Mac Awareness May Have Hit Tipping Point

After spending some time "working" at Starbucks, I'm seeing a few signs Apple may have already hit a tipping point with Mac OS X, particularly with laptops. This hasn't come in the form of a giant thunderbolt launching down from the sky, but just some subtle hints.

For example, a few different people have seen me using a Powerbook (too overprotective to expose the MacBook to the real world so far) and asked about it, sometimes mentioning that they're thinking about buying a Mac. Even those that don't say they're buying one are at least aware of them. One person wanted to know about the Intel-based machines, particularly what the speed was like. My response was simply "stupid fast."

Contrast this to a few years ago, where people may have noticed an Apple logo, but wouldn't think much about it, much less ask about how I like the machine. Even just a fifteen second demo of TextMate got some attention in one case.

My little anecodotes obviously aren't enough to go on by themselves, but putting all the pieces together, I get a feeling that big things are underway. Just looking around blogs, it's obvious that Apple laptops are springing up everywhere at conferences, and the direct and indirect coverage that Apple received for the announcement of Boot Camp is more than just a blip.

In particular, it drew attention to the fact that Apple has a new generation of hardware available this year, and it's not some oddball brew of nonstandard hardware -- it uses Intel chips and can run Windows and Linux. It also appears to run Windows games very well.

While Apple has hit several stability milestones in the past, it feels like they might be entering an era of real, solid growth. Has anybody else seen signs that things are moving in this direction?

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