Mac vs. PC Debate
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/tech-tips-and-tricks/pc-vs-mac-the-big-debate.html
http://lifehacker.com/mac-vs-windows-your-best-arguments-486125257
Both of these articles present more or less the same information, albeit they both seem to lean to one side or the other. They both have all kinds of different sections based on things like intuitiveness, compatibility, cost, the amount of software, flexibility, hardware, and others. The Intel website tends to lean towards Mac or breaking even. Lifehacker's article actually was based off of responses from their userbase, meaning that the website seems to have a userbase in favor of PC and Windows in general. Both however, encourage the reader to realize that we live in a day and age where we have the option to choose whatever we want, and this is only limited by the size of our wallets.
Starting off, let's talk about the reliability of the two. It is a known fact that PC's are much more susceptible to viruses and malware, but this does not mean that Macs or OS X are immune. Especially recently, there have been numerous cases where Macs have encountered viruses. Both are better with antivirus software. This is Mac's victory, slightly.
How about software? Overall, the PC wins here. You'd think Mac would win here, due to their extensive application library. What it comes down to is compatibility for them. Unfortunately for Mac, a lot of software like games and such you simply cannot use on them. While Mac does come with its own things like Garageband, ultimately there are better choices for music making that are better and they're compatible with both. Also, surprisingly, applications that are compatible for windows are in much larger quantities than ones in the Apple app store.
In general, hardware can be pretty equal, but this all depends on what kind of dosh you're willing to lay down. This is probably PC's biggest advantage over Mac, and that is price. The truth is, Apple is capable of creating very nice products that can be powerful. I'll use this picture as an example.
(picture source: http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/pc-vs-mac-the-price-difference)
Both of the computers have the exact same parts, but for radically different prices, and this is due to Apple's business model. This also happens to be the main point against Macs when the debate is brought up. While the deficit between the cash amount decreases after you get to lower amounts of money, there is still a noticeable price difference. Obviously the average computer user won't even think of spending nearly this much money on either of them, but this is still prevalent at lower prices. Mac is also more expensive in the long run, because it is much more expensive to upgrade your computer if you use Mac. A majority of Mac's products use integrated parts, meaning you cannot remove them from the computer. PC's however, tend to work like a jigsaw puzzle. This means that Mac users, when they want to upgrade, need to buy an entirely new computer.
Overall, both of them have their ups and downs, but another big question is this: how do all of these statistics and information translate economically? As mentioned in the other article I posted, PC markets have gone down in general and are becoming less prevalent in the past decade or so. Apple has maintained a decent, but decreasing share in the market. Macbook laptops have not been updated in a while as well, and this is evident in our culture as well. I can remember a few years ago Apple's Macbook commercials and whatnot, but I don't remember seeing any macbook commercials recently. This leads me to believe that, at least in the PC market, the demand for apple products have gone down (this is definitely not true in other markets). I believe that people buying PCs nowadays tend to be influenced more by price than anything else. The increase in market share of certain PC manufacturers (Dell, HP, Lenovo) somewhat shows this.
