Lead the way, MacBore

Of course I could be wrong and, let's face it, it wouldn't be the first time. I have been taken to task over my assertion that iMac buyers are gullible. Having written in another computing newspaper - in fact a sister publication to PC Dealer - that with its absence of floppy disk, a see-through case and an extraordinarily smug advertising campaign, the iMac is less than a good buy and anyone who buys one is gullible.

And then the grump mail starts. Boy, are Macintosh users a bunch of humourless thin-skinned goofs. Actually, let me rephrase that. Many of my best friends are Macintosh users.

The specific Macintosh user I am defining here is the MacBore. These are the people who will tell anyone daft enough to be standing nearby that Apple Macs have had everything the PC has for years already. Everything except success, I guess.

MacBores also like to point out that the iMac doesn't need a floppy disk, because all you have to do is send your documents via the internet to another machine (at 3p a minute?).

These people remind me of all those ex-Generals and Home Counties housewives who start letter writing campaigns whenever the Archers starting time is moved 30 minutes and who want Radio 4 to be run for them, not for anyone else.

The sole life purpose of the rabid section of the Macintosh crowd is to deny that the Macintosh is a spent platform that has conclusively lost the fight against the PC. And for a hobby they pretend that Napoleon won on points at Waterloo.

My thought is this: how on earth did Apple do it? Any one of you would give someone else's right arm for that kind of customer loyalty.

In a market where everyone is shouting and waving as hard as they can to grab the users' attention, how do you keep your punters?

All Apple did was flounce around the industry trying to make up its mind up whether it should be wearing a suit and tie or tie-dye tee-shirts, while at the same time keeping supply really short and prices high - oh, and constantly wingeing that their machines (despite the sales figures never proving this) were better than PCs.

And the result is that we have a user base that is so fanatical that you only have to hint that the Macintosh is less than the perfect computer and they are leaping on your back.

All the same, while it is perfectly fair and right to jeer at the users who live with their heads in the sand, we have to take our hats off to Apple for managing to keep its customers satisfied and onside for so long.

That must - and I'm not joking here - earn our respect in a big way. No PC company has come anywhere near to achieving that kind of connection with its customers.

Now, imagine this: what if Apple had been as good at conducting the rest of its business as it was at selling itself. Hardly bears thinking about, does it?

Chris Long is a freelance IT journalist.