“They tattoo Apple’s logo on their arm. They help sell Apple products, even though they’re not paid to. One couple met at the Macworld Expo conference, got engaged and were married there,” Ellen Lee writes for The San Francisco Chronicle. “Apple customers are a loyal bunch. Though they’re only a small percentage of all computer users, they make up for it with their passion and outspokenness. In Apple’s 30 years of business, they have formed a tight-knit, unique community. ‘They’re probably the largest subculture’ among computer groupies, said Leander Kahney, managing editor at Wired News, who has tracked these quirks and more in his books ‘The Cult of Mac’ and ‘The Cult of iPod.’ ‘They definitely have distinct traits and rituals and rites of passage.'”
“It’s right there in the numbers: 50 percent of Apple customers plan to buy another Apple computer, a far greater percentage than for any other personal computer, according to MetaFacts,” Lee writes. “So, here on the 30th anniversary of the company’s founding, how do you know if you’re hooked on Apple?”
Apple users are more likely than PC users to:
• Have a higher household income
• Have received a graduate degree
• Be self-employed
• Live in California, Massachusetts or New York
• Live in big cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York
(Source: MetaFacts)
Lees’ checklist “you might be an Apple fanatic if…” in the full article here.
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Don’t know about the tattoo, but I’ve got the Apple logo sticker on both mine and my wife’s vehicles…
Plus, I plan only to buy Macs in the future, thank you very much!
you might be an Apple fanatic if…….
You get the first post on MDN on a Saturday night
Proud to be a member of the cult!
AMEN!!!
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Guilty as charged – only I live in Chicago and built a wonderful company (eight people and counting) over the past 7 years preaching, using and succeeding using only Macs. And what an inspiring ride it has been. Check it out – our site is full of easter eggs – at:
http://www.richterbrothers.com
Of course, it wasn’t always this way. Working hard, having resiliance, always trying to do the right thing, and of course, believing in yourself can make all the difference.
I’m a 20 plus year Mac user, and then used Apple’s before that.
Sure I take “Thinking Differently” to a whole new level, so what? I can do that, I’m a machead.
However I didn’t realize how much the “cult” was so ingrained at Apple until I visited my very first Apple Store on the “Night of the Panther” and met Phil Schiller in person.
Actually I was there in the afternoon, before the line started and the store closed for the event and Phill showed me Panther’s “Exposé ” feature.
Of course all I could say was “Wow”
And he said “Isn’t that so cool?”
I really didn’t know who he was until afterwards, too bad I didn’t take a picture. 🙁
But I did buy a PowerMac G5 and a whole bunch of Apple stuff that night because of a unannounced (but I had inside info) across the store 10% discount that night only.
I really don’t like religions, I like to think for myself, so now you know why I haven’t been drinking the koolaid around here lately.
I’ll probally never will.
My cars also have apple logos on them. My mac mini comes this week to replace a dead G4 desktop. Meanwhile my 17″ Al, 400MHz iMac + 2 other laptops and 4 pre-G3 desktops continue to do the jobs required of them.
Long live apple. All praise to God Jobs.
You all might not believe it, but I got a bunch of one of a kind Apple stuff.
Like signs from Apple Stores, a rather beat up Lisa, a original 128k Mac, offical company shirts and posters up the kazoo.
I thought it would be nice to collect them over the years, but now that I’m older I realize I really don’t want to be part of a “cult”. It sort of implies we are stupid or something.
I stuck with Apple through the dark years because it was a simplybetter product, but I really don’t like this cult stuff anymore.
I rather see strenght, stability and security.
Apple hasn’t done that lately, change is good, but it has it’s drawbacks.
I guess I should have said I would like to have the old Apple back.
Not this greedy, megalomania, egotistical media empire that Apple has become recently.
Give me back the fun little Apple.
Will Steve do something wacky on April 1st?
I doubt it.
Forget it. I changed my mind. My next computer is going to be a Vaio.
Proud to be a Mac fanatic!!
Bumper sticker on my car!!
See my home theater
Macdude, who the hell cares what you think?
MacDude, unless you’ll be running Linux on your Vaio, you’ll be switching from one megalomaniacal company to an even worse one (with a second-rate OS to boot)
Last two posts not my own. The clones are at it again.
I’ve sold macs to dudes in Harvey Norman and I don’t work there, I have converted 2 of my PC lovin’ friends and I have Apple stickers all over my school books (Plan to put one on my future car!)
I LOVE APPLE!
What’s worse than finding a maggot in your apple?
A half of a maggot.
MacDude’s postings are becoming more and more like those exaggerated fantasies of Christmas form letters you get from people you never really liked but were forced to spend time with years ago. You know the sort: “everything I do is so much cooler and more important than anything everybody else does, because I know more, have more, do more than they ever can, etc. etc.” Pass the vomit bag…
>MacDude, unless you’ll be running Linux on your Vaio, you’ll be switching from one megalomaniacal company to an even worse one (with a second-rate OS to boot)
Hehe I like the pun at the end.
Been a Mac user since my first used PowerBook 520 bought in 1998 right up to my 12″ iBook G4 in 2004. Then I switched.
Got tired of waiting for an affordable large screen laptop. I purchased a 15.4″ HP pavillion dv5200 with 3000+ Athlon 64 processor, 60GB drive 64 MB dedicated Nvidia GeForce 440 video, USB, FW, etc. picked it all up for $700 Cdn (about $600 US). Was it ever a steal!!
Did I mention though that afterwards I’ve had to buy Adobe Photoshop Elements ($100 US), Norton Systemworks (w/anti-virus) ($100 US approx.) just to make it “similar” to my iBook in features. Next I was thinking of picking up Pinnacle Studio for video editing (another $100 approx.) but I’m having second thoughts … why you ask?
Because my year old iBook runs circles around this HP!!! As you add software to Windows it sloooowwwwss dooooowwwwnnnn!!
Sure I’ve got the screen but the laptop is heavy as hell!! The power brick alone is half as heavy as my iBook.
My only question to Apple is … why do I have to spend over $2000 Cdn to get a decent wide screen laptop? Screens just aren’t that expensive anymore!!
My 2 cents … damn missing keycap characters 🙁
Tatoos are for losers, period!
I’ve noticed Apple fanatics also have other traits:
– generally very anal
– poor debaters
– unreasonable, although they think they are
– not really funny, although they think they are
– snobby (snotty too depending on location and time of day)
– bratty when on the internet, often resorting to name-calling when pressed to defend their comments
The regular-types look, sound, and smell pretty much like the standard computer user.
Proud to be a Mac user.
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Greetings from Portugal!
You might be a Mac fanatic if…
…you don’t recognize this extension of a tired Jeff Foxworthy joke.
I went to college and got four of my PC-using friends to get powerbooks instead of dells or HPs. This company (Apple) can’t be beat
MPC Guy:
You need to get out more. Also, I believe that you omitted “True thinkers avoid conspicuous generalizations, blatant stereotypes, and narrow-minded bigotry; and have the capacity to admit their own mistakes and are willing to make corrections.”
50 percent?
I think that’s way too low.
All the Mac people I’ve ever met buy Macs, again and again.
P.S. I thought MacDude promised us he was going into early retirement!
Whenever a person states a Mac preference, compliments Apple, expresses a dislike of Windows, or chides Microsoft, they are too often labeled a “fanatic”.
I think some people feel irrationally uncomfortable with individuals who are quite content refusing to accept the ordinary and the routine as the de facto standard.
I have made arrangements to have my Mac buried with me. Will need it in Hell. Am I a Mac cultist?
Emm… why don;t you just get a registered account???
I had the apple sticker from the cube (the white one) on my black briefcase. Boy did I get laid a lot.
I’ve got the apple logo sticker on my car and converted two family members and three friends
After that last Apple event with the WiFi, I beat my wife unconsious and scraped off the Apple tatoo I put there.
I’ve got a striped Apple logo on my Samsonite since … 1984? The Samsonite still looks and works a treat. The logo has made friends with countless “security” and “fragile” stickers collected while clocking 100,000 or so miles. Which reminds me….
ATTENTION ALL AUSSIE MAC USERS
Set your Mac clocks (click the time display in your menu bar) to one hour forward until April 2, when Apple’s time servers will again reflect the correct DST situation. EST dwellers can set their time zone to Vladivostock – Russia. Pribiat, spasiba and dosvedanya.
“It’s right there in the numbers: 50 percent of Apple customers plan to buy another Apple computer, a far greater percentage than for any other personal computer, according to MetaFacts,”
You’re kidding right? Apple computers are the only ones where you can run OSX (with full features). As a Windows user you may start off with a Dell, but you have the option to transfer to HP, Sony, Toshiba, Lenovo, etc. if you want. Metafacts are actually saying that only 1 in 2 Mac users stay Mac users when it’s time to buy another computer.
BTW, the Mac is a great computer, but the company sometimes does stuff I don’t agree with. Blind support for any cause isn’t healthy.
My first computer was a Kaypro II: CP/M OS with 64kb of RAM and two 5.25″ floppy drives. No hard drive. The first Mac was less than six months away. I,unlike most of my friends in school, did not have or want an Apple II. But as soon as I saw that first Mac, I’ve been a Macintosh sympathizer. Never wholly into joining cults, I did however own a Mac 64/SE, which I used through college. Built a PC gaming machine with my first money from areal job . ..build another. Spent every job working with, sometimes hating, sometimes not minding, a series of bland beige Windows boxes. Still do, however, these days I occasionally bring in my own 17″ Powerbook when I need to do some multimedia work, and heartily enjoy the thinly veiled envy of all of my Think Same co-workers. I’m typing this at home right now on a Linux box. But an old lamp-style iMac sits right next to me, playing music. I use whatever computer I need at the moment. I love Apple’s design and I love the way they’ve pushed the industry. If they manage to create a Mac mini with a TV tuner and 802.11N networking, I’ll probably buy three of ’em. I guess that makes me a heretic in the cult of Mac as well as the cult of Windows. I just hope Apple stays alive for many more years, because if they don’t, we’ll probably end up in a Soviet-style design age of electronic equipment and I shudder at the thought.
I live in a small rural town in North Alabama, but work in the space capital of Hunstville. I have a vanity Univ. of Alabama tag (BS in Mech. Eng-1987) that reads APLFAN. love their stuff and buy cups and stuff off ebay regularly (have 16 mugs right now). Like I tell my friends sometmes – “Apple isn’t just a computer; it’s a way of life.”
Mac fanatic from Singapore!
And yes, planned to get another mac soon
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“Apple customers are a loyal bunch.”
They also tend to be a satisfied bunch, happy with Apple products.
How many Windows logos do you see on cars?
You might be a Mac Fanatic if…
…posts by Mac Dud actually affect you…
To me it as simple as this; we have three choices; buy a PC with Windows or Linux or buy a Mac. As I am not geeky enough for Linux and Linux still is too geeky, I am left with two. I admit there are good computers out there, other than Macs, but they run an inferior OS, ridden with malware. Why would I buy that?
I have had Macs since 1998 and that was when I bought my first computer and so far, I haven’t seen a logical reason why I should change that. On the contrary. The more I get to know Windows, the less reason I see for it.
If that is cultism, so be it, but I have no tattos:) I have an Apple-sticker on one of my laptop-bags, though…
And like I have said earlier; in what other field are you left with only 3 choices? Is that normal? Is it normal to be one of more than 90% who choose just one brand?
If something better than Mac shows up, I will most certainly go for it. So far, it hasn’t.
I’ve gone off the Apple stickers. With the market penetration of iPods it’s hard to tell the true believers. Apple should have continued to only include them with Macs.
G-Spank is short for?
Genital Spanker?
LOL
JUST IN!
Microsoft is in tumoil over VISA delays!
Employee’s calling for Steve Ballmers resigination!
“Vista 2007. Fire the leadership now!
http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/03/vista-2007-fire-leadership-now.html
HA HA HAAAA!! Too bad the world will wait for Vista no matter how long it takes.
….. you’ve watched “Pirates of Silicon Vallley” at least 3 times, realize that Windows is like the Titanic, while OSX is more like a hydrofoil, you’d rather use your computer than maintain it.
Heres a nightmare for ya’
30 years of Apple….I wonder what the computer world would be like if Apple never was: Microsoft innovation
“Vista 2007. Fire the leadership now!”
2007 is a pipe dream. By now nobody seriously expects Vista to meet any deadline.
MS has to completely reinvent the way it builds and manages Windows. And all of what’s now Windows has to be completely scrapped. Only then can MS get to work building their next OS.
As for relevance to Apple fanatics: now is THE time to convert the other 90% of the PC industry. MS cannot be allowed the time to renew itself and get the next Windows right.
if, you save all your old Macs…
collecting dust in my warehouse, five MacPlus, one Mac512, an original Apple 20MB serial HD (that still works), Mac II, three Mac IIci, Quadra 900, Radius PowerPC Mac Clone, two 8500 (still work), four 9500 (still work), Beige G3 (using for OS-9 on 20″ Apple monitor), several 640×480 Apple Sony monitors, a couple of 17″ Apple monitors, a mountain of APS SCSI drives with big box of SCSI cables, adaptors and terminators, several Syquest drives (40 and 88 MB models) with a box of old cartridges, several Iomega drives, piles of serial port Midi adaptors, Farallon network adaptors, and a PowerBook 145 that still works fine although the battery life is down to about a minute
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That list does not include all the newer iMac G3, G4 & G5 towers and Mini models.
Someday, I’ll be strong and throw all of it away, but for now this stuff seems like old friends.
I only enjoy porn when viewing it on my Apple computer or iPod.
Higher household income – check
graduate degree (MBA) – check
self-employed – check
live in California – check
live in big city – not quite… though LA is 1.5 hours away
and from TFA…
tried to convert people – check
start day reading Apple blog (MDN) – check
refuse to part with old hw – check
think SJ is a god – well… no to that one
go to Apple Store to find a date – no there too. Happily married to a mac user
Someday, I’ll be strong and throw all of it away, but for now this stuff seems like old friends.
What does this Apple fanboy have? Two Apple IIc’s, two Apple IIgs’s. Can’t quite bear to relegate the G4 Cube to the closet yet.
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Last I checked the one IIgs still worked great (should try the others sometime).
The clock still worked and was accurate! Not bad for 15-20 year old hardware.
If you own a Torx 8 driver, but none else…
You might be a Mac Fanatic!
If you have more than 4 old Computer’s in your basement (that get dusted regularly)….
You might be a Mac Fanatic!
If you open all attached documents with impunity,
You might be a Mac Fanatic!
you might be an Apple fanatic if…….
All you do is think about Jobs’ crank in your mouth.
You might be a Mac Fanatic if…
…you religiously attend every MacWorld convention even before you own a Mac (yes, I did that)…
…you plan your social life around what events are coming up at your local Apple Store…
…you’re on first name basis with the guys/gals at the Genius Bar…
…you discuss with your friends which Apple Store employee is the hottest…
…you show off the cool things that a Mac can do, and you don’t work for the company, or even own any stock…
I’ve had so many macs, I’ve made Apple alot of money.
IIsi, Performa 5215CD, Performa 4400, 2 Powerbase Powercomputing clones, 2 PowerTower Powercomputing clone, 3 Motorola Starmax clones, 2 Umax clones, an APS clone, a Mactell clone, various Imacs in all their configurations, G4 towers, 3 Blue & White G3 towers, various Powerbooks, ibooks, and an eMac. etc. I even owned an original eMate and I currenlty have a G5 iMac, G4iMac, and a, AL Powerbook. All in all, I probably owned in the neighborhood of 30 or so macs. Constantly getting caught up in that upgrade cycle. Yeah, I’m a real mac fanatic and proud of it…
OH yeah, I also owned that infamous Cube…
>Unmistakably Cupertino wrote: You need to get out more.
You fall into the “generally very anal” category. Lighten up and learn to take a joke.
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You’re right though. I do need to get out more – deadlines to meet, new projects starting up, resources to manage, etc…
I probably don’t figure in to such stats because although I use Macs most of the time, I also use Windows.
It’s sad to be insignificant on MDN because I’m not fanatical about Apple.
I got my Apple tattoo in San Francisco on 2/27/2004 — the day before the Apple store opened on my birthday. I alos have the Apple logo on my car and bicycle and I am self employed.
Pass the kool-aid please…
MPC Guy:
You don’t know me, so don’t presume to understand me. Foolishness and ignorance breed presumption and this is no joke.
I live in the caribbean and here we have a cult too, it is super very difficult to us to convince people, but here we perfectly qualify with the apple cult:
Higher household income – check-
graduate degree (MBA) – check
self-employed – check
live in near to an apple reseller- check
live in big city – santo domingo or santiago
tried to convert people – check
start day reading Apple blog (MDN) – appleinsider, tuaw.com, thinksecret even the byteofapple
refuse to part with old hw – check
I have: a working apple Classic, a mac mini, powermac G5, 2 imac, ibook, Powermac G3 (first 233), power mac G4 (first), 2 LC II, and saving money for a new Intel G6 or whatever apple calls it.
“OH yeah, I also owned that infamous Cube…”
Is it still running? (like mine)
Or, did you get rid of it? (“owned”)
“It’s right there in the numbers: 50 percent of Apple customers plan to buy another Apple computer, a far greater percentage than for any other personal computer, according to MetaFacts. “
Maybe I am just misreading this statement. I suppose the writer is talking about BRAND loyalty here. The way I see it – you either buy a Windows based PC or a MAC – 50/50. I assume the writer is taking into account ALL PC makers – Dell, HP, Sony, etc. etc., but they are still WINDOWS machines. There is Linux as well, but usually people buy the hardware (PC hardware) and get a distro. Or does the writer mean a SECOND Mac in addition to the Mac they already own? I dunno…..
“Apple users are more likely than PC users to: [1] Have a higher household income. [2] Have received a graduate degree. [3] Be self-employed. [4] Live in California, Massachusetts or New York. [5] Live in big cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. Source: MetaFacts”
I am a Mac user and you can flame me all you want for this statement, but those first three stats are irrelevant. Why? Because Windows has over 90% market share that’s why. The Mac currently has what, 4% right? You cannot get accurate stats for 1,2,& 3 based on those percentages. 4 & 5 you probably can based on sales figures in those areas, but 1,2,& 3 I don’t think so….Any poll or survey is unreliable, they can’t sample a large enough percentage of the population to get REAL statistical information.
>Unmistakably Cupertino wrote: You don’t know me, so don’t presume to understand me. Foolishness and ignorance breed presumption and this is no joke.
Ignorance-shmignorance. You’re an excellent example of someone who can’t take a joke.
Lighten up oh tight one of the Mac pursuasion.
My son turns four in June. I will be buying him a Mini for his birthday.
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