As I said.....If it works for you, then carry on..
But as a person who builds my own boxes to my needs and wants, Apple does not work for me..nor do I appreciate the control freak mentality of the company.
As for their phones, it would be nice if people who use them would buy something designed to make telephone calls..
Well if WINDOWS is where you make your INCOME, repairing yours and other peoples PCs, then that should tell you something.
Either way, I think this user will be better off switching to a Mac OS and using the "Time Machine" feature so that he is not in this situation again. Also, any personal data should be backed up in the Cloud. I recommend cloud-based backup with a major well-known service (i.e. Carbonite; Mozy; iDrive) because this offers much redundancy and you can access your backups anywhere.
As a bonus, if one is an Apple user, for $25 a year, you can back up your entire music collection to the Cloud and can download your music to multiple devices.
Now many often point to the fact that Macs are more expensive then PCs. And if you are only looking at the point of sale, you would be correct. But if you were to look at the "utility" of the Mac vs PC, I think you would find that in the long run, Macs are cheaper.
For example, I have an early 2011 edition of MacBook Pro. More than four years later, it still looks brand new and operates flawlessly, despite using it for hours upon hours every single day. It will probably be another four years before I replace it. So divide the $2,600 I paid for it by 8 and you get a cost of $325 a year.
Now take the PC equivalent of what I bought, which would roughly retail for $1799 at the time. However, PC laptops rarely last four years before they need to be replaced. So that is $450 a year.
A few months ago, I started running into video issues with my MacBook Pro. The screen would freeze, turn different colors, and I'd have to reboot. Then it would happen eventually again. I figured this was going to be an expensive repair, especially as I did not have it under AppleCare or any other kind of warranty.
I took it into the Apple store and they ran some diagnostics on it and told me it was a known issue and that it needed a new video board. They said that they would take care of it for no charge. Now they didn't have to do that. It was a four year old computer.I would have gladly paid to have it fixed. But that is the difference between the Mac world and the PC world in a nutshell. The people at the Apple stores are passionate about their products and they stand behind them.
I don't understand the "control freak mentality" you speak of. It doesn't bother me that I can't take the case apart and make my own modifications. I think it's a good business model as it keeps issues to a minimum and increases customer satisfaction. I have no need or desire to "tinker" around with a computer and I think I speak for 99% of all users. I just want the computer to turn on and do what I need it to do. If it needs more RAM or a bigger hard drive, I'm happy to let the experts take care of it and do it right.
Also I don't understand your comment about iPhones. I've been using my iPhone as my primary phone for several years now. It makes phone calls perfectly well and I get a clean, clear connection almost all the time.