Why did you choose Apple? (A celebration)

[Ctrlos]

As a counter-thread to the deep, deep holes of discussion the Apple litigation threads have become I thought it might be nice to build some bridges instead of walls and focus on what unites us all: our love for Apple products.

So I guess what I'd like to know is why Apple? Why did you choose them over the competition? How have their products improved your life and what are your favourite memories?

I still believe that Apple still makes the best consumer electronics around. With technology you get what you pay for and there is a reason I still have a 2011 Mac Mini as my household computer. Apple don't get enough credit for their continued support of older machines. It might not get any software updates but iCloud services are all still well integrated. My old iPhone 6 is still ticking over as my youngest son's phone, again with solid app and service support.

I used to sell consumer electronics for a living and back in 2005 a colleague showed me MacOS and I've never looked back. The iPhone might have fallen behind its rivals in the hardware stakes a little but a phone is just a shell; what you're really buying is an operating system and iOS is still better than Android. Google have done a decent job on their end but there are for me just too many compromises. I want the best apps and iOS has them in spades. This week iOS got a solid port of Hades, one of the greatest videogames ever made. It won't ever come to Android.

I still think the Apple Watch is the best timepiece ever devised. It solves so many problems with regular watches like changing straps or doing simple things like setting an alarm.

I think of the iPad as less of a computer and more of a tool. It crams in so many useful features that bought seperately would cost at least 10x as much. I have mine as a work computer and I could never do what I do on a Mac.

 

[leifp]

Allow me to start with a caveat: where I purchase Apple products, rather than the competition, it’s usually not because they’re great but rather that the competition is all worse. Now that the “damning with faint praise” portion is out of the way…

ok, second caveat: looks like you triggered something and I’m going to write a dissertation…

tl;dr - I like Apple more than every other company it competes with. I think it’s not good enough…

In the early 2000s I decided I was going to become a photographer. Digital was just being born and I picked up a Canon S40 and 10D, and a titanium PowerBook G4 1GHz with Adobe suite, and got at it. I’ve never looked back, despite owning several gaming-focused WinPCs (presently: AMD 5800X, nVidia RTX4070 hooked up to a ASUS RoG 42” 138Hz OLED [best display I’ve ever owned] for them what cares). My techie friends are all Windows or Unix/Linux and sub variants junkies and it’s fascinating to watch them flail around like stranded fish when using my Apple products. Mind you, that’s how I feel x1000 when using Windows or Linux. They love to tinker with the OS and I love the OS to get out of my way and let me play/work/communicate. macOS remains unbeatable in that regard. Comes from attacking the problem from the opposite direction that engineers would...

The iPhone 4 was my first cellphone (and remains my favourite hardware design from an aesthetic and materials build quality standpoint; the newer stuff is fine but the iPhone 6 generation in particular sticks like a craw in my throat). And the camera bump still annoys the bejesus out of me. Happily, I consider cellphones to be a necessary evil so I don’t care overmuch what they do… I’m finally biting the bullet and trying to integrate it fully into my life and we’ll see if I end up running around with a tinfoil hat (do they make those anymore? Will I need to go alumin(i)um?!)

I have an Apple Watch. It… works. Fascinating to me, but the sole reason I stick with Apple here is because of the watch bands. The trail loop and sport loop remain the only watch bands I have ever worn that don’t irritate me/my skin. Example 1 of Apple software compromising behaviour: I used to switch watch faces all the time. Now that it requires hold and swipe, I’ve done it three times…

My iPad Pro is a case of way too damn expensive for my use. That’s my fault, of course. I could get by with a base iPad: email, web browsing, showing photos is 95%+… except that I cannot. I’m hyper visual and lower quality displays make me shudder. Heck, my iPP display makes me shudder (ProMotion is better than not having it but it is still not good enough; miniLED has distinct advantages over the regular kind but it blooms and I notice and I’m annoyed). Still, I haven’t seen a superior display in this class of device and Android remains a garbage scow of poor UI/UX and terrible OS/apps on tablets while MS remains too focused on turning the tablet into a funkier laptop (side note: ask me how I feel about the Arial font)… and Example 2 of Apple software compromising behaviour: changing the behaviour of the volume buttons with orientation. Great as an option for those who prefer it! (See: pre-M2 iPads) Terrible for myself; I’m annoyed every time I forget that Apple is better at knowing me than I am… *cough*

Which brings me to my present macOS devices: a MacBook Pro and a Mac mini. The miniLED display on that laptop is nearly the equivalent of the OLED I have. Doesn’t matter, it’s hooked up to dual 32” monitors. Since I hate laptops and only have it to serve a need, which should now be behind me: my next main Mac will be a Studio (waiting on Thunderbolt 5 as I mention ad nauseam in these forums). The Mac mini serves as a secondary computer at a second location (partially replacing the travel need for the laptop) and is hooked up to a Studio Display. It’s fine. But now to my annoyance(s) with macOS: example 3 of Apple software compromising behaviour… outside of changing useful keys for non-useful keys (F4 to finder… really? command+space is too tricky? To each their own: I use karabiner to remap F4 to Launchpad) the wisdom of changing System Settings to mimic the iPhone on my dual 32” monitors is staggering… since I’m not aware of a way to change that.

The Future: I am one of those who sees near endless use cases on the periphery for the Vision Pro and I will likely get one sometime after I get that Mac Studio…

 

[decafjava]

Apple don't get enough credit for their continued support of older machines.

This is one big reason to stick with Apple, both my iMac which has just become vintage and still getting security updates (I know not for much longer) and my iPhone 7 plus I had for 5 years were well supported by Apple.

 

[za9ra22]

Why Apple? Because despite the imperfections in policies and the loss of direction in user interface design, I can still spend all day tending to Windows PCs, but come home to a Mac (or two) to get something actually done.

 

[Serge88]

Apple ? Yes. Windows ? Yes. Linux ? Yes. Android ? Why not ? It's called freedom of choice.

 

[winxmac]

Almost all apps are designed for iOS first then android next... iOS apps are of higher quality than the android counterpart...

 

[G5isAlive]

I was in grad school studying biochemistry, but spent too much of my time learning unix and dos to do simple things on computers and ink dot printers. I learned to program in postscript to make graphs and write short papers. The Apple 2 was there but still required learning how to use. I wanted to spend more time studying biochemistry.

And then on release day, January 24, 1984, I saw the first Mac. It was simple to use, let me focus on my work while it took care of the background details, and I havent looked back. I was there during the dark times of Sculley and Spindler, and I am here now. From time to time I look at windows to see if it has figured things out yet, and it hasn't. It still requires you to bend to it and figure out how to use it. Sure 'it just works' doesnt apply to the Mac as well as it used to, but that's because Apple isnt just a computer now. It's a phone. It's a tablet. It's a watch. It's a headphone. And yep, it's an augmented reality headset. Sometimes it gets a tad confused, not often, but sometimes and people have a fit about Apple quality slipping. But those are the same people that worry about fingerprints on their devices. What a joke. Wipe it off. move on.

I am still with Apple because it lets me focus on my work. Biochemistry. After all these years.

 

[Abazigal]

My most fond memory was when I purchased the iPad 3 in 2012 and saw the potential in the classroom. At the time, the teachers in my school were given these touchscreen laptops with styluses that simply didn't work very well. They were bulky and heavy, had short battery life and software was sorely lacking.

In contrast, the iPad was so much thinner and lighter, had inbuilt cellular, the apps were optimised for touch, and using my own device meant being able to download whatever I wanted. It really helped me a lot in a number of situations where the school laptop was ill-suited for those tasks. Like once, we were to carry out a physical fitness test in the field where there was no wifi. My colleagues ended up using their smartphones and keying in the results on their small screens or writing the results on paper first. Google Drive was so much more useable on a larger iPad screen.

Or when I went overseas with my students and the iPad was the perfect tool for blogging on the go.

While there was the Apple TV for airplay mirroring, the infrastructure in my school was not set up for this. So I started with a portable router in my class, and then signed up for a mobile broadband stick and paid for an extra monthly data plan (this was back when my monthly cap was a paltry 3 gb). I constantly exceeded that cap, in part because being connected to wifi would cause iCloud between my iPhone and my iPad to keep syncing.

It was only later that the Apple TV got peer to peer airplay, then the iPad Pro got apple pencil support, as well as split-screen multitasking.

I also spent a small fortune on apps trying to find the right combination for my job. So the concept of people whining about having to actually pay for stuff is really incongruous to me.

It was quite the journey, and I would do it all over again if I had to. 😊

 

[Ctrlos]

My most fond memory was when I purchased the iPad 3 in 2012 and saw the potential in the classroom. At the time, the teachers in my school were given these touchscreen laptops with styluses that simply didn't work very well. They were bulky and heavy, had short battery life and software was sorely lacking.

In contrast, the iPad was so much thinner and lighter, had inbuilt cellular, the apps were optimised for touch, and using my own device meant being able to download whatever I wanted. It really helped me a lot in a number of situations where the school laptop was ill-suited for those tasks. Like once, we were to carry out a physical fitness test in the field where there was no wifi. My colleagues ended up using their smartphones and keying in the results on their small screens or writing the results on paper first. Google Drive was so much more useable on a larger iPad screen.

Or when I went overseas with my students and the iPad was the perfect tool for blogging on the go.

While there was the Apple TV for airplay mirroring, the infrastructure in my school was not set up for this. So I started with a portable router in my class, and then signed up for a mobile broadband stick and paid for an extra monthly data plan (this was back when my monthly cap was a paltry 3 gb). I constantly exceeded that cap, in part because being connected to wifi would cause iCloud between my iPhone and my iPad to keep syncing.

It was only later that the Apple TV got peer to peer airplay, then the iPad Pro got apple pencil support, as well as split-screen multitasking.

I also spent a small fortune on apps trying to find the right combination for my job. So the concept of people whining about having to actually pay for stuff is really incongruous to me.

It was quite the journey, and I would do it all over again if I had to. 😊

I once worked at a school where every kid was given a (deposit taken) iPad Mini and every classroom was AirPlay enabled. You could get the kids to make short media about what they had learned and just throw it up to the screen at the front to show everyone. It was brilliant.

I remember getting the first iPhone as a teacher before anyone else had one. Taking pictures of a whiteboard and then emailing them to myself for the next lesson was magical.

I immediately saw the potential of smart phones as useful tools right there and then.

 

[Pandyone]

I have not owned my Apple devices that long. But the iPad Mini 5 was the gateway in to Apple.
After that it was the iPhone, Watch and eventually MacBook Air. I really like them, both as tools and as beautifully engineered hardware.

I like the longevity, both in terms of hardware and OS/software. I really do think they last longer, having experienced devices from other brands - for example Fitbit (before Google) and Android Watches. With Apple Watch I'm now reminded that I've had it for 4-5 years just because the battery depletes one or two hours faster. No slowness or scratches, just the battery. Same experience with the two iPhones I have owned.

I work with Windows computers on a daily basis in a managed environment, which is OK. But I just see the Windows OS on consumer side as a huge billboard for companies to advertise on. Constantly bloatware being installed and data being collected.
When doing any support on the Windows OS I'm just reminded on how much I like MacOS better and better.

 

[Pakaku]

Because I wasn't ready for Linux at the time

 

[Ben J.]

It was the late eighties and there was a new thing called Desktop Publishing, DTP. Having worked in advertising agencies for a decade, with the old methods involving type on paper, spray-glue/solvents, darkroom etc. and being quite good at it, I got a new job in an agency that wanted to be on the ball. I was to take them into the future.

I bought a book called "Macintosh for dummies" and read the whole thing before even touching a mac. My employer even bought me a Macintosh SE to use at home so I could be on the edge. I think it was about $4000usd. Unfortunately, I had been working in those solvent environments long enough that I was just about to start a 30+ years battle with epilepsy and neural damage. Ah, if only the timing had been a bit different.

That's where it started for me.

 

[Chuckeee]

I started with an Apple //c, since I had several friends with Apple II and I could start off with lots of “borrowed” software 😉. Then the first Mac I got was an LC 475 and I picked that particular machine so I could get an Apple IIe card (so I could continue to use my Apple II to software). Then, after using it for several months, I was no longer interested in compatibility with Apple II software. But I was addicted to the Mac environment.

 

[za9ra22]

Ahhh, @Ben J. Yes, DTP!

The first Mac I used was a 512 in 1986, soon replaced by a Plus when the college I worked in decided it wanted to bring its publishing work in-house.

It was all Mac, and Pagemaker (we were Aldus beta testers and trainers) and Quark, and produced everything from simply flyers and posters, to course books and materials, the prospectus, governance documents, course advertising, all the internal forms and eventually training manuals, newsletters and the college magazine.

Then we spread out and started taking work across tertiary education and universities too. By then we'd migrated a bit from Mac Plus, SE and SE/30s, and eventually to G3 and G4 desktops.

By the mid-90s we were also using Windows systems, but their users kept flipping to Macs with the common complaint that Windows seemed to get in the way too much.

Eventually, my job morphed into IT and systems management, but the publishing team was always my spiritual home, and moved with me when I moved to university from the college.

In my back room at home, I have a 'rebuild' of my first personally owned Mac. It's actually a Classic II, running Mac OS 7.1, with 10Mb RAM, a 2Gb SCSI2SD internal drive and just about every 68k application from the first 10 years of the Mac. It runs perfectly, and even now has been used for layout and typesetting documents.

I'm an unashamed Mac user, and I expect I always will be. The company seems to have an infinite capacity to disappoint, yet is capable of the most astounding things.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

As a counter-thread to the deep, deep holes of discussion the Apple litigation threads have become I thought it might be nice to build some bridges instead of walls and focus on what unites us all: our love for Apple products.

So I guess what I'd like to know is why Apple? Why did you choose them over the competition? How have their products improved your life and what are your favourite memories?

I still believe that Apple still makes the best consumer electronics around. With technology you get what you pay for and there is a reason I still have a 2011 Mac Mini as my household computer. Apple don't get enough credit for their continued support of older machines. It might not get any software updates but iCloud services are all still well integrated. My old iPhone 6 is still ticking over as my youngest son's phone, again with solid app and service support.

I used to sell consumer electronics for a living and back in 2005 a colleague showed me MacOS and I've never looked back. The iPhone might have fallen behind its rivals in the hardware stakes a little but a phone is just a shell; what you're really buying is an operating system and iOS is still better than Android. Google have done a decent job on their end but there are for me just too many compromises. I want the best apps and iOS has them in spades. This week iOS got a solid port of Hades, one of the greatest videogames ever made. It won't ever come to Android.

I still think the Apple Watch is the best timepiece ever devised. It solves so many problems with regular watches like changing straps or doing simple things like setting an alarm.

I think of the iPad as less of a computer and more of a tool. It crams in so many useful features that bought seperately would cost at least 10x as much. I have mine as a work computer and I could never do what I do on a Mac.

Why did I choose Apple? The PC industry was nascent and Apple's 128k Mac brought the first mainstream GUI (that Apple bought from Xerox PARC when Xerox could not figure out what to do with it, despite being a major player in the word processing business). My brain synched with the idea of Apple's GUI, and later I appreciated Apple being first at color management. I have preferred Apple by a lot ever since, despite also managing a bunch of Win boxes at one point.

 

[MacDaddyPanda]

Comparatively, I'm newer to Apple. At least on the computer side of things. The phones I've been with since Iphone X. But computer side I dipped my toe when Mac Mini was refreshed in 2018. I tried going cold turkey quitting my windows machine. Turns out after several months I missed gaming, lol. So I ended up relegating my mini to minimal use for couple years. Went back to PC as my main rig.
Then came Apple Silicon. And I've been hooked since then. I now use both Windows and Mac with Mac now becoming my main rig. Though I didn't jump on the Apple Silicon right away. I waited till the Mac Mini M2 came out. And I used that platform to reacquaint myself to MacOS. The main positives I took away using the mac mini m2 was how cool it ran. There is almost zero heat coming off the MM m2. Vs my old intel MM 18' that thing was like a mini heater. And the overall smooth experience I've had acclimating my brain to macOS I've come to like it more than Windows. Plus there's the added benefit it just working well between my iphone and macOS. And I've since grown my mac Computer collection to the latest M3 models, MBA m3 and MBP M3 Pro.

 

[antiprotest]

Allow me to start with a caveat: where I purchase Apple products, rather than the competition, it’s usually not because they’re great but rather that the competition is all worse.

When I first started using Apple products, it was because Apple products were simply good, beautiful and good. Now I stay with Apple for another reason, the one quoted above. Of course all products from all companies have become more capable, but Apple has become relatively worse, much, much worse (other things like customer service, retail experience are also worse than before), yet to me the competition is overall even worse still. I have also become more invested in Apple over the years, in its products and ecosystem, so that unless something drastic happens (Apple becomes too bad, or competition becomes too good), I plan to stay. So I am not totally a happy customer, but I am rooting for Apple.

 

[MacProFCP]

Honestly, I’ve always used Mac and when I moved from Blackberry, there was no thought of Android. I stick with Apple mostly because that’s what I’m used to and switching everything for office and home would be expensive. However, with all the bugs and problems, I am seriously considering it.

 

[Apple$]

I’ve always been a user since the iPod touch 4th gen days, (used a hand me down iPod touch 2nd generation, and then got a iPad 2 in 2011) So I’ve been on the iPad since then because I believed that Apple makes the best tablets even though I was a Android phone user since 2012 until recently upgraded to the iPhone 15.

 

[EdwardC]

Bought my first Mac in 1995 (dual processor / dual boot) Mac OS System 7 and Win 3. I have always had a Mac since. I have always kept a PC in my office as well but don’t have the same love for Microsoft as I have for Apple. Bought my first iPhone with the 3, giving up my BlackBerry for the new modern interface of the iPhone but with that said I had the same love of BlackBerry that I had for Apple. The iPhone to me is a tool and does not hold the same reverence as a Mac but is a solid device that I have never considered swapping out for anything else.

 

[boss.king]

I've used Apple stuff in some form since I was like 5 years old. My parents had an office connected to our house when I was growing up that was full of pre OSX Macs. We had various iMacs as family computers growing up. I had (and actually still have) a first gen iPod Nano. I had a 3GS, many MacBook Pros through work, etc.

There was a period where I was pretty unimpressed by anything other than the MBP line and tried to remain hardware agnostic. I was using Android or Windows phones, Android Wear watches, and didn't have a tablet, built my own desktop, and relied on my work-issued MBP as my laptop

. The Apple Watch (Series 3) was what really got me back into the world of Apple hardware, and since I needed an iPhone to use it I got an iPhone 7 Plus. I've since upgraded to more modern devices all around, and my household and family is now almost exclusively Apple hardware.

There's still a lot I wish Apple would work on, but overall the ecosystem works well enough for my needs that I feel no real urge face the hassle of switching away.

 

[BellSystem]

I stated with a Mac SE in the early 90s because of aesthetics and the simple OS . I became annoyed when they killed Aperture, Color, Shake, WebObjects, and Final Cut (legacy lineage). I no longer believed in them when Steve stopped being involved. Since Tim started it has slowly become unrecognizable to its former self in a lot of important ways. For me what made Apple special died with Jobs. They are just another greedy corporation that makes slightly better quality products than others. The magic was the story of how they got to this point. That story is over and the true excitement is gone. The fact that there are so many Apple fans now kind of takes away what made it special.

 

[1madman1]

I grew up with Apple products. Schools and libraries were filled with Apple IIgs, Macintosh LCs, and the occasional Centris. Then PowerMacs by high school. First current gen Mac that I paid for with my own money was an ex demo Beige G3 from a closing Computer City (Radio Shack's attempt at a big box store). That G3 went on with me for many years as I tinkered with and upgraded it. That continued on with my G5 tower and Mac Pros.

That being said, although I do still use Apple products I do not like the services centric, closed, anti-repair Apple of today.

 

[krell100]

Apple Macs are fantastic for doing audio production. I've been using them since 1995 but with OSX and the introduction of CoreAudio and CoreMidi with their respective control panels they are by far the best environment for writing music. Turn on, open software, create. No hassles, no crazy hoops to jump through. You pay more for a Mac but (for me) it's worth it!

 

[TechRunner]

In the fall of 2006 I was waiting for a spot to open up in the Windows computer lab (my HP laptop was off getting repaired) at grad school when a fellow student offered to help me get up and going in the nearly empty Mac lab across the hall. She explained the basics, and once I discovered a level of comfort with the system I found the whole Mac experience very enjoyable.

When my repaired HP laptop returned I sold it, bought a lightly used 14" iBook G4 and have had a Mac in my personal workflow ever since.