TBF, most of the time (with a small exception for the period from 2006 to 2020ish) it would have been wrong to call a Mac a PC, as PC (and PC compatible) is the name of a specific platform based on the 8086 and compatible processors with a specific BIOS and a specific IO-interfaces. And Mac’s most of the time are not PC compatible.
And I’ve never heard anyone say, that a MacBook is not a laptop.
As an IT guy in the early 2000s, it was really annoying to see all the “Mac vs. PC” arguments. PC stands for Personal Computer - a Mac is literally a PC! When I was a kid in the '80s-'90s, my schools all used Apple IIe computers (and later versions of Apple products as I got older), but they always called them PCs.
But those Apple ads convincing people to ditch the frumpy old guy PC for the young, hot Mac guy did their job, and pop culture decided that a Mac wasn’t a PC.
PC stands for Personal Computer, but that doesn’t mean that every personal computer is a PC. Just as VW stands for Volkswagen but not every wagon used by folks is a VW.
Calling any personal computer PC would cause all sorts of confusion, as PCs are able to run specific pieces of software (which were literally marketed as »PC 3,5"«, »PC CD ROM« or something of the like) such as »PC (or MS) DOS«, Windows etc. It would have been pretty annoying if someone sold you a game, telling you that it runs on PCs, leaving it to you to guess which kind of personal computer they meant: Atari ST, Apple II, C64, or IBM PC. All of them are personal computers, but only the PC is a PC.
Btw, all that was set in stone already in the 1980s and 1990, decades before Apple launched the Mac Vs. PC campaign in 2006. If your teacher called an Apple IIe PC, he was wrong about that, even before it was cool.
What terminology do Apple users passionately care about?
devices not being called laptop or pc
TBF, most of the time (with a small exception for the period from 2006 to 2020ish) it would have been wrong to call a Mac a PC, as PC (and PC compatible) is the name of a specific platform based on the 8086 and compatible processors with a specific BIOS and a specific IO-interfaces. And Mac’s most of the time are not PC compatible. And I’ve never heard anyone say, that a MacBook is not a laptop.
As an IT guy in the early 2000s, it was really annoying to see all the “Mac vs. PC” arguments. PC stands for Personal Computer - a Mac is literally a PC! When I was a kid in the '80s-'90s, my schools all used Apple IIe computers (and later versions of Apple products as I got older), but they always called them PCs.
But those Apple ads convincing people to ditch the frumpy old guy PC for the young, hot Mac guy did their job, and pop culture decided that a Mac wasn’t a PC.
PC stands for Personal Computer, but that doesn’t mean that every personal computer is a PC. Just as VW stands for Volkswagen but not every wagon used by folks is a VW.
Calling any personal computer PC would cause all sorts of confusion, as PCs are able to run specific pieces of software (which were literally marketed as »PC 3,5"«, »PC CD ROM« or something of the like) such as »PC (or MS) DOS«, Windows etc. It would have been pretty annoying if someone sold you a game, telling you that it runs on PCs, leaving it to you to guess which kind of personal computer they meant: Atari ST, Apple II, C64, or IBM PC. All of them are personal computers, but only the PC is a PC.
Btw, all that was set in stone already in the 1980s and 1990, decades before Apple launched the Mac Vs. PC campaign in 2006. If your teacher called an Apple IIe PC, he was wrong about that, even before it was cool.