The last iPhone I owned was the iPhone 4. I had the old classic MacBook Air for about two years before I accidentally spilled water on it (really frustrating thing was the Genius technician said that I'd managed to save about 85% of the motherboard from any damage because of my quick reaction in switching the laptop off, turning it upside down, and using a hair-dryer to try and dry it off quickly, but that once any of it is damaged at all it all has to be replaced), and in the end I spent about 3 years with the Dell XPS 13 and 2.5 years with the Samsung Galaxy S8.
They were fine. Mostly. Both had a lot of strengths to them, but they also had a bunch of issues. I ran into constant hardware issues with my XPS 13 - three failed batteries (though from what I gathered it was less te battery and more the cable connection to the motherboard?), and then the last of those three times they had to replace the battery, M.2 SSD, WiFi card and topcase. Each time involved being without a laptop for about 2 weeks, which as a PhD student is unbelievably difficult and stressful. The build quality feels nice, but in my experience it's actually pretty poor. The Galaxy S8 also had a lot of strengths - The display was beautiful, it was light, a great form-factor, and had great build quality. But man the software experience was awful. I ended up having to do a Factory Reset every 4-5 months because it just go so laggy and sluggish overall. Switching between apps, opening up new ones, jumping back and forth, sharing to other apps... all the sort of basic stuff you need to do all the time just became slow and frustrating over time. And the battery life was pretty terrible, honestly, which is probably related to the fact that over time I became more and more concerned about my privacy on that device.
So when Apple ran the 'Back to University' promotion, I ended up getting the MacBook Pro 13" 2TB (1.4GHz i5, 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM) as my sole computer. I use my MX Master and the smaller Magic Keyboard in conjunction with my Dell monitor as a desktop with a USB-C hub.
It's just a brilliant experience overall and so refreshing. Windows 10 has come a long way and I think people who utterly hate it really should consider giving it another try as they're likely speaking from ignorance. That said, I would pick Mac OS over it for literally anything except gaming, and even then the only PC games I play are World of Warcraft and Civilisation VI, which both run well on my Mac.
And then when I got the iPhone 11 Pro to replace my Galaxy S8 (following Samsung's announcement of ending updates to it) and holy **** that phone is just incredible to use as well. In both the laptop and phone, there's so much thoughtful design on every level and the integration has already given me a few 'holy ****' moments. The first time was when my partner and I were on holiday, and I wanted to send her all the photos I'd taken during our day exploring the city. After just sending them using AirDrop I realised I couldn't live without that feature anymore. The second time was on that same holiday when my partner tried to connect to the WiFi network of the Airbnb we were staying at, and my phone got a popup offering to share the WiFi code I already had on my phone with her; I pressed Accept, and it autofilled on her phone. Wow. Lastly, I was logging into my Patreon account and it texted a 2FA code to my iPhone; my laptop automatically scanned the message, extracted the code, and offered to autofill it into Safari on my Mac. I really get what people mean when they talk about the Apple ecosystem now.
I can't really see myself going back to Windows or Android at this point. I'd use Windows if I ever decided to built a gaming PC of course, but I already have a PS4 Pro I do all my gaming on anyway. Neither Windows 10 nor Android are anywhere near as bad as I have heard some rabid Apple fans claim; both have a lot of strengths of their own. If you can get a Pixel or Google One device, you can generally have a pretty nice software experience. And I've spent time using the Microsoft Surface Pro and it's a really nice device. A very clean experience. But it's not on the level of Apple. Not even close. On my Mac and iPhone, everything is so simple and intuitive, with beautiful, thoughtful design. I definitely used to love messing around with laptops and phones, flashing ROMs, installing obscure Linux distros, rooting, hacking, dual-booting, whatever. But these days I just want a fast, pleasant, beautiful, consistent, and reliable experience across my phone and laptop, and I've never experienced anything else like what you get on Apple devices.
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