Any student of popular culture knows that the Japanese bow to no one when it comes to taking an obsession to its extreme, and their love of the Mac proves no exception. The Japanese version of the annual Macworld gathering is even more heavily attended than the one in the U.S., with attendance easily reaching upwards of 180,000 of the faithful. In addition to acquiring new Macs, Japanese users are extremely fond of the retro chic of older models and often spend a great deal of money upgrading the innards of these machines. The prettiest picture in the book is of a Powerbook G4 which was customized by its owner with a case painted in traditional Japanese style. Japanese Mac fans seem much fonder than their American counterparts of customizing their computers in dramatic ways, from painting them in custom colors to doing extreme case modifications.

The international obsession with Apple products old and new supports a thriving collectibles market. If you've ever owned a Mac, you might check your attic and basement to see if you have anything lying around, because retro Mac is pretty hot. In addition to the computers themselves, there's a market for all sorts of related items, from t-shirts to promotional items like mugs and key chains, and there seems to be a group devoted to every flavor of Mac that was ever produced, like the folks who collect and upgrade Color Classics because they're hopelessly in love with the machine's small size.

Kahney brings Mac fanaticism into the present and future with a chapter on the ubiquitous iPod. He notes that the technical development of the iPod has largely been driven by the hackers who sought to expand the capabilities of the first models on the market and suggests that the current state of the hacker scene is likely predictive of the iPod's future path. Inventive iPod owners use their little gadgets in a number of innovative ways, from the illegal (stealing software from machines at computer stores) to the entertaining (they are very popular with DJs, who use them to store and transport entire music collections).

In the book's final chapter, Kahney attempts to describe what is at the core of every Mac owner's loyalty, and one defining characteristic appears to be the perceived differences between corporate cultures, the Mac-versus-PC ethos. Apple's brand identity is at the core of its success. Mac owners defend Apple as a corporation that is more devoted to people than to profits and view Microsoft as the evil empire, while simultaneously viewing themselves as part of a larger community (or congregation, as Kahney feels that the Mac community resembles a religion in many ways). While I don't intend to defend Microsoft here, it seems unrealistic to assume that Apple is less driven by profit motive than is any other corporation, particularly one which has to hold itself accountable to stockholders. I'm sure that if Apple were to capture a major share of the desktop market, Jobs would be dancing on the tables. Also, Apple's reputation as the people's computer is a bit hard to swallow in light of its prices, which are considerably higher than those for similarly equipped PCs, even with educational discounts applied. Does Apple treat its customers any better than, say, Dell? Not in my personal experience, but that's a small sample study that you can take for what it's worth. This past summer, my husband and I spent way more money than we wanted to on a Mac for our college-bound son, a film student. It's certainly prettier than the workmanlike Dell Workstation that sits under my desk at the office, but it was defective out of the box and needed to have both of its CPUs replaced. Dealing with Apple's customer support hierarchy (on a brand-new machine, no less) was no more satisfying an experience than dealing with customer support in any other corporate environment, but for what it's worth, my son, a lifelong PC user, is happy with his Mac and probably qualifies as a cultist-in-training.