I was an early Macintosh user. I bought my first Mac in college (actually, my parents bought it), around 1987. It was a Mac SE, with 1MB of RAM and a 20 MB hard drive. A few years later, I got a IIsi, and a few years after that, I bought one of the initial PowerMacs.
Like the average Mac user, I couldn't understand why anyone would settle for an MS-DOS-based PC. The Mac was clearly superior, in every way.
For me, that attitude started changing soon after Windows 95 appeared. Flawed as it was, Windows 95 was an operating system with pre-emptive multi-threading and protected memory spaces. Mac OS 7, while sporting a better user interface, had an obsolete kernel, and Apple wasn't doing anything about it. I stuck with the Mac for a while, but was no longer sure of its superiority. When I started using NT 4 heavily at work, my disenchantment with Mac OS grew. I finally gave up on the Mac in the late 90's, buying a PC and putting Windows 98 on it.
So, for the past few years, I've been a Windows guy. I've watched Apple's ups and downs. I was glad when they ditched their old OS in favor of the NeXT-derived stuff, but by that time I had amassed enough Windows software and experience that there was no strong reason to switch back. I had lost all the emotional attachment that the original Mac had engendered.
But last week, I saw the new iMac, and was immediately interested. It is so simple and elegant. So I ordered one of the 20" models. It should be here in early October.
This is the first time a computer has been an "impulse buy". I bought it because it was cool, not because I have any real need for it. I'm still not sure what I'll do with it. I don't plan to write software for it. I probably won't play any games on it. I plan to just stick it on a small desk in my living room, and use it to read e-mail or browse the web, and maybe do some digital photo or music editing.
My iMac will just be a little computing sanctuary where Microsoft can't touch me.