It’s long past time to abandon Apple products. I’m as guilty as anyone, typing this out on an iPad. But I’m also using a system76 laptop in parallel to my MacBook Pro and slowly moving more of my computer time to it.
The truth about Apple, and probably any other company that managed to get in its amazing situation, is that they want the whole pie. They’ll always burn partners, customers, and rivals to slowly (or quickly) boil the frog and consume the whole pie. It’s been clear for a long time, but their devices are so great that we’re all in denial. They’re a bad actor, we have to move forward and figure out the next steps for ourselves.
90% of the time I have my laptop at a desk with two monitors connected to it and a 3rd party keyboard and mouse.
But for that 10% of the time I'm using it in a hotel, at a coffee shop, at my in-laws, or simply on the couch, nothing comes close to Apples hardware for me and it's worth it for that 10% of usage.
At the end of the day portability is very important for me.
In fact, I have an upstairs workstation (with two monitors, mouse and keyboard) and a downstairs workstation with the same setup. Upstairs is the stereotypical office, where I do my day job. Downstairs is the hobbyist environment/workstation where I have musical equipment, exercise equipment, paint equipment, etc. I simply swap my laptop between these two stations. I find it beneficial to have this workstation available here for aspects of learning related to these hobbies. If money weren't an issue I suppose I could have two dedicated desktops for this setup, but even then, there are space savings with my current setup.
I think the competition is Microsoft and Google (not so much Lenovo, Asus, Dell, Acer, Samsung...) and Apple does well against both if privacy is a major consideration. Microsoft's direction over 10 and 11 have been unsettling.
System76 seems terrific. But, overall, Apple is alone is having the market power and deep integration between software, hardware, and services to radiate abuse. So, pretty much every other company has the potential to be better.
Not sure if we can say it's the same hardware space but I'm happy with my framework laptop.
They designed it from ground up to be repairable and upgradable.
The truth about Apple, and probably any other company that managed to get in its amazing situation, is that they want the whole pie. They’ll always burn partners, customers, and rivals to slowly (or quickly) boil the frog and consume the whole pie. It’s been clear for a long time, but their devices are so great that we’re all in denial. They’re a bad actor, we have to move forward and figure out the next steps for ourselves.