Right from the time I started using computers (at the age of 8 in 1980) and since then I have realised there has always been a 'mine's better than yours' syndrome, whether it was spectrum vs commodor in the 80's to sega vs nintendo in the 90s android vs ios these days and windows pc vs apple since time began. Now I have never been one to pick a side in a tribal fashion, instead I look for that which is best for the job.

I picked coreldraw in 1989 and tried illustrator since but for me at least coreldraw has been more productive for graphic design, there have been many moments when clients have questioned my design skill because I used coreldraw instead of adobe illustrator or quarkexpress; until I pointed out that I was currently designing for Harrods or Vodaphone using coreldraw and they didn't seem to mind. This was not because I hated adobe but because it was not as good/quick, I still maintain that photoshop is one of the greatest pieces of software ever produced for designers in all fields.

Then I discovered xara web designer after trying to produce websites like I produced graphics for print (quickly and with complete freedom of design) I have since the past few months discovered adobe muse and that is far more productive for me so I choose to design on that, if next year xara produce a version of web designer better than adobe muse then I will use that.

The reason I bring this up is that there are many, many people in the design world for whom apple is king, if you don't have a mac for design then you are not a professional designer, never mind that the vast majority of designers outside europe and the usa use windows pcs. I employ a number of designers and because they are used to adobe software in combination with apple macs (because that is what they were trained on and that is where their experience lies, they are quicker on them so that is what I bought. I have never been able to understand the mindset which says that as long as there is an apple logo (in this case) on a product then it must be better than everything else. To illustrate I have just seen a post on a forum where the OP (just out of college) asked which to buy; windows pc or a mac, and the overwhelming replies were mac, with no real reason given other then 'it's just better' or even worse 'it's what everyone uses'. I tested this premise of it being faster when I bought a G5 dual processor with 2gb ram (back when they first came out) and it cost me £2100 and as a test I ran an action in photoshop on that at with a windows pc with a comparable spec but which only cost me £700 and they both finished at the same time (the mac might have been around 1/2 second faster over a 3 minute action) and as far as build quality is concerned the G5 had to go back to the apple store 3 times, first two times was overheating and the third one was a failed hard drive. The pc ran fine in that time and I was still using it 4 years later.

This then took me back to another post on the same forum from a few months back where someone asked to see peoples desktops, there were hundreds of replies and they were mostly of windows 7 desktops, macs probably made up around 15-20%, I still can't comprehend why people say they use a mac and recommend others to buy one when they themselves secretly use a windows pc. I know for a fact that it is the case that design/creative firms/agencies DO use macs but these people on the forums are mostly people in their late teens to early thirties and can't afford to buy the macs and therefore use windows pcs. So I have come to the conclusion that it's the same case of the Emperor's New Clothes story, people have been sold 'the best' when it actual fact it's all a hollow promise.

I'd like to hear what others here think; is apple just selling a hollow promise?