Apple does not even have to be the best at everything, or even particularly great at everything. What they need to do is be good at integrating everything, which they are.
So yes the UX is great (I would not say amazing) and when the integration exists, the experience is almost always fantastic..
But I've always felt like it has come with trade-offs, and in recent years Apple has moved the balance enough that I no longer believe the trade-offs are worth it for me, at least when it comes to my daily driver computer.
I moved back to Windows (+Linux thanks to WSL2) in 2020 - after being a Mac-first user for almost 15 years - and am very happy with my choice.
Microsoft / Linux doesn't do everything, but if you need something specific you can bet that there is someone out there that provides that functionality for those platforms.
I have a friend who has a 2015-ish Macbook with 4GB RAM - and she is getting into Photoshop.
So her computer works well for her. The monitor is good enough, the CPU is good, and so on. 4GB just won't cut it.
Since she can't upgrade her RAM for $150 like she should, she has to get a new computer. But she likes the trackpad and the Apple UI so much, she is going to get an iMac with 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $1600, instead of a Windows PC with a top-line processor, 32GB RAM, 27" screen and 1TB+ of SSD.
There is simply no contest in reliability, you’re always expecting a new problem with windows - just yesterday, in fact, an OS update disabled my network card and I had to reinstall everything to “fix” it. You can use a Mac for years without even knowing what a driver is.
Regarding the software I use, I wouldn't say that it's any more stable on macOS than on Windows.
Windows is very solid and we rarely see issues with it on decent hardware which still costs 1/2 of what a lower spec Mac equivalent.
In my own circles (so anecdotally) I've had plenty of conversations over the last 20+ years about helping tech and non-tech people upgrade RAM on their computers, including laptops.. And in the last 5 years I've heard plenty of people be surprised (and bummed) that they can't upgrade the RAM on their Macs post-purchase anymore.
And of course maxing out the RAM at purchase time is a complete rip-off compared to market prices.
Every Mac I've owned (5 machines across desktops/laptops from 2006 through to 2016 I think), I eventually upgraded the RAM myself via aftermarket parts at reasonable market rates and it greatly extended the life of the computer.
Given the premium cost you already pay for a Mac, not being able to do this anymore is a deal breaker, for me at least.
I've literally never had a problem for years. Switching is seamless. I don't even have to manually switch, it happens automagically. Same for everyone I know with AirPods.
I don't consider myself overly dogmatic about controlling my devices or data but the thought of going all in on one tech company for my gadgets for the next decade or so is both gross and, to be honest, really boring. I don't see how I could get excited about tech when the only choice I get is what colour it is (or the storage space).
I don’t think of these things as gadgets anymore. In the past I’ve built a Linux DVR - so I know how to tinker and find it fun for certain things but not things I depend on and want to behave like appliances. I don’t tinker with my refrigerator or my automobile either.
Certain things with iOS are just overly difficult like getting files on or off or trying to add new music to the music app without a PC.
You need third parties (sort of) for scaling and long tail reasons, but it's always an uneasy relationship.
If you don't expand enough, or the market doesn't generate a solution, your platform has a gap. If you expand too much, third party developers feel burned and desert your platform.
Microsoft solved this by clearly staking its monetized territory ("the office suite"), and not really expanding in other directions (after those weird 90s attempts).
If you buy an X-Box, and the next Halo turns out to suck, you are still going to get your moneys worth of 3rd party titles.
The Wii was designed with different assumptions in mind, which led to a lean machine they could sell at a profit. Someone buying and Xbox and Gears of War was a huge problem for Microsoft, if someone bought a Wii and Mario Kart, it was just fine for Nintendo as long as the customer was happy: Every sale was profit, plain and simple.
I don't know about the Wii not being good for 3rd parties either, it's more that the Wii didn't do what the 3rd parties wanted to do (high tech edgelord games). So we got completely moronic things like a Castlevania fighting game, a Soul Calibur that wasn't a fighting game. How about Dead Space, a slow, ponderous horror title? Yeah, the devs turned it into a rail shooter, just about the most anti-horror genre choice imaginable.
In simple terms, they thought the Wii userbase were morons who would lap up anything - after all, they'd bought a motion control toaster to play technically really simplistic titles, and in the devs' world, technically simplistic = bad. So they gave people disrespectful shovelware, which, surprise surprise, bombed.
They had the opportunity to make solid titles - the Wii may have been a toaster, but it was still beefier than the PS2 or Gamecube which had a lot of really good titles and anyone who's played Metroid Prime knows those controls are crack.
I think the big miss with the Wii wasn't how good/bad it was, but communication. What was the philosophy behind the machine, Nintendo communicating that, the devs really trying to understand that.
Not really, the M1 is a smashing success with most techies. People seem to like the phones too. The watches are doing really well too. Oh, and the tablets are really popular also. Even with techies.
There seems to be a group of people sworn never to be corrupted by the evil Apple and their evil ways. I first saw it on /., and the same group has been ringing out death knells for Apple ever since.
iPads are doing exceptionally well, I'm surprised you are unaware. They're replacing laptops for a lot of users, especially those that did not grow up around PCs. It's just that you won't often see them in public.
Apple has a significant presence in Central Europe. Not overwhelming one, American market is obviously a stronger one. It might have something to do with purchasing power parity, which is still not that good behind the former Iron Curtain. But it is a big player here, especially in the richer demographics.
I have never used any Apple products, but I am tempted. People will sing paeans about how their gadgets just work and interact together. I am more of a tinkering-hacking type, so I do not really mind delving deep into my Windows or Linux installation, but Android messes with me sometimes.
Same with iPads. By far the most common brand of large screen device I see. Outside of office environments I see more iPads than laptops, and even in office environments I'm seeing more iPads today than even just 3 years ago.
There's definitely a huge market of people buying it.
Whenever I go out in major cities in the US, Canada or the UK, I'll always see someone with it
It feels similar to the end of MS's domiance. They were always profitable and had huge marketshare, but just because everybody was running Windows, that didn't mean they were really embracing the full MS ecosystem. Apple feels that way today.
I'm talking about a much more nebulous concept of a company as a thought leader, one that people follow. There was a time when the rumor of MS entering a market would cause competition to shut down. Now nobody blinks an eye when MS ships an actual product that competes with them.
And in that regard, I think we're seeing the end of Apple's role as a technologically interesting company (at least wrt software). For example it used to be pretty much only Apple and a few exclusive MacOS developers who actually cared about design. Now designing thinking has gone mainstream all while Apple seems to be busy ignoring everything from their classic HIG.
The Apple products I do have were either broken and given or sold to me to repair or found at thrift shops and pawn shops for deep discounts, and they are all going up for sale soon to recoup my expenses.
I'm sure you could find even better deals on eBay.
EDIT: its $149 currently https://www.walmart.com/ip/Verizon-Apple-iPhone-SE-2020-64GB...
Also GNU/Linux phones running mainline Linux kernel (but they don't exist for 5 years yet).
Smarthome is one place Apple fell down. I tried to add my hue lights and instead of just automatically finding the hub like Amazon and Google I was supposed to take a picture of a sticker? Could never get it to work. They also took far too long getting an affordable voice speaker for the home out. I'm not digging my phone out every time either.
That's because many smart home devices are only supporting the duopoly OOB due to their market prominence, indeed both Apple & Google are doing something good enough to retain their *poly position.
If the smart home devices have open API, then there's no reason for it to work great with anything else. A case in point, put KDEConnect on Android, Linux Phone or Sailfish and you can even play the audio from your desktop browser on your phone speaker.
It’s funny that you take AirPlay as an example. I would have agreed with most other things, but AirPlay is light years behind stuff like Google Cast or Spotify Connect.