Words By Jen Muehlbauer
Images by Everen T. Brown

When I first arrived in Hamburg, Germany, I noticed many things. No one was wearing lederhosen. Turkish schwarma ("döner kebap") seemed more common than the famous German wurst. My new acquaintances were as surprised to meet an American who drank beer as I was to meet Germans who didn't.

Many people who told me they spoke "a little" English were perfectly proficient, and I never met anyone who sounded like Hogan's Heroes ("vee haff vays of making you talk"). Of all the German stereotypes my friends teased me about, only one was close to true: the trains (usually) ran on time.

While noticing all this in my first few weeks in Germany, I also noticed more rainbow Apple logos than I was used to seeing in Boston, USA. Relative to other countries outside the US, Germany has a solid base of Mac users. There are at least three German-language Mac print magazines and countless websites.

Apple's European sales are up, and rumor has it we'll see Macworld Germany (and Macworld UK) before long. But veteran Mac users, while dedicated, aren't always happy. Is Germany's love of Macs growing because of Apple's efforts, or in spite of them?

Apple Deutschland answered my requests with, "We at Apple do not talk about specifics of our region." The dozens of resellers I emailed weren't talking, either. After hearing what German Mac users have to say about the corporate parents of their favorite machines, Apple might want to rethink its strategy of silence, if only to defend itself.