With respect to your story, I'm fairly certain there are more convert stories among people who have used the Mac than there are stories of people disliking them.
Both me and my wife have had the displeasure of using Macs in the past. I even owned one for about 6 months, a mac mini. I replaced it with Vista and Vista's Media Center pretty much owns Front Row (pfft, don't even get me started). The dock sucks compared to the task bar, you can't even see what's running on the dock. Oh and it's slow.
I've never used a Mac Mini, so I don't know how slow it is, though I'd guess that it's not in the same league as Apple's higher-end products.
Out of curiosity, what makes Front Row worse than the Media Center? I rarely use Front Row, but I'd like to know what Vista Media Center does better.
The dock absolutely is better than the task bar. The TB is cluttered - why do I need a box for every open window when I can just see the windows (hence Expose)? The Dock shows you running applications (though not background processes, though that's okay since neither does the task bar), it shows you minimized windows, and it shows you your set launch applications. I've argued before and I still believe that the presence of the dock is what makes OS X the superior system. It focuses on efficiency. The fact that it houses the Trash and the new Stacks system makes it even better: it removes a hell of a lot of clutter.
I've never had a speed problem with my computer, though to be fair I use a MBP with 2 gigs of ram. That said, I can run multiple intensive processes at once and still do casual tasks like browsing without a speed hit.
And despite what you've said, I'm still fairly certain. Meaning no disrespect to you, I've had such a wonderful experience with my computer that I can't possibly imagine people liking Windows more once they get into OS X. Again: your existence shows that I'm not entirely correct, but I'd still believe that of the people who've used both OSes noncasually, more people like the Mac over the PC.
I'm not going to get in a back-and-forth with you about what I hate about Macs.
The point is that there are a LOT of people out there that absolutely can't stand Macs. As a matter of fact, besides me and my wife EVERY single person in my office hates them (most of us are programmers and YES, we've actually used them before).
Back-and-forth? I asked you a few questions about what you said, and made a few statements of my own. You act like this is a hostile conversation.
I don't understand the sort of mindset that doesn't like the Mac, but I acknowledge that it exists. I would still guess that that mindset is in the minority, however: as a casual OS it is vastly better than Windows. Your office experience is not indicative of the majority of computer users.
Most of the products I use are built by people who use the Mac. That's why I looked into getting a Mac in the first place.
37signals. The Big Noob. The Tumblr team. Paul Graham once wrote an article on using the Mac. The Omni Group and Panic and Delicious Monster. Coudal. Rososo and Vimeo and NowDoThis. Facebook. Everywhere I looked, people told me that the Mac was wonderful and they were fanatic about it. So I gave it a try and found that I was equally fanatic.
I'm going off of every designer whose opinion I like and respect. You're going off of people who work in a single environment. If we wanted to be logical, we'd work off of user statistics, where Apple's rated as one of the most satisfactory companies in the nation. They blow competition away. Hence my confidence in my statement. Now, can we drop it, or are you going to continue to make arguments in a debate that's convincing nobody on either side?
"I'm going off of every designer whose opinion I like and respect."
For the record, I'm not JUST going off of my peers at work, I happen to belong to a number of user groups and I also happen to visit many, many real working people in corporate workplaces around the world and I'm quite confident that it wouldn't be that hard to come up with a list of awesome web 2.0 developers that absolutely adore ASP.Net...
Anyway, sure, I can drop it as soon as you can drop it :)
I use a lot of computers but I don't have that strong feelings about them. What's your point? That you know people who hate Macs? Good for you. I do prefer Linux for work, but I know many people who love Macs and even the ones who don't use them respect Macs as well finished computers with a polished OS. Remember: OSX is kind of Nextstep 5.0 and I can respect that as much as I do respect, say, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX.
You may think there is a huge number of people who can't stand Macs, but I assure you it's a very localized phenomena you are observing. Most certainly you are keeping the wrong company. Do they also install neon lights under their cars?
