The problem is in the a/v market that Adobe and all the other big players no longer exclusively release their products on Apple's platform, if it ever did.

What really did for Macs two or three years ago here was the problems getting chips that were comparable to the PC based Intel chips. The PC became a viable alternative because they were allowed to 'catch up' in terms of performance.

And although now Apple has gone onto Intel's architecture and has clawed back to where it was, the PC based solutions have retained the share they got. And comparable PCs are STILL somewhat cheaper than the mac for AV work and DTP.

Not a huge difference, but enough.

Many people just aren't prepared to pay extra if a PC could do the job. That's the sad reality because I do think the Mac is superior in build and in quality, and its OS is much easier to use and pretty innovatve.

Only Apple enthusiasts will pay extra, the rest of us buy the machine that does the most 'bang for buck' and to be honest the Apple machines have a 'snobbish elitism' attached to them even now.

Best thing Apple could do is cut prices a fair bit and advertise agressively in Europe and the US. Make it a machine that has the same games and multimedia capability as the vanilla PC for less money and people will buy Macs in droves, while still keeping purists happy.