I can't recommend Apple anymore. With the recent trend of tech companies towards walled gardens, the things that made Apple's walled garden great are getting eroded by other companies. Their hardware really is subpar, they're spending all this money on design and virtually none on maintenance, because repair is a profit center for them rather than a cost center.

Apple software looks and feels great, and I used to believe their hardware was just as good, but it turns out that their manufacturing processes are really crappy. Remember the first unibody aluminum Mac? Wasn't a unibody. They glued two pieces of aluminum together instead.

Look, I get it, you have to deal with the manufacturers you have. But Apple's amassed a gigantic pile of cash, and they really should be using it to improve their hardware. But they haven't been. And now, there's never been a better time to switch platforms.

I was singing their praises 2 years ago. But the beauty was only skin-deep.