It's because Apple makes the best quality products in many regards and is really good at "flirting" with media outlets. But honestly: People need to look further than just "my notebook has better specs!" The overall quality of Apple's products is astonishing and they know what people want.
From my personal experience I've had countless of people telling me how their notebooks are faster than my Macbook Pro (and I never talk about it - people just go on telling me whenever they see it 
). But the design, the big trackpad, the magnetic power adapter, the size compared to other notebooks, the screen, the great battery life and the operating system are what sold me on this product. Somehow people only look at the specs, though. They basically buy quad core CPU's and need at least 8GB of ram in their system and then they do some casual gaming and check their emails on their bulky notebooks that last two hours on a single charge and don't have a multi touch trackpad.
I still maintain that Apple's products are overpriced and as a company they are really arrogant and often don't incorporate standart technology because of Jobs' personal feelings ("Blu-Ray is bad!" "Who needs Flash?") but the overall quality of their products is really high and they are in no way made only for the casual PC users. And Apple knows what people want.
