At The Very Least, I Think We Can Agree That Jon Hodgman Is Far More Awesome/Hilarious Than The Relatively Obnoxious Justin Long.

For the first time in 7 years, I’m a PC user.

I don’t think this is a big deal.

Don’t get me wrong -- I like Apple. A few quirks aside, Mac OS is by far the most polished operating system currently in existence. And design-wise, Apple hardware is the best you can get. If money is not an object, and you don’t care about playing games, an Apple computer is the best choice out there. If an Apple computer was a car, it would be a Rolls-Royce.

But in the computer world, as in the car world, most people can get along just fine in a Toyota.

On the other side of the equation, Windows isn’t terrible. In fact, it’s kind of cool. Some Windows 7 features, like the window snapping that lets you automatically split your screen between two programs, are delightful. The inevitable bloatware that gets slapped on top of Microsoft’s vanilla Windows distribution is annoying, but most of it can be swept away. Hardware-wise, PCs have the same stuff under the hood as Macs, a fact that makes treating Macs and PCs as two completely different platforms rather dubious. And you can get PCs with some things (Blu-Ray drives, card readers, etc.) that you simply can’t get on a Mac.

Are some PCs crappy and defective? Yes. But no one has a monopoly on glitchy hardware.

I’ve used two Apple laptops over the past 7 years. Both had major hardware issues, including defective graphic cards, ridiculously defective batteries, chronic overheating, and dead pixels. Since both of the computers were purchased by the company I worked for, I didn’t lose much sleep over those problems. But if I had been the one dropping $2500 for a laptop, I think it would have been a different story. This isn’t to say Apple makes crappy computers. Consumer reliability surveys indicate that Apple generally makes pretty decent computers. However, I am saying that Apple isn’t magical. Apple's computers are assembled by sweatshop workers in China, just like that hideous HP box your cousin has. The biggest difference: once Apple’s computers exit the sweatshop, they cost a grand more.

And thus, I purchased a PC.

On the most basic level, a computer is something you use to do things. When I was young, and just wanted to mess around with stuff, my DIY Linux box was ideal. When my job provided me with a Mac to do digital media work, I couldn't have been happier. And now, as a recent graduate who doesn't have an obscene amount of money, a PC laptop fits the bill.

Everyone wants you to chose a side in the computer wars, and defend it with your life. But in computers, as in politics, partisanship just makes you look silly. I’m a techno-pluralist to the core. I love Apple’s ruthless focus on design and minimalism. I love the .conf-editing and command-line-hacking craziness of Linux. And I love Microsoft’s hit-and-miss, and often endearingly nerdy, approach to innovation. Once you stop treating your platform of choice as an article of faith, you can start to appreciate that they all bring something to the table.

In other words: chill, people.