The author is absolutely right. People tend to like Macbooks and iPads for irrational reasons. This is what has been described the "reality distortion field". It's all marketing hype and Apple fanboys who make Apple what it is, the technology has nothing to do with it. The obsession with "Think Different" has brainwashed these vulnerable people.
The reality is that as an avid user of Macs since the old days when the Mac was the real "elite machine" back in the PowerPC days I can say that the new Mac OSX based machines are terrible and do not represent Apple's past level of quality. The new machines are consumer toys, not serious machines like they once were. The comment about a "McDonalds version of Linux" is true.
I actually ended up moving to Windows because around 1999-2000 Apple started moving into it's "Walled Garden" software model and they failed to embrace other hardware setups, this made the Apple too expensive and not nearly flexible enough for a real business/engineering user. At first Windows was a bit of a shock, but by the time Windows XP had arrived I forgot all about the Macs. Yes, the blue screens were annoying but Macs also crashed too. Microsoft has hit a home run in terms of how it generously treats Windows developers too!
Then working on a web development project I was forced to use Linux in the server environment. I can tell you, Linux blew me away. There's a real reason that IBM and Oracle are using Linux as their base OS's. Linux is the OS for engineers and now I use it for desktop along with Windows XP. Steve Jobs ripped off Linux and then broke it to make it into a toy device with OSX and iOS, both some of the worst OS's ever made.
My chart is as follows...
Mac OS-X and iOS = toys for consumrs...
Windows XP and 7/8 = serious business tools...
Linux and Unix = engineering tools for scientists...