Just a few years ago, the Apple Mac looked dead in the water. With a tiny market share, problems involving compatibility with other computers, and overly expensive kit, the company was kept alive by a small but devoted army of admirers.

But by emphasising its beautifully designed computers and phenomenally successful iPod portable music player, it turned the corner and began to win new fans. More importantly, Apple's prices are now within the reach of all.

So what are PC users missing out on, and what are the things that PC users can still gloat about? Over the next few pages, we explore the Apple Mac inside out, looking at how and why it differs from Windows-based computers, and explaining what you can do on a Mac that you can't on a PC, and vice versa.

Taking a bite out of the PC market
Back in the 1980s there was a huge variety of computers available. With fierce competition and the increasing dominance of what was then known as the IBM PC, one by one the other systems died out, leaving two little-known companies, Apple and Microsoft, to fight for control of the operating system market.

In the 1990s, Microsoft became dominant, largely due to its decision to license its operating system to any company building PCs capable of running its software. Apple retained exclusive rights, giving it sole control of what its products looked like and were capable of.

Competition between Windows PC builders drove down prices, leaving Apple with a range of exquisitely designed but much more expensive products.

Technically, the Mac differs from the PC in several ways, using different components and different software. The Mac goes back almost as long as the PC, having been 'born' in 1984 (the PC is three years older). Like the PC, it has gone through several changes since then, and the original is barely recognisable in the current models.

The major reason for the difference between Macs and PCs is the processor. While a PC can use two types of processor - Intel or AMD - both are essentially the same and both can run the same software. Macs, on the other hand, use a PowerPC processor - no relation to the PC - which runs its own software.

The Mac operating system is called Mac OS and does much the same tasks as Windows. It oversees the running of the computer, allows the user to run programs, looks after the housekeeping tasks, such as disk management, and provides an interface for the user to interact with the computer.

It's fair to say that the Mac introduced several innovations to home computers that have now become standard, such as a graphical interface, mouse, 3.5in floppy disks and Wysiwyg ('What you see is what you get') for word processing and graphics, meaning that printed documents would be identical to the image seen on screen.

The PC has, of course, caught up with these, but the Mac still looks quite different from the PC when you switch it on. Both use a Desktop setup, where you access files and applications using icons. But instead of a Start menu, there is a Dashboard of applications and files, and programs are organised in a slightly different way.

By and large, the Mac has always been more of a creative tool than the PC. It was designed with artists, video editors, sound enthusiasts and designers in mind, with graphical, sound and video quality that has always, until recently, been superior to the equivalent PC.

To this day, you will find Macs in the offices and workshops of designers and artists all over the world, despite the fact that PCs have now caught up in terms of providing decent creative software. Even here at Computeractive we use Macs to lay out the pages of the magazine.

Possibly the most obvious difference is the look of the case and accessories. Apple threw computer manufacturers into a spin in 1998 when it unveiled the brightly coloured and radically shaped iMac, and in the process it picked up millions of new users around the world.

Since then, its design team, led by British-born Jonathan Ive, has led the way in computer aesthetics. The most famous of their design successes has been the iPod, which has also led hordes of new users to the Mac's door.

The software
The latest version of the Mac's operating system is Mac OS X and Apple has recently released an upgrade, which goes by the name of Tiger. The Mac Desktop might look unfamiliar, and it does things in different ways, but the principle is the same: files and programs are represented by icons, grouped into folders, and viewed through windows.

Double-click on a folder to open it in a window, and double-click on a file to open or run it. Although you cannot run PC software on a Mac, there are many programs that come in versions for both, and for almost all the rest, there are equivalent Mac programs.

The operating system itself comes with a suite of tools and utilities, as you would find with Windows. These include management tools, such as a search program, games and a text editor.

But unlike the PC, new Macs all come with a software suite called iLife as standard. This contains five applications for working with media of all kinds: iTunes, the music player which will be familiar to iPod-owning PC users; iPhoto, a picture editor; iMovie HD, a video editor; iDVD for creating discs; and GarageBand for editing and creating music.

All of these are more than capable of basic and intermediate editing and organising of your media, and they are certainly a match for the paid-for equivalents to be found on the PC. There are paid-for programs available for users who find they need more, but these programs are enough for most users.

Microsoft Office is available for the Mac, including the usual software - Word, Excel, PowerPoint and others. But as a bonus, the equivalent of Microsoft Works, AppleWorks, is included free with all Macs. Put all this together and you have a powerful computer that can be used for most tasks straight out of the box.

The recently released Mac Mini, which starts at £339 - albeit without a keyboard, mouse or screen - includes both iLife and AppleWorks. Although this isn't quite the bargain it seems - some manufacturers are selling PCs with a flat screen, keyboard, mouse and software for £400 - it's still a very good price, and the Mac Mini certainly looks more impressive than the equivalent-priced PC.

Buying a PC would also mean having to buy the software yourself. While this needn't be a problem, or expensive, it is more trouble than simply having it on the computer when you start.

As well as the Mac Mini, there are two other Macs aimed at home users - the, starting at £550, and which looks a bit like the original iMac, having a large, bulbous CRT screen, and the new iMac, which starts at £899, and consists of a slim monitor-and-computer unit, with separate keyboard and mouse.

These get more powerful, and the screens improve, as the prices get higher. As with a PC, the general rule is that the more you pay, the more you get, but it is always worth considering how much power you really need from a computer.