The first gen Mac was underpowered even for its time seeing what it was asked to do. It had one floppy drive and you had to switch back and forth between the application disk and your data disk. The Apple //e kept Apple afloat long after the Mac came out. It wasn’t until Aldus (PageMaker) released software along with the first laser printer that the Mac became useful. The early failure of the Mac is a large part of the reason that Jobs got kicked out.

The first gen iPod was Mac only, the click wheel kind of sucked compared to the later capacitive models and the iTunes Music Store didn’t come online until 2 years later. Between that, USB support and Windows support is what made it take off.

The iPhone was 2G, overpriced to the point where Apple had to cut prices six months in and didn’t support third party apps. Not having Flash support was really a big deal back then.

The first generation Apple Watch along with the apps and the OS were atrocious. Third parties couldn’t make native apps. They were all projections from the phone. Apple remedied it quickly.

If I were single, I would buy it just for the video watching experience and the larger screen when using it with a Mac with the improvements in the refresh rates. But it’s a very isolating experience and when I sit down to watch TV, usually it’s with my wife.

For context: in non inflation adjusted dollars, my old Apple //e setup that my parents bought me was around $3000 in 1986. My first Mac setup was $4000 in 1992 and I spent another $300 on an a new processor for it and I bought a first gen PowerMac 6100/60 + 486DX/2-66 “DOS Compatibility card” in 1994 for $3000.

I’m no stranger to having expensive tech gadgets.