I am writing this because I need to write something today, and I read another thread here where someone was complaining about Siri, and proclaiming that Apple as a whole was "done for" and that "Steve Jobs must be spinning in his grave..."
Well, in September of 2020 I switched from a Windows PC to a Mac, and a few months later purchased an iPad (moving from a Surface Tablet) and an iPhone (moving from Android).
Now a few things to note:
- I always had the "best" PC/Android stuff, as I am a content creator for a living
- I am not an average user. I am the person people call when their tech acts weird or they need help.
So here are some observations I wanted to share:
MacOS Specific
Switching to Mac was harder than I thought it would be. Things worked better, but I spent the better part of a month trying to sort out why things worked they way they did. I needed to unlearn Windows 10 to properly use the OS, which is fine. The minute I stopped arguing with it I learned to love it.
When it is stable, it is SUPER stable. Apps generally work well too and the OS is fast as anything else.
The stability however ends if you do what I did, which is install too many tweaks. I was trying to read NTFS disks with special programs and added little tweaks to the point where my computer would hang, and that is where the fun STOPPED.
With Windows 10 you can almost always ALT+CTRL+DEL your way out of a problem, but that does not work on a mac.
Apple Menu - Force Quit does not work often, and I found myself hard resetting way more than I wanted to.
Adding a second monitor helps, for some reason I can get force quit up using the monitor that the unresponsive app is not active in, but this is certainly a place where I would miss Windows 10 and the ability to manage things under the hood more to avoid hard resets.
Since then though, I have stopped fiddling. I had to embrace APFS for my drives I use for work and now things are smooth.
The amount of security on the machine is also great. Windows has used UAC for installing programs that can modify things at a level that can cause problems for a while, but installing an app that has several individual security settings takes getting used to on Mac.
It is still really nice to see that Apple wants you to see that this program will record keystrokes or have access to a camera or can record the screen. This is something that all OS's should do, and I would love to see Windows do.
iPhone Specific
I do not even know where to start.
I always used the newest Samsung phones every year, but every year there was SOMETHING about them that was off. Be it the camera focus issue in the S20 Ultra or the fact that the S7 had this strange fisheye effect. The camera is important to I think everyone, and the iPhone does it right.
Let's get this straight.
The iPhone does not have the best camera on the market. There are other devices with more megapixels, and even better computational tricks to them. Some of them do 8K video and some of them like the current Pixel have amazing software tricks.
What the iPhone camera does however is translate GREAT images into every app.
It is like this - if you make an app you request camera access. If your app needs to be installed on 100s (if not 1000s) of Android models, or four iPhone models, your app will have better results on iPhone, seeing as you do not need to account for that much fragmentation.
Signal messenger on iPhone takes better looking photos from inside the app than the Instagram app on a Samsung phone. Explain that to me.
I could go on about the camera and how well it works, but this would be several hundred words longer. Let me know in a reply if you want me to elaborate.
SECURITY.
Everything about this device is locked down. If someone steals my Samsung phone, and I did not take the extra step to enable the Samsung account, they can wipe the device. Even if I did enable that Samsung account, I am pretty sure that booting recovery in Android and reimaging it means that the device is gone forever.
Apple makes this really hard to get into. From FaceID to the account password and then double authentication even if they got both of those somehow.
Now the phone can be tracked after being turned off? Yea, that makes me feel good about the device and my data being safe.
Not to mention the first time that iOS pops up and says "The app ______ has used your location 10 times in the last three days without you knowing about it."
That moment should be more of a focus in their ads than it has been. They did run ads last fall around this, but now a days I think people care more about their privacy. That is a true lightbulb moment for folks.
Safari blocking trackers, the inability for facebook to track you, messages being encrypted when sending to other iPhone users? It is just really something that Android and Windows folks do not know about, and if they did they might seriously consider Apple products.
What do I miss?
Complete access to my file system. That sucks. I want to be able to save a large file on the device and then connect it as though it was a flash drive. I do miss some of the deeper customizations like dialer apps that can read the phone state to get rid of robocalls before they even hit my phone.
I am not concerned in theming my phone though. I am an adult and do not really have time for that. For those that theme extensively, I get it. Power to you. I create my art as a job, so to me that is just where I focus.
MacOS and iPhone Integration
When I was a kid I was that annoying friend that had give you a "well actually..."
I did this once when a friend said "its so STUPID. They should put Mario games on the Genesis!"
"Well actually," I chimed in "Nintendo keeps those on their platform so you need to buy into their ecosystem."
And in a way, that is one thing that Apple has done well with me. They will keep me in their ecosystem because of how seamless iOS, iPadOS and MacOS integrate.
Doing work and need to hand a proof to someone? Just AirDrop it to your iPad and show them. Need to send yourself a video? AirDrop it to your Mac or put it on iCloud and it will be on the Mac when you need it.
Yes, Windows has a cloud too. I am sure it works with Android phones too, but there is no AirDrop, no way to do things in a matter of seconds, seamlessly.
Want to focus? Switch your iPhone into a mode you designed for that, and your Mac and watch and iPad all share the same state until you want to switch things off.
That sort of system is really important for people that want to get work done, and trust me it helps.
Ever try and record a video or do a zoom call and have your phone start to go off? It can be embarrassing, can lead to you restarting your video (which would be my case) or can completely interrupt your work if you are using your phone.
To close this out OBJECTIVELY
I am not a complete and total Apple Fanboy. Right now I am typing this on my iMac which is running Windows 10. This is the last Intel based iMac apple will maybe ever make and I am keeping it because I like PC gaming and the 16 gigabyte AMD 5700xt in it should last at least a few years in most games.
I am always for innovation. If Intel or nVidia start to make better ARM based silicon that means Apple will have to step their game up. That is the way things are supposed to work.
I just feel that for every annoyance that a Windows or Android user has and every concern for privacy they SHOULD have is overall addressed for the most part in Apple products.
If that remains the same going forward great, I will stick with Apple.
If someone comes around and develops a better system, maybe I go there. For now though, I just wanted to sound off about what the switch from Windows/Android to Mac/iOS has been like for me.
Thanks for reading!
