I don't understand this whole "iPhones are shit until you jailbreak them, which apple don't want you to do, because apple are shit" mentality. It's even more astounding when people begin making comments that sound to me like "microsoft would NEVER do such a thing as be so absurdly protective of their single most successful product ever".
I've attended two creative pursuits through college over the last several years. And of course, those courses required the use extensive use of macs rather than PCs. There was a single PC in each building, because they were required to have "at least one" due to the IT department on the main site supposedly experiencing a lot of compatibility issues with the macs. One tutor of mine spent an afternoon regaling the students with stories these 'compatibility issues' and many laughs were shared by all. Essentially, the IT department was run by the same PC users who think that your worth as a human being is inversely proportional to the amount of money you spend on your computer.
Each year, as new students would arrive and old ones left, I saw the same thing.
"We'll be using macs."
*collective groan*
For the first few weeks, every year, there would be conversations about how bad macs suck whenever somebody had to use a computer. Then, nothing. By the end of the year, everybody who hadn't already purchased a mac was now adamant on getting one. Everybody at the end was always so nice and pleasant, and everybody got along. But at the beginning, everybody would be so incredibly angry all the time.
The evidence presents itself: Happiness is a mac.
How happy a person is, is directly related to what type of computer they use. The angrier somebody seems on the internet, the more likely they are to be a PC user. The more you hear a person say "fag" in a post, the smaller the chance that they are posting from an iMac. If somebody comes across as a very affable person, impossible to displace from their serene disposition, then they're probably using a different operating system altogether. As a yet unenlightened mac user, I have no idea. Nirvana is a MeOS?
I'm biased. I much prefer using OSX to any Windows operating system that I've had any experience with. But I don't hate PCs. I'd love to have a laptop running Windows 7. I've only ever met two mac users who claimed to hate PCs, but they were both 16/17 at the time (people on the internet do not count), and thus their opinions meant absolutely nothing. However, I have met countless PC loyalist who are quick to insult people based on their preference for macs. This initially lead me to draw the conclusion that while most OSX users have a preference, most Windows users had an obsession. Which isn't true, obviously. The truth is that the majority of people who use either couldn't give a crap either way, which is the way that it should be.
Your operating system is surely nothing more than the glove you use to interact with your computer?
I once tried counting the countless operating systems out there. No need to tell you that I gave up. There are plenty of alternatives to Windows and OSX. Nobody is forcing anybody to use either. Except maybe for Microsoft and Apple.
I think it'd be interesting if we started some kind of group. Like a book group. Only, instead of reading books, we trial different operating systems and then discuss the pros and cons of each at the end of every week.
Be difficult for those of us with only one system, though?