It makes sense though, from a marketing angle. A lot of people will want that 'Mac' experience and now they can get it without having to commit fully to the whole ecosystem.

If they can convince a bunch of technically minded people to at least try it out and be seen in coffee shops etc on a non Apple device looking quite 'Apple' like, then that legitimises their OS and might spur everyday consumers to jump on board.

This is exactly my point though... People are being put off the new MacBook range, but if another hardware manufacturer can pull off a shiny, good looking notebook, and it has Elementary running on it - Voila! Instant Apple-like coolness for a fraction of the price.

Signaling theory dictates that cheaper price can be a primary source of detraction, not aspiration. Cheaper never yields "coolness."

The thriving Asian replica knock off market for high end goods would counter this argument though, I would think? I think the important distinction here is that people without the means to afford a real Apple device would be satisfied with a 'nearly Apple' facsimile.

It only further demonstrates it. Knock offs are a way for people to signal more wealth than they actually have -- they'd rather have something that looked like the real thing than something cheap which doesn't try to be anything it's not.

Cubic zirconium had not made the diamond market go away, for example. Probably, if anything, it's made it bigger by giving diamonds a bigger cultural cache.

So you are saying if I show up in a coffee place with a bulky black laptop running a cheap imitation of OSX people will think this is cool?

Elementary will never be cool, in fact you will be "bullied" by both cool kids with expensive (good looking!) OSX MBP and geeks running some obscure Linux distro on a Thinkpad.

> Elementary will never be cool, in fact you will be "bullied" by both cool kids with expensive (good looking!) OSX MBP and geeks running some obscure Linux distro on a Thinkpad.

Are you in some sort of bizarre TV show cross between Silicon Valley and Mean Girls? Out here in the real world no one cares what computer you're using so long as you can get the job done.

I think you need to re-evaluate the sort of people you hang around with.

Purely anecdotal on my part, but the last time I was out at a co-working space with my ThinkPad running Elementary in a full screen virtual session, at least 3 other tech guys stopped by my desk and asked "Whoa! What the hell OS is that?!?". Previous 100 times at the same place with my MacBook, I had exactly zero people exclaim about it...