You have no idea how many artists use shitty Windows XP laptops. As a computer guy in my school, I had to root out a ton of viruses and other crap. Even my painting professor, a renown watercolor and oil painter, had a 9 year old Taiwanese micro laptop that chugged on IrfanView. Minus the rich kids, designers and myself, I knew only about 10 other students with a Mac in the art department.
Windows is cheap, which is good for an artist. Cultural cache can only go so far when one's judged on their work.
Image is not so much about who you are, but about how you would like to appear.
It'd be pretty funny if Apple's success rested merely on people's desire to be perceived as creative and aesthetically discerning rather than on people who are creative and aesthetically discerning finding it to be the better product.
I don't think that's accurate, but it does probably make up some measurable amount of their sales.
I think this is changing as art/design schools are starting to require laptops to be in the program, usually strongly 'recommending' mac laptops. Students are using their student loan money to buy them now.
At least this is what was happening at my alma mater as I was graduating.
It will be interesting to see if this trend reverses. Of course we've all seen the photos of students sitting in classes and only one guy has a Windows laptop and everyone else has a Mac...
... but that was back when Vista was at its prime level of stinkiness. General feedback on Windows 7 (even if it is just a glorified Vista service-pack as some claim) is that it is a lot better.
I've had a couple of opportunities this year to use Windows 7 desktops set up by different organizations. And I noticed an improvement over Vista. I wouldn't say it was completely pain free, but it is comparatively closer to an OS X level of experience than Windows XP was back in the day (whereas Vista was a decrease in that regard).
The question is, would you pay 70% of the price (keeping in mind student discounts on Macs) to get 75 or 80% of the quality? To a lot of people that will seem like an acceptable trade-off, and so we might see a resurgence in Windows laptops on the campus.
Windows is cheap, which is good for an artist. Cultural cache can only go so far when one's judged on their work.