To an extent that's tough luck for MS. Apple have a bundling strategy. Google have a 'see what sticks' strategy. Linux is open source. Samsung, Apple and anyone who wants to sell a tablet needs to compete with Amazon who can subsidize their tablet with ads or book sales or whatever else.
MS wouldn't be the first software company to find that their system and method for causing customers to exchange cash for software is losing its potency in light of gradual technology and associated cultural changes.
They are a powerful, cashed up, profitable company and this is competition.
The upgrades are also completely gratis. And again with the "Twice as much" myth? Do I really need to link the article that shows the discount being offered on the new Pro machines with the workstation chipset?
And you're also not counting the reduction in cost from the bundled crapware that comes on most every OOTB PC.
Apple hardware isn't overpriced (maybe slightly) if you compare it with similar offerings, BUT most people don't need/want/can afford premium hardware or get the same value out of a $400 laptop/desktop for their needs.
So for many peoples basic computing needs, Apple is indeed much more expensive.
The new Mac Pro is a joke. If you need to add more disks, you're adding an additional $1,500 to $2,500 for the external disk enclosure. That puts the base price, for 6 bays at $5,500! Now that is absurd.
You are being disingenuous. The number of laptop users with a bunch of external disks compared to desktop users.... very, very different.
This is about what is normal. My desktop machines have ALWAYS had more than just the boot drive. My laptops have NEVER had anything but the boot drive.
Unless you build a Hackintosh[1]. I'm typing on mine right now. I jumped from Windows 7 because I use Windows 8.1 at work and hate it. I've totally loving the Hackintosh. I do lots of scripting, and while I love the crap outta the Cygwin people (heroes, all of them), it is soooo nice having a real unix under me, albeit a slightly weird one. Yeah, if it weren't for Lightroom, I'd be on Linux.
I have a pretty beefy machine, but I spent less than $2000.
I'm in the same boat myself. Right now I'm strongly considering picking up a mac mini and a nice displayport KVM switch. Last upgrade to Mavericks hosed my mackintosh install (panic on boot) and no amount of re-running the tools seems to fix it. There's also the small miscellaneous problems you have to deal with.
I keep coming back to Windows for the games. Once Steam's streaming functionality is nailed down, I figure I'll build a nice beefy shoebox machine, throw Windows on it, put that box in the corner, and use the mini or a laptop as my main machine.
What hardware do you have? I was very careful to use the hardware with for the path of least resistance. The installation took an hour. Then, I spent the next 3 days getting the RAID 1 for the boot drive working.
Gigabyte board, Gigabyte AMD video, Intel i5. I actually specced this machine out three-ish years ago with the express intent of hackintoshing. Except for some early issues with dual monitors back in the Snow Leopard/Lion days (we're talking hex editing the ATI driver kext), it has worked really well.
Ive been running a Hackintosh for years without any serious issues but i am growing worried about apples direction in many things and the platform lock-in as a whole. I also hate to adapt to different keyboard layouts when going back to Windows for gaming.
Thats why i am toying with going for a Win 8.1/Linux Mint combination again, maybe even Windows only would suffice as vagrant took a lot of pain out of development on windows.
More accurately, Apple is selling you both the hardware and the software in a modern version of the old IBM model (give away the software to help sell the hardware).
