Apple Products

After spending almost all of my over 25 years long ‘computing life’ with Windows and especially Linux systems, with the recent advent of M1 silicon and in light of the constant superiority complex that Apple users project into their surroundings, I decided it was time to finally take a peek into that particular walled garden myself. So as both my old Pixel phone and Linux notebook were nearing their end-of-useful-life (no more updates / too slow, respectively) I ordered an iPhone 13 and a 16” MacBook the day the M1 machines were announced by Apple. The ordering process was quite smooth, leading me to a mid-range-of-the-high-end M1 Max with 32Gigs of RAM and the smallest disk option. The rationalization for spending this much money on just two devices is still ongoing…

What is this, then?

I’ll be writing down the major observations and thoughts as I’m getting used to MacOS and the M1 MacBook - if just for an opportunity to come to grips with the keyboard on this thing. As mentioned above, I’ve been using computers for more than a quarter of a century now, starting with MS DOS on a 80286 system that even a current SSD cache controller would regard with pity. Went through various iterations of DOS, worked with Windows 3.x and wondered what the fuss was about, then 95, NT, Vista and so on. Sometimes during the 95 - NT era I was exposed to Linux and the open source way of thinking about software. The first system I really got into was RedHat Linux I believe, not counting a superficial run-in with various Unix flavors at university. After very few months I migrated all of my ‘serious’ computing to Linux systems, and haven’t looked back since. Moved through distros for some years, everything from Mandrake, Debian, and some more esoteric ones until I’ve settled on Ubuntu quite a few years ago. What I never touched at all was Apple systems - couldn’t stand the walled-in feeling I got with any of their devices, and was not amused by the preachiness of the fanboys and this obnoxious think differently attitude (think differently - from a group of products that couldn’t be more uniform!).

So what’s changed?

Good question, not entirely sure. It is a combination of things: -Timing of Apple M1 silicon product announcements in relation to my old devices getting old -Availability (lack thereof) of relevant AMD Zen3 notebooks -Even though I’m not using most Google services thanks to Nextcloud, a desire to stop being the product regarding the mobile device ecosystem I live in -A lack of interesting vanilla-Android tablet products -Fascination with the Apple M1 move. I love bold new stuff… -A certain expectation wrt UX and inter-device goodness, by getting everything from one source -Interest in getting into MacOS, seeing how things work there, finally learning that system -Some expectations for a more polished experience, based on complete vertical integration of the entire product -Being old enough to finally afford Apple stuff, even though it still hurts somewhat -… and finally wanting to know what all the fuss is about!

Waymarks

  • The unboxing experience with Apple stuff is just plain amazing, the packaging is sexy and feels like it alone is worth a decent share of the product price. That is nice!