Sounds like Mac OS would be perfect for you.
Man how often do I hear "I don't want ads on my desktop" or "I want higher quality hardware" or "I'd pay more for a system that X" and then in the same breath someone says something ridiculous like "the apple tax".
It's like in cell phones. People bemoan how expensive iPhones are and brag about how cheap you can get an Android phone. An iPhone is $600 but you can get an Android phone for $100! Then I ask which Android phone I should get and I'm told "Samsung Galaxy S8", which is the same price as an iPhone!
I'm told Apple laptops are too expensive, so I ask which Windows laptop I should get and I'm told a Surface, a Thinkpad X1 Carbon, an XPS 13... all of which are exactly comparable in price with a Macbook.
It's almost like "the apple tax" doesn't exist and people are just mad that Apple doesn't make cheap low quality products that the person complaining would never buy anyway.
If you want equivalent specs then sure, the prices are going to be similar but that's the whole point, with Android (and a PC) you've got a wide range of _choices_ on many parts of the specifications/price spectrum. With Apple you've got far fewer.
The same goes for laptops where you listed three different manufacturers.
That is literally exactly what I said. If a Galaxy S8 and an iPhone with the same hardware costs the same price, there is no such thing as "the apple tax". None. Can't happen. They cost the same. The only difference is that Apple doesn't make anything cheaper, but google "best laptops 2017" and guess what? They all cost the same as a Macbook.
So as it turns out, Apple's prices are comparable with their direct competitors. Ergo, the Apple tax doesn't exist.
If your needs are met by the low end, you're forced to pay a premium.
You replied "Not sure I agree on the cell phones at all."
Your justification for that was "Apple's prices are comparable with their direct competitors for similar specifications but they just don't provide a low end."
It is a complete non-sequitur to say they're charging you a premium to buy a high-end device if you want a low-end one. They charge exactly the same for exactly the same. Not a tax.
Fact: Apple's prices are competitive with comparable devices.
Fact: Apple only competes in the high end market.
Not fact: Apple forces you to buy their products even if you can't afford it.
Laptops are an second pc for work station users sorry a MacBook "pro" is marketing speak.
OS X has plenty of ads and nags for iCloud and Apple Music FYI.
Fill up your iCloud space and it will ask you to buy more on every boot.
Siri on OS X was artificially limited to only play music from Apple Music but not your iTunes library when even the iPhone 4 could play music stored in its internal app.
I want a car that doesn't come with advertising built in. Every time I'm low on gas it starts dinging and flashing lights at me, and - can you believe this, people - if I refuse to buy any more, the car won't even start! And don't get me started on what happens every 10,000 miles... demanding I change the oil! I'm not a sucker, I won't fall for their advertising!
Also low space notifications for a service I am already using would be different than advertisements for a service I am not using at all.
The edge notifications look like a system alert and trigger constantly.
It's an ad because they are advertising the iCloud service to you. It's not just that they say "Your iCloud is running out of free space", it's that they say "Your iCloud is running out of free space, buy more space here!"
It's an install option for OSX and you can trivially disable it as well. OSX runs just fine without it.
That's not an advertisement. That's a critical notification about a service you've chosen to use. It's not any different just because they offered a free trial.
No, I expect it not to try to sell me something at all. If I'm close to my capacity limit, it just means I need to clean some of the crud out.
It's not that they say "Your iCloud is running out of free space." or "Your iCloud is running out of free space, buy more space here!" it's that they say "sign up for iCloud and store your X!". The first two are status updates for a service that's already being used. The last is an ad.
Very strange.
No one chooses to use iTunes, given reasonable alternatives. It is the only way to interact with some iDevices.
I know your being facetious, but the easy answer to that question is the Moto G5 Plus, which you can pick up for $230 in most any Best Buy or Costco in the US.
There are many other good choices there too.
> I'm told Apple laptops are too expensive, so I ask which Windows laptop I should get and I'm told a Surface, a Thinkpad X1 Carbon, an XPS 13... all of which are exactly comparable in price with a Macbook.
I don't think that's true. Apple store is down for WWDC today, but as of yesterday a 13' MacBook Pro is $1,300. The closest matching Dell XPS 13 is only $1,000. It has a lower resolution screen, but a newer gen processor and 10% more battery.
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Fundamentally, Apple products carry a premium price. Some non-Apple products also carry a premium price (see the Surface Book as a good example). But that doesn't mean the "Apple Tax" (higher margins) aren't real, or that there aren't comparable products without it.
Again, the lineup is being refreshed today, so this may all change. But the Mac Pro is the typical perfect example of this -- you can build or buy a more powerful, smaller, faster PC including licensed Windows 10 Pro for much cheaper than a Mac, literally just a small fraction of the Mac Pro's current price.
My ThinkPad is easy to repair (already did a small repair myself), has support for a docking station (currently I don't need it, but a friend loves it), has an ethernet port (I won't buy a laptop that has no ethernet ports), allows one to buy a battery (or even buy a larger battery if I prefer one), allows me to add additional RAM myself if I conclude that I need more, ...
However, OS X gets excluded because it immediately constrains my hardware purchases.