I am dissapointed in my peers. For years I have always been told to stay away from Apple devices and the company in general. However, no one who said that actually used their devices, or used them but not recently (some had like iPhone 4s in the past). Their knowledge was always based on some 3rd hand impressions or internet related peer pressure.
I am in the EU, and Apple devices arenāt as popular as in the US, mostly everyone uses an Android phone and a Windows machine. That also led me using Android and Windows in my daily activities, for the last 15 years. After many phones, starting with HTC Wildfire, i have continously been let down by my phone every 1 to 3 years after purchase.
First i was buying flagships, then mid-high, then back to non-pro flagship variants. I was also trying diffenent brands; HTC, LG, Sony, Samsung, Xiaomi, Nokia, OnePlus. When my last phone died, and i had to buy a new one, i had no idea what to get.
Everything seemed bad, i had them, they look the same, software looks the same, i was afraid of picking a āwrongā phone again. Every single one of them had some issue i couldnāt get over. Either notification problems, bad battery life, slow performance on camera, issues with sharing stuff, fingerprint annoyances, restartsā¦
Mind you, not everything was on a single device. One had great battery life but i wouldnāt get messages sometimes, other was great but battery life was poor, and on most of them the camera was laggy or buggy.
1 year ago, maybe a bit more, it dawned on me that the only brand i havenāt used anything from is Apple, so i got a basic iPhone 13 to ācheck it outā, planning on using it for a week or two just to see what the fuss is about. I was using my Android device as the main phone, and the iPhone as a second phone, I wasnāt ready for the jump.
After a week i found myself doing everything on the iPhone apart from voice calls, so then i finally took the SIM and retired my Android phone. 6 months later, my Windows laptop battery died and the repair would cost more than what the laptop is worth. So i decided to purchase a thin and portable laptop with intention to install Debian on it, as i was done with Win11 bugs and āfeaturesā.
After looking for 2-3 weeks, comparing different laptops, i was set on a HP 14inch laptop with a price tag of about ā¬1300. Then i remembered that i am still thinking with my peers in mind. They were enraged on how i ābetrayedā them by switching to iPhone.
I decided to look up Mac laptops and found out that they are actually very similary priced as the one i wanted to buy. I got out and purchased a M2 Air, basic configuration. I had no idea about the iPhone-Mac compatibility and integrations. Found out about AirDrop and other features. I was in love with this new combo that, cliche, ājust worksā.
My āfriendsā literally went 180 on me just for the dumb reason of using one brand instead of the other. None of them has actually tried to use Apple hardware. They were mocking me about being ālocked inā, āfallen for their marketingā, and other stuff. āHow do you like your iCloud subscription?ā, things like that.
I have to tell you, i do not use any paid service from Apple. I succesfully conected my Apple devices to my home server where i keep my files, photos, calendar and all the other applications on it. I am not locked in, i feel like i have even more freedom because some services work better than on Android or Windows.
Syncing works flawlessly, something that was always janky on Android.
Sorry for the long post.
I guess what i am trying to ask is, why so much hate? Why canāt a person decide for themselves? Why is macOS/iOS looked down upon regarding connectivity with other devices and services when thatās clearly not the case?
Why do people that have no first hand experience so vocal and opposed to the brand? Shouldnāt you at least try and then be the judge?
If you like Apple and Mac, go ahead, use whatever you like. I think the hate comes from the hype attitude apple users typically have. They are a bit too hardcore about it and it gets annoying. I know, some bad apples spoil the lot (pun?) and Iām sure thereās Apple lovers who donāt go around preaching or trying to convert anyone. My sister loves her iPhone, yet I never heard her recommend me get one, or even brag about it.
Now you will have to understand different people value different things. For me, if you canāt sideload apps, if itās too hard to jailbreak, if itās too expensive, if I canāt run the niche software I need to run- Iām not going to bother. For these reasons Iām not an apple customer.
Finally, no, no havenāt used any Apple products lately. I think the last time I did was a Mac at uni some 5 years ago, and Iāve always found the interface counterintuitive. The mouse design is very uncomfortable. I donāt like their keyboards. Perhaps these things changed or maybe we have compatibility, but again, adding to the reasons in paragraph 2- I donāt see why I should bother.
I guess what i wanted to ask by creating the post is exactly what you are saying.
Why would you want to jailbreak a phone or sideload apps? Maybe you donāt have to? I was blown away by the amount of apps and features baked into the iOS and macOS, i had no idea that was the case.
And you canāt even know if you donāt try. Look at the amount of people saying, for example, you canāt have adblock on safari (you can), or that there are no automations on ios (there are).
Iām not trying to preach or to convert anyone, iām just saying that iāve been living under a rock and didnāt know about any features the ios/macos offer.
Also, apple products work just fine, sometimes better, with non-apple hardware and software.
Bluetooth devices especially.
What would I do without NewPipe? Can you run it on your iPhone? Iāve never experienced poor performance with my hardware, why should I pay triple the price? I didnāt need to jailbreak my current phone, but I did my previous one. I canāt even remember why I did, but I was happy I could. Some people like tinkering with stuff this way, the same goes for computers. Why would anyone pay more to get less enjoyment out of what they buy?
I understand you donāt need or care any of these features, and thatās fine. Most people love listening to Spotify on their iPhone, Iām cool with that. I donāt know what else needs to be understood here other than essential character differences. People are different.
Newpipe doesnāt have a version for iOS, the newpipe team decided it wonāt support the os because it heavily relies on android api. Not to mention that you probably couldnāt easily install it even if it exists. Youtube without ads is available via safari though.
Nothing wrong with differences. I just wanted to point out that many of the things i thought i would be missing, iām not, either because there is an alternative or because itās in the os by default.
To answer your last question, an example, i paid more money to get less enjoyment from one of the computers i use in the āhome labā. I couldāve spun up yet another VM for some services, for free, but i decided to purchase a dedicated machine. It had to be small tho, so the only real option i had was the Intel NUC.
It costs triple of the DIY version, not to mention infinitely more than a āfreeā VM, but it was the right choice. CPU is soldered, you have to buy M.2 storage because no sata ports, and it takes SO-DIMM. I ācouldā buy a cheap AMD CPU and motherboard and reuse multiple sticks of RAM and SSDs laying around in the lab, but the power consumption and form factor were more important for the use case.