Oh, you're one of those "Mac People" ...

My local paper writes this in a story about a potential Apple Store locating within my home state of South Carolina:

"Apple is the manufacturer of the popular iPhone, iPod and Mac laptops. So intense are customers’ loyalty to the products they sometimes call themselves the Cult of Mac."

I'm a former Apple employee, lifetime Mac owner, iPhone owner, Mac User Group member, Apple Tech, Computer Shop Tech, topical Apple blogger ... Never in my life have I ever heard someone I know identify themselves as a part of the "Cult Of Mac".

* Leander Kahney is the author of The Cult Of Mac Blog

From 1998 to 2002, I did Apple rep work at various SEARS, Circuit City, and CompUSA stores across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. I also did Palm Rep work at various Office Depot stores throughout the Tri-State area of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. At this point in Apple history, even though Apple already had hits like the iMac and iBook and were very solid financially - Apple still had that stigma about them - that they were about to "go out of business". One jab I would get when I arrived into a store was, "Oh, you're a 'Mac Person' " ... this line was almost always followed by a ignorant of the facts, generic line about Apple computers being great with graphics or that they didn't have games or that they couldn't run programs like Quicken. It almost always was preceded with, "Oh ...".

After building a rapport with the retail staff - I would slowly explain that Apple (at the time) had $4 Billion (with a "B") in the bank. I would explain that just about every major piece of software had an Apple equivalent or counterpart. Nowadays, these points are almost moot. Now, Apple has $35 Billion+ (with a "B") in the bank, has the success of the Intel Macs, the mega hit of the iPhone and iPod Touch, and gets enormous buzz each time Steve Jobs so much as sneezes.

I've rather enjoyed the recent trend where people are starting to say,

"Oh, you use a PC ..."