OK — I called Apple today and asked them about the issues I had with running Windows on a Mac laptop. I asked them about the mouse and the keyboard, among a few other things. The biggest issue for me is that the touchpad only has one button. This is one area where Steve Jobs has been more stubborn than visionary because the second button really comes in handy. Anyway, having a Windows laptop with only one touchpad button would be kind of a bummer. There’s probably some keyboard combination to rectify it, but if I’m going to be Windows it would be nice to have a Windows keyboard.

Not surprisingly, rather than answer my questions — and to be fair, this Boot Camp thing is very new — the guy on the phone tried to talk me into switching to OS X outright. He picked the wrong guy to make the case to because I’m pretty familiar with both. I could have gone for the kill, but I decided to go easy on him. It’s sometimes entertaining talking to the guy who won’t acknowledge the big pink elephant in the room. The official word at Apple is apparently that there is NO [legitimate] REASON anyone could want to run Windows. I explained to him about all the little programs and things I have installed that would be hard to replace in OS X. At the very least, I would have to research them all over again, and might have to pay for some of them (if available at all). I very tactfully told him that Windows has like 500 bazillion times more software than OS X, and he of course used the “quality vs. quantity” argument. This is a peculiar argument that assumes that anyone who chooses OS X is by definition a more quality person than someone who chooses Windows, and similarly anyone who codes for OS X magically codes higher quality. Therefore the fact that 20 times more (being more realistic) software is available is a moot point.

I remember being in the “inferiority complex” computer camp way back when, so I know the psychology. People will defend their platform to no end regardless of the evidence presented. Even though probably four out of five points I conceded to OS X over Windows, the other one I would not concede and that was very important to me basically rendered me an “untouchable” is this guy’s eyes. When I told him toward the end I thought I didn’t have enough information about running Windows on a Mac to do it with confidence just yet, and that I would probably be buying a Windows laptop, he seemed heartbroken and was eager to get me off the phone as quickly as possible — not, I felt, because his time was so valuable, but more likely because a) he thought I might possess some rare power of argument that could conceivably crush his world (and selling ability) if I kept talking to him, and b) because he was about to cry.

Anyway, before I go and commit this unspeakable deed, any final argument?