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SCMP Reporter

After 20 years of rivalry, there are still countless Mac acolytes who live to prove that Windows users are nothing but rednecks.

And while Apple continues to produce some of the most beautiful computers on the market, the company just cannot shrug off the image that Mac owners are a bunch of disgruntled snobs.

It took a prank by a harmless 'case-modder' (a person who modifies computer cases) last week to remind us just how touchy the Mac world can be.

The computing craftsman, known only as Adam, got hold of a Mac G5 desktop case and put some PC components inside. He then added obligatory modifications such as green internal lighting and posted pictures of his purported system downgrade to a website, along with a brief account of 'How I PC'd an Apple G5'.

According to the tale, Adam's parents had given him a dual-processor Power Mac G5 for Christmas. But he didn't want a Mac. 'I'm sure G5 is a great computer but I wanted a Dell. I don't have any programs for Apple and didn't feel like waiting for them. I thought about selling it but my parents would be upset with me. After all, this was a very expensive gift.'

Indeed. A dual-processor G5 has a starting price of $19,900.

The effect on the Mac community was incendiary, much like the way Slashdot erupted when SCO filed its Linux lawsuit against IBM.

On Mac forums all over the Web, the ever-diminishing flock of [Apple chief executive] Steve Jobs faithful raged in terms generally too expressive to reprint in our  pages.

Probably the most succinct came from a blogger named Brian 'Dingo' Grosz, who wrote: 'Someone find this boy's parents and rat him out like the dirty, ungrateful, backstabbing fink that he truly is. What kind of overprivileged, snot-nosed jack-off chops up a [US$3,000] gift to install $350 worth of inferior machinery?'

By the next day, Adam's mailbox had filled with 1,300 e-mails, and he decided to come clean on Overclockers.com, where his pictures were hosted.

News of Adam's admission travelled around non-Mac forums in even faster time, and the rush of visits to Overclockers.com was enough to overload it (which is ironic considering the site is dedicated to pushing PCs beyond their limits).

This is not the first time a Mac has been converted into a PC. Two years ago, CPU Magazine commissioned a case-modder to turn a G4 case into a PC. That story failed to raise an uproar because the authors were honest, and even a Mac fan  had to admit the final product was cool.

With Macs become increasingly marginalised by other platforms, it is easy to forget the intense rivalry they once generated.

And while Windows users have largely forgotten the Mac ever existed as a serious computing platform, the Apple world is just as touchy today as it was a decade ago, when Microsoft and Apple fought their 'look and feel' lawsuits.

While Mac aficionados once accused Microsoft of shameless copying, today the accusations are likely to fly in the other direction. Apple, after all, no longer develops display technology.

Its beautiful displays may look stunning on the outside but below that stylish exterior lies the same flat screen that any PC user might own. What's more, the flat screen is driven by exactly the same graphics processors as you will find in any desktop PC.

In fact, you can take virtually any Mac component and find an identical part in a Windows box.

Apple's market share, even in the United States, is less than 5 per cent. Mr Jobs last month told Newsweek he could see the company doubling its market share but blamed 'sales guys' for the Mac's downfall.

'They made obscene profits for several years. And their products became mediocre. And then their monopoly ended with Windows 95. They behaved like a monopoly, and it came back to bite them, which always happens.'

Apple deserves to double that market share. Today's Macs are better looking computers  than they have ever been. Their software is better tested, better supported and more stable than it has ever been. Thanks to the switch to an underlying Unix operating system, Apple users get faster access to a wider range of software than they have ever had in the past.

Even the prices are more attractive today than they ever were.

But if the company is to convince mainstream computer users that its products really are worth switching to, it must convince its existing users to stop living in the past.



Snobbish acolytes sabotage Apple's mainstream appeal