Having been a Dell, Acer, and HP customer: yes the Apple world is so much better. It's staggeringly focused on a smooth customer experience. The other manufacturers are as well set up for customer friendliness as a kitchen appliance manufacturer, ie. Not at all / that's up to the retailers.
The points you bring up are rather suspect:
1. Besides the Lightning port, which was arguably created because dual-sidedness is a unique feature no standard has, what port is non-standard? MagSafe I guess - but it is pretty much standardized across their laptop lines and I still have a power supply from 2007 that work with my 2013 laptop using a $5 MagSafe 2 adapter.
2. How often would one take a laptop in for a new battery? It's a once in every 4 year event, at best. Pretty much never unless they bought it used.
I think there may be drastically different understanding of what customer friendliness is. At least with Apple I can talk to someone to fix my problem at the local mall, or have Apple support call me almost immediately with a specialist via their website -- as opposed to waiting on hold to talk to someone that knows nothing, only to be placed in another queue.
That's fair (I admittedly have always bought new and sold to the used market), though you might need a battery replacement in either case (requiring an Apple Store appointment, or in the case of a PC, ordering the part).
A 94 watt-hour T430 battery is $160 on Lenovo's website. Apple's battery replacement service for the 91 watt-hour battery on the MacBook Pro Retina is $199. Not a dramatic different in price, IMHO.
If I buy used laptops, do you really think I buy new batteries from the manufacturer? A fairer comparison is a highly-rated third-party seller for a similar battery.
This is far from try any longer. My current employer is about 75/25/5 OS X/Windows/Linux for end user machines. The Windows boxes are used by the business types, while the devs and designers use OS X. The prod systems are Linux, and the devops are also Linux.
Yes and no - they are a standard system that is popular, the laptops are relatively sturdy and the IT expertise on adminning macs is pretty widespread.
Note, look at how many startups and techies use macs as primary dev machines - most people in the tech "scene" seem to. Popularity and bandwagons have some level of merit.
> There's a reason that no business will use Apple computers.
You may wish to update your assumptions. That was a relatively viable statement to make in 2012. In 2014 -- with businesses like Google going effectively Apple-only -- it's not.
I suspect the whole thing is bordering on a tautology.
Most of what Google do involve the web. And most web design (note the design part) courses puts a focus on Apple products. This in part because they grew out of print media courses etc.
Some businesses do use Apple products (typing on mine right now) but the biggest reason most don't is their lock in to the Microsoft ecosystems. Most of them use Active Directory and have corporate standards that make them use Microsoft because their IT teams require it.
The points you bring up are rather suspect:
1. Besides the Lightning port, which was arguably created because dual-sidedness is a unique feature no standard has, what port is non-standard? MagSafe I guess - but it is pretty much standardized across their laptop lines and I still have a power supply from 2007 that work with my 2013 laptop using a $5 MagSafe 2 adapter.
2. How often would one take a laptop in for a new battery? It's a once in every 4 year event, at best. Pretty much never unless they bought it used.
I think there may be drastically different understanding of what customer friendliness is. At least with Apple I can talk to someone to fix my problem at the local mall, or have Apple support call me almost immediately with a specialist via their website -- as opposed to waiting on hold to talk to someone that knows nothing, only to be placed in another queue.