Ok - this one I don't get.

I have had great luck with my Apple computers, starting with the old IIe and working my way up to my current computer, a 7 year old Tibook G4, my wife's 3 year old Macbook and the kids new Macmini. I have always gotten about 7 years out of my computers before toy envy finally drives me to get something newer. On top of that my Dad, who is notoriously hard on things and my computer challenged inlaws have all had great luck with their Macs.

Anecdotal information isn't worth much but I have direct experience with over 100 Macs used by my place of work and my family and friends. None of them have had any significant problems (well ok - my then 2 yr old daughter did destroy one computer, but the brand wouldn't have mattered in this case )

Any manufactured product will have the occasional escape due to statistics and tolerances. Or less nicely, occasionally uhmm.... stuff happens. If you ignore the fanboy inputs (on both sides) from forums etc. the statistical data is that Apple computers have had an excellent track record over the last 10 years when compared to the rest of the industry.

Of course if you really want reliability you can always step up to a "REAL"(tm) computer - maybe something nice from the IBM Power Series < thats a joke folks>. Those toys are expensive and really do require more than a fair bit of knowledge to setup and maintain. Of course for a "small", ongoing fee, IBM will be more than happy to help you out with that

Similarly - it used to a real pain to find things to plug in to the Mac (back in the bad old pre-OSX days). Haven't had any problems lately. Of course I do envy all the cool time wasters (games) that PCs have.

- Eric