A few things Apple has to work on to be even more kickass in my eyes

Apple really does make cool systems. Mac OS X is a wonderful operating system and beats the pants off of Windows in many ways. It's stable, easy to use, and UNIX based so the power is there for those who need it.

However, Apple really has a few issues they need to improve upon. Some of the worse offenders, in my opinion, are:

Hard drive accessibility:

The hard drive, especially the boot drive, is one of the most important components of the system. Everything you store on the system lives on the hard drive, including the operating system and your personal files.

If this is the case, why is Apple so inconsistent about making the hard drive easy to access? For instance, some of the worst offenders in the current Intel Mac line:

iMac: You practically have to disassemble the entire machine to get to the hard drive, a long and risky operation where you can easily damage the system. I hope they fix this in the upcoming refresh!

Macbook Pro: It's not *quite* as bad, but you still have to remove a lot of screws. Being a laptop, some forgiveness is given but it should still be easier, like in the regular Macbook.

Mac Mini: Figuring out how to open this thing up is non-intuitive. Once opened you can get to the disk easily, but it's still a pain in the ass.

Hard drives are also a common failure component, and are something I'd rather change out myself than send a system in for service. Apple really needs to get on the ball and make hard drive replacement a more modular and simple operation. The regular Macbook and the Mac Pro both excel in this department.

Video card availability:

Right now this issue only applies to the Mac Pro, but hopefully it'll apply to other systems in the future if Apple decides to release a new system with replaceable video. Right now there are only two somewhat affordable video cards available for the Mac Pro:

Nvidia 7300GT
ATI Radeon X1900XT

There's also an Nvidia quadro card, but I'm not counting that since it's over $1000 and only for very specialized graphics work.

Really! There should be a low-end and high-end card from each major manufacturer offered, at LEAST. If I like Nvidia, why should I have to buy an ATI card to get decent performance! Apple has usually been all about simplifying their product line, but this is one area where they really shouldn't simplify. They should also offer, for instance, an Nvidia 8xxx series and a lower end ATI X-series, like 1600 or 800. FIX THIS, Apple!

Keyboard quality:

Apple keyboards are mushy pieces of garbage. There's a reason I use an IBM Model M with my Mac Pro. There are third party keyboards like the Matias Tactile Pro, but would it be that hard to include a better keyboard with systems? Apple did a great job with the Mighty Mouse, but the keyboard was barely improved. They used to make better keyboards, such as the Extended Keyboard II; why can't they make good keyboards anymore?

I might add more to this post as I think of more things Apple can fix, but those are the big ones for me right now. They are all things that are easily fixed when designing new systems and can really improve the user experience for those of us who expect slightly more from their computers, but want to stick with Mac OS X.