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Comment by pkulak | Hacker News Reader

Whoa now, don't leave me hanging. What are the benefits of the "Apple ecosystem"? I'm using a Macbook right now because it's tiny and light and has amazing hardware, but once I need to get things done, it's closed and charging. If you have multiple devices, why do they all need to be identical?

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I have a macbook and and Iphone, so one handy thing I use is the clipboard is shared between devices on the same LAN that are signed into the same icloud accont. so I can select some text with my mouse, hit "paste" in my phone, and it works instantaneously. definitely one of those "wow we live in the future" moments.

This feature is available for the linux/android combination using kdeconnect. Unfortunately I don't think there's an iOS app for that.

the ios app just came out recently didn't it? I think i saw that mentioned.I don't use iOS, but i saw articles about it. YMMV.

Having my phonecalls automatically forwarded to my laptop is a huge benefit. Being able to use my iPad pro as a secondary monitor for when I have to go into the office is very useful as well. Painless copy-paste between devices is also a huge bonus.

I‘m sure there are ways to get all of that running on linux but I‘d rather spend the time that it would take setting all that up working and let my company pay a bit more on my equipment.

Is all that really a "huge" benefit? I never get phone calls that aren't spam, or have the need to copy paste from a phone. And an 11-inch second monitor doesn't sound like a huge benefit. Especially when I could just have my company "pay a bit more" on a real second monitor.

But, not gonna discount your perspective. Everyone has different priorities, and it's why different products exist for different folks.

I guess it always depends on the person. I get probably on average 8-10 work related phone calls a day and spend 2-3 hours a day on the phone, and have been on call 24/7 for the last 6 months, any little convenience that I can get I will take. I imagine with better work/life balance these things become much less of a big deal but for now I am really glad to have an environment that causes me relatively little hassle.

Yeah, that makes sense.

"All that" seems to just be one app, which requires no setup beyond clicking "pair" on the phone once.

Well, there’s not any one simple answer to the question - there’s no one killer feature, it’s more about a bunch of different tiny QoL features that work really seamlessly without any setup. Apple apps and devices all integrate really nicely with eachother in small but noticable ways.

You can probably get close with Linux using a bunch of different apps, services and tinkering, but with Apple, it’s all quite effortless.

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