Love 'em or hate 'em, you have to admit that Apple knows what it's doing when it comes to product design. I stumbled across a great article over at Basement.org: 10 Things We Can Learn From Apple. Think about it: here is a company that turned itself around and went from being a minority player to a major trendsetter in technology. How did they do it, and can the lessons we learn from Apple be applied to other businesses and industries?
Some of my favourite points:

1. Apple is not a software company. It's also not a hardware company. It's an experience company.
2. How many other companies do you know of that introduce a product line personally?
3. Mimic real world artifacts and make things feel less like technology devices and more like something you'd find in the real world.
4. Apple designs every single thing they sell knowing that it will be touched by a person.

For me, points 3 and 4 really resonate. Just about everything Apple builds looks good enough to touch/lick/taste. They pay attention to the overall design, both hardware and software.
I have an HP notebook on which I run Ubuntu Linux and occasionally Vista. While the HP is a solid little performer, it looks clunky as hell and feels cheap. I don't get the same tactile pleasure using it as I do when I use my MacBook.