As for the general population, you can find 19 year old girls slamming their Windows PC and says "My next computer will be a Mac." The iPod craze has put Apple back in people's mindshare.
There must be regional differences or whatever, but I don't see this here. Admittedly I'm not the type that's outside among people terribly often, but I see a lot of people in school when I'm there (and I'll see more once I start working, especially in computing), but there isn't a movement towards the Mac based on the iPod.
Most people I know see two "Apples." The company that makes iPods, and the company that makes computers nobody uses/doesn't know they still do/make "toy" computers/crappy computers. This one kid, in particular - make that two - love iPods to death, and praise Apple for what went into them - but don't like the computers. I kinda-sorta showed one of them the light, but the other is mostly unphased. (Ironically, that one actually owned a Bondi blue iMac back in the day.)
I find that mindset laughable - the iPod is pure Apple Computer! It portrays all that Apple is, believes, and strides for. But the computers? Nah, they're nothing, nobody cares about them. In my school, I only know one Mac user - a teacher, who - *chuckles* - is a former hippie who still does weed every once in a while. Stereotypes suck horribly, but even more so when that's all you can find.
I'm not totally confused by this mindset, really. I get my ideas for why from the columnists at Low End Mac. The reason is because of usage patterns between where the vast majority of people ever used Macs - schools - and what they do at home, on a Wintel computer. What fun could you have on a school computer? Many had FoolProof installed, and even so, kids didn't know what Mac games existed. As for the Windows computers at school, the kids know where to get some games for them - it's the same machine as at home - and some (like myself) have become good enough at the horror that is Windows to get around whatever security they put on them to run stuff. Heck, in 9th grade (maybe it was 10th) this kid played WarCraft 3 at school on a Windows box. (And that *does* have a Mac version - heh.) With all this, they don't wanna even think about Macs at home, because they don't know of any software. (Apple has addressed this somewhat, with the "Mac OS X Software..." option in the Apple menu, leading to their database of nearly every Mac application out there.) A smaller issue is the shitty Macs that schools always seemed to buy - the LC, the 32MB RAM iMac, the Performa 52x0, etc.
Now, what I describe includes many experiences from the OS 8/9 era. Obviously OS X is far different and must be judged on its own*. But nobody I know really wants to do that - Mac OS 9 is the Mac, period. Technically, Windows also changed OSs since then, but they made it more subtle. It was still the same Windows everyone knew. But OS X is radically different, and people should really see it. (Please Apple, put ads for your computers back on TV!!) For some people,there is hope. I'm trying to get my dad onto the Mac for his next computer, coming up soon - his current PC is falling apart (not literally). I don't think he's ever seen OS 9 before, so he's got nothing. I'll have to tell him about the Unix in it - he's got some good old Unix memories from the 80s that I can take advantage of.
But the rest of the world goes by. Every time I go to CompUSA, I hang around the Apple section. Low traffic, and mostly casual and half-confused people. I wish I could read their minds as they stare at the Powerbook screen.
*- I'm in the small group of people that wishes that Apple had kept the OS 9 interface mostly intact in OS X - maybe a new skin, but same everything else on top. The classic Finder will always beat Finder 10.x. And there'd be more speed.
Sorry if this seems random, drifting, or plain weird. It's after 4am here.
