Apple's Aperture

I am quickly falling in love with Aperture from Apple. Two impediments lie in the way my using Aperture.

1. Aperture is Mac Only, I don't have a Mac.

I've consiered getting a Mac to play with for a while, the most recent lure being the MacMini. I'm ascared that the MacMini isn't going to be able to handle Aperture or the other cool stuff I'd want to do with a mac.

2. $499 Price Tag.

I've been using Picasa for quite some time. It definitely gets the job done. It's got a nice feature-set, it's available on Windows, oh and it's free. I'd like to think that eventually Picasa won't be enough, or at least annoy me into a splurge. Unfortunately, it's a nice... free.. photo manager.

DP Review's List of Aperture features.