people from realizing how much more expensive Macs are than PCs. "Two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, 'Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices,'" he said. "They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call that I've ever taken in business."

Finally, Microsoft had gotten to Apple. "I did cartwheels down the hallway," Turner continued. "At first I said, 'Is this a joke? Who are you?' We're just going to keep running them and running them and running them."

Turner noted that the ads work because they're the truth. He talked about reading an ad for an electronics retailer in the newspaper this past Sunday and examining the prices for different computers. "You can get a 13.3” Macbook for $1,199 from that retailer," he said. "Guess what? [From] that same retailer, you can get a PC with more RAM, a bigger hard drive, and almost a three-inch bigger screen for $649. This is...the Apple Tax."

Too funny.

Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard: Which features should be compared? (Updated)

pthurrott — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:33:26 GMT

I'm working on a multi-part Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard comparison (read the introduction here) and am curious what you guys (and gals) would like to see included. More specifically, as you think about the various features or each OS, which need to be compared head-to-head? (Ex: Digital media functionality. Windows 7 has Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Play To, and so on. Snow Leopard has QuickTime X, etc.)

Let me know what you think. (And please, no sniping. Let's keep this civil and on topic.)

Update: So I should have spelled out one aspect of this comparison that isn't obvious. While I won't have a co-author from the Mac side per se, I am in fact working closely with some close friends who are Mac experts to ensure I'm covering the other side both adequately and accurately. This isn't intended to be a one-sided overview at all. I think anyone worrying about bias will be surprised (in a good way).

WWDC 2009: Time for a reality check

pthurrott — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:33:21 GMT

Apple is providing its WWDC 2009 keynote address today, providing some interesting info about its Mac and iPhone platforms. But this is Apple we're talking about. So it's time for a reality check.

75 million Mac OS X users. Apple claimed that the OS X user base magically jumped from 25 million to 75 million active users in two years. But it didn't. It jumped to 35 million users. The other 40 million are using iPhones and iPod touches. So if there are 1 billion active PC users (and that's an old figure), than OS X usage share right now is 3.5 percent. Everyone's onboard with the math, right? 3.5 percent. "No wonder everyone is trying to follow in our footsteps," Apple SVP Phil Schiller said. Right.

Macbooks magically become Macbook Pros. Apple rebranded the 13-inch Macbook as the Macbook Pro and added SD slots across the line-up. FINALLY. I've only been asking for this handy little feature for, what, 6 years? The batteries are non-replaceable. I'm pretty sure no one was asking for that feature. And they added Firewire 800. Seriously, how about two more USB ports? Oh, and $1699 to start for a lowball 15-inch unit? To Mac guys, this is big news.

Hypocrisy around Vista/7 and Leopard/Snow Leopard. This year, both Microsoft and Apple are working on revisions to existing OSes. In Microsoft's case, Windows 7 is a nice revision to Windows Vista. And Snow Leopard is a minor revision (service pack) to Mac OS X Leopard. Both Windows Vista and Leopard have had their share of problems, but Vista's are more high profile and thus, apparently, news to the wider world. But look how Apple's Darth Vader, Bertrand Serlet, describes these updates:

Windows 7: "Even more complexity is present in Windows 7. The same old tech as Vista. Just another version of Vista."

Snow Leopard: "We come from such a different place. We love Leopard, we're so proud of it, we decided to build upon Leopard. We want to build a better Leopard, hence Snow Leopard."

Um. They sound the same to me. Jerk.

For the record, Snow Leopard looks just fine to me. It should, after three years of development on a point release.

Exchange support in Snow Leopard. Apple makes fun of Microsoft to comic effect (see above) ... Unless, of course, they need Microsoft. Which they do, to add Exchange support to its products. Oh, wait. "With Exchange support built into Snow Leopard, there is no extra charge for Mac OS users while Windows users usually have to pay extra." There it is.

Safari 4 today for OS X, Windows. Yawn.

QuickTime X for OS X, Windows. Actually, this looks good. I especially like how the UI looks like no other OS X app. Nice consistency there from the HIG.

Mac OS X is not fully 64-bit. While Windows users get 64-bit versions of Windows, Mac OS X users will, in Snow Leopard, get an OS in which most of the system is 64-bit, but many "non-major system apps" are still 32-bit.

Snow Leopard pricing. Apple is finally charging the right price for the latest in a long list of minor upgrades: $29 to Leopard users. This is exactly right, and should serve as inspiration for Microsoft. Seriously.

iPhone 3.0. The iPhone is really popular, and let's face it, it's awesome. iPhone 3.0, which I've been using since February, is a very minor update, and mostly adds things that should have been there in the first place. Biggest disappointment: Apple is adding tethering, but AT&T refuses to allow it. Hey, AT&T. F#$% you. Yeah. Really.

Apple needs to tone down the boring stuff. Look guys, here's another iPhone app. We get it. Move along, please.

iPhone 3G S. Was curious what they were going to call the iPhone 3, since the iPhone 3G was the iPhone 2.0. Now we know. Built in 7.2MBps HSDPA for data. New camera (finally). But same form factor. (Which makes sense, given the add-on market, but lacks a certain pizzazz.) I mean, where could they go with this, really? Anyway: Pricing is $199 (16 GB), $299 (32 GB). Surely there's an upgrade program for existing users. [Cricket chirps.]

Voice Control. (3GS only.) Apple copies Microsoft Sync, no one notices. And by the way, the notion of talking to a smart phone should be obvious. Just saying.

Best live keynote coverage. Engadget, hands down.

Apple posts effective response to Laptop Hunters ads

pthurrott — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:48:50 GMT

I'm sure some wanted to believe that Apple would take the high road with regards to Microsoft's Laptop Hunters ads. But those people don't understand Apple. Instead, Apple has responded with an ad of its own. And let's be serious here for a second. It's pretty effective.

(To see the right ad, click on Latest ads and then Elimination).

The point here is simple: Microsoft is pushing the value and choice of PCs compared to Macs, which is unassailable. PCs are cheaper and come in an amazing array of choices from a variety of sources.

Apple, in response, is changing the conversation, because they have to. But what they are advertising here is effectively the truth as well: PCs are prone to errors, crashes and malware. (I say effectively here because one ounce of common sense would prevent most of the security issues people have with PCs. And as my wife or any honest Mac user would be happy to tell you, Macs have all kinds of errors and crashes too, sorry.)

Anyhoo. Quibbling aside, it's an effective response.

Which brings up an interesting point. What will Apple do when Windows 7 ships? I mean, it's smaller, faster, and better than Vista. It approaches Mac-like elegant and design. It's just a better OS. Do they simply prattle on about the same, increasingly out of date complaints? Or is there something new to say about PCs that's relevant in the Windows 7 era?

Mac market share in Q1 2009 = 3.36 percent, Apple earnings strong

pthurrott — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:54:03 GMT

Apple has announced its earnings for the first calendar quarter of 2009, and while no company is likely recession proof, Apple is certainly recession-resilient. The company posted revenue of $8.16 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.21 billion, which is huge. Mac sales were a much better than expected 2.22 million units, and though that's down a pretty meaningless 3 percent, year over year, it's enough for 3.36 percent worldwide market share. (In the year ago quarter, the Mac accounted for just 3.26 of all PC sales worldwide.)

US market share, of course, is harder to gauge since Apple doesn't break out US numbers explicitly. Looking at IDC (1130 units) and Gartner's (1135) estimated sales figures for the US, Apple's Mac has about 7.49 percent market share in the US. That's a bit more vague of an estimate, of course, but it seems reasonable.

Either way, the Mac's in great shape, despite the economy.

More impressive, perhaps, is the iPhone. Sales of the iPhone more than doubled year over year, with Apple selling 3.79 million units (according to AT&T, 1.6 million of them in the US).

iPod sales were up an inconsequential 3 percent, suggesting that the new iPod shuffle hasn't been a fast seller. It's rare for Apple to completely replace an iPod model in the first quarter (they usually go after the full lineup each September) but it doesn't look like it made much of a difference. Maybe the next shuffle could be bigger and have a real UI.

The UK 'I'm a PC' Ads are even better

pthurrott — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:02:48 GMT

Oh man, these are just great.

Microsoft Watch's Joe Wilcox shows off the "I'm a PC" ads that Microsoft is airing in the UK. And if you thought the US-based ones were great, wait until you get a load of these. Wonderful.

What's so perfect about these ads, of course, is that they cannot be attacked. While Macworld and every Mac fanatic site on earth are busy deconstructing the "Laptop Hunter" ads and "Apple Tax" stories with frenzied and increasing desperation, there is absolutely nothing that Apple or its crazy fanatic followers can do to counter these cute kids using Windows. Any retort would just look stupid and mean-spirited.

Good stuff.

Day of reckoning: Q1 2009 PC market share figures arrive

pthurrott — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:25:56 GMT

Well, Gartner and IDC have weighed in on what everyone agrees was a down quarter for the PC industry (Q1 2009). The figures break down like this:

Worldwide PC sales (averaged between Gartner and IDC): 65.34 million

US PC sales: 15.13 million

According to Gartner, worldwide PC sales fell year-over-year by 6.5 percent in the quarter; IDC says the decline was 7.1 percent.

US PC sales fell just .3 percent, Gartner says; IDC reports a 3 percent decline in the US.

The top 5 PC vendors, worldwide, are:

1. HP
2. Dell
3. Acer
4. Lenovo
5. Toshiba

In the US, the top five PC vendors are:

1. HP
2. Dell
3. Acer
4. Apple
5. Toshiba

The big trends in the quarter:

- PC sales weren't as bad as expected. That is, sales fell, but not as much as anticipated.

- Dell is tanking. They fell from the number one spot in the US for the first time in years but saw massive market share declines (in the 16-17 percent range worldwide and in the US)

BTW, I will use the figures quote above to measure Mac market share for Q1 2009 when Apple releases their quarterly results. Preliminary numbers are inconclusive: Both Gartner and IDC show that Mac sales were down slightly year over year in the US. Neither company provides data for Apple's worldwide sales because Apple is not in the top five globally. But we can nail that number down soon. My guess is that Apple will lose a very small amount of market share globally and be flat in the US. Given the exorbitant prices they charge, that's not too shabby.

How Mac fanatics see the world

pthurrott — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:55:48 GMT

I saw this story mentioned on Macsurfer today and smiled immediately. Because it occurred to me that Mac fanatics--you know, the crazy ones, not Mac users--would completely disagree with its opening assertion:

Corporate Comebacks: Apple

In 1997, Apple was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Ten years later, in 2008, it had $24 billion in sales and a total market value of $108 billion -- more than that of McDonald's, Merck and Goldman Sachs.

So. What's wrong with this?

Nothing, if your life is defined by the boundaries of reality. But if you Think Different (tm)--i.e., you're a Mac fanatic--your reaction would be the following:

That is COMPLETE BULLS#$T!!! Apple was never teetering on the brink of bankruptcy! That is history rewriting, and we should start an online petition to prevent the author of this article from ever writing about Apple again!

Yeah. They really do think like that. :)

The Microsoft ads are working

pthurrott — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:46:53 GMT

That this is true is pretty obvious. The Mac fanbois are going crazy over them, which is always a good sign. ("Let's pick apart the 'Apple Tax' math so people will forget that Macs really are a lot more expensive than PCs" is pretty typical of the thinking there these days.) But this story is interesting for one reason and one reason only: It's written by a noted Linux backer.

My users want Windows. Where three months ago users were enthusiastic about Mac and some were excited about (or at least open to) Linux implementations in the coming years, now users are asking about Windows 7 on the new purchases we have coming up.

I was hopeful about Linux in more settings. The anti-Vista sentiment remains high among many of my current Vista users and XP users are certainly feeling like their machines are growing long-in-the-tooth, opening an opportunity for Linux.

Then Microsoft started their new ad campaign ... I’ll be honest: I actually like the commercials. They play on my gadget lust and make me want to go buy a new PC. Of course, I’d probably install Ubuntu PDQ, but I would have already purchased a PC.

The ads seem to have killed any interest in Linux and, except among Mac devotees (and quite a few still exist in education), in new Macs.

I think that the growing enthusiasm around Windows 7 is fairly infectious. Will it be as big a flop as Vista? I doubt it. People are going to have to see and feel Windows 7 side by side with Ubuntu (or some other friendly distro) and then decide for themselves which they prefer. I’m more than happy to give them that opportunity and will be organizing events around such a “taste test.” For now, though, the Microsoft ad campaign is working.

Yes. Yes, it is.

Microsoft: Celebrate Tax Day by avoiding the Apple Tax

pthurrott — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:55:59 GMT

They're getting pretty persistent about this. (Of course, they do have a point. Macs are absolutely more expensive than PCs.) Brandon over at the Windows team blog posts about the company's latest Apple Tax initiative:

With the ailing global economy, I am looking at ways I get better value for my money. One way I can do this if I need to replace a computer is by avoiding the “Apple Tax.”

Microsoft sponsored a new whitepaper (PDF) from Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates which takes a look at the tax from a tech analyst’s viewpoint. His paper shows the “Apple Tax” is the combination of what people pay up front when purchasing a Mac and what people pay over the life of their computer – the hidden tax.

Roger looked into both aspects in his whitepaper, and has discovered some interesting findings around the “hidden tax” of owning a Mac – using the scenario of a hypothetical family of 4 and their costs over a five year period. Knowing that Tax Day is just around the corner here in the US (April 15), I decided to have a little fun with his findings by building a mock up tax form using Roger’s numbers that show the whopping difference this family would get purchasing Windows PCs over Macs: $3,367.

What would you do with a $3,367 “Apple Tax Return”?

I suppose you could buy a Mac. One Mac. :)