They're a luxury good and a status symbol-- the people that were willing to pay a premium for one pre-recession by and large can still afford to. It's a triumph of their marketing direction (backed up by products of quality, so I hear).
Apple also happens to be the only major manufacturer still willing to treat customers with some measure of respect. I've owned a Toshiba before, and have dealt with Dell also with regards to warranty service; they are terrible. Long wait times (upwards of three hours!), clueless reps, and an iron-clad resistance to making any repairs whatsoever.
Dell eventually acquiesces if you press them. Toshiba never did fix the defective laptop they sold me.
Now Apple. I bought a MacBook Pro some time back in '06. It bit the dust this past Christmas (Dec '08), and I called Apple up; the below is what happened, embellishment-free:
- Waited less than 2 minutes for the first representative to answer. I told her about the problem, she called up my file and noticed I had done previous repairs for the laptop, and immediately offered a full replacement (as opposed to a repair attempt).
- She transferred me to a level-2 tech, I was on hold for less than 2 minutes again, and when the L2 tech got on the line the first representative relayed all the relevant information to him, in my presence, and asked me to confirm that this is correct.
- They never once argued about the validity of any of my claims, nor did they ask for proof that my motherboard was truly shot.
- I told them that I needed to do work over the holiday break (this was Dec. 20th-ish), and asked them to expedite the process. I had my new computer by Christmas eve.
- They upgraded me to a unibody MacBook Pro for free, without me asking for one.
Try getting THAT kind of service from any other PC manufacturer on the market today.
If you purchase a Dell/HP/Lenovo support package, the support you'll get is excellent. e.g. same day, on-site, internationally.
Apple gives much better support by default; other manufactures offer teired levels of support, so if you're stuck in the default you get nothing - but if you pay a bit, you can get much better support than Apple offers.
I'll confirm product quality. It's just that right when the economy exploded there were a lot of people who were pretty snarky towards Apple, sneering at a company that dared make an expensive product. In fact, I spent this week on prog.reddit, and there are still people basically saying they'll laugh at Apple fanboys' faces when Apple collapses and they lose everything. I'm just glad that's not happening.
From anecdotal experience, every graduate at my old high school just picked up a 13" Macbook Pro. They're everywhere.
