Hard to say what primary watch, I rarely wear one but usually choose between a simple digital (Casio) or 12 or 24-hour analog watch (Casio/Fortis), a challenge for a poll-maker for sure but neither is an Apple product so for purpose of the poll I’ll pick one or the other.
Also, what category is Vision? is it a self-standing computer or an interface to a connected Mac, I never ‘got’ that…
Digital/Analog Camera has a place? I use the iPhone 13 Mini almost daily for visual note-taking and snapshots but remove the photos as soon as I can to the Mac, for other photography I use Canon and Fujifilm, bringing the images in via cable or card reader.
Finally maybe Music (or audio) Player has a function here. I use iPod Touches daily for audiobooks while cooking/eating and working in the garden, and several other iPod variants on occasion. I don’t use iPhone or iPads for audio.
Fascinating and hot topic! 20+ replies in 2 hours!
I’m using mostly Apple products for digital stuff though not as Apple wants me to , ie very little of their paid services.
Like OP I am kinda cheap and usually try to find the right/sufficient tool for the job. I’ve accumulated plenty of Apple stuff over the years so continue to use them.
I have a Windows virtual machine that is only run a couple times a year for those occasions it’s needed.
I am on maybe my 5th or 6th iPhone (13 mini) and could soon probably get by with a dumb/senior phone. When iPhone launched I waited in line for it as it solved a number of issues for me at the time. I don’t really need it that much now, mostly weather monitoring to arrange my dailya activties, visual note-taking with the camera and texting with widely dispersed family and friends.
Don’t consider myself a ‘Mac (or Apple) Loyalist’ but I started my computing journey with Macs and have stuck with their products not out of loyalty but general product satisfaction I suppose.
Funny you should mention that. I’ve considered migrating back to a flip-phone for quite some time. I haven’t bothered because:
I’ll only save $10/mo on my service contact, because the other two lines on my plan (family members) both have smart phones and it is an unlimited data plan.
Although most of my app usage is gaming, which could be satisfied just fine by an entry-level iPad, I do use the phone’s navigation features when I’m traveling. Without a smartphone, I’d need to buy a dedicated GPS/nav device and pay a subscription to keep its maps up to date.
My family likes to use text messages. Texting on a number pad (e.g. via T9 is painful for non-trivial messages.
I sometimes need to run mobile apps for work. Although I suppose the aforementioned entry-level iPad could run them as well.
Would be worth having personal and work columns for computers, phones and tablets as the work device, which is the primary device used during the day, may well be employer dictated/preference
An old TV is strictly an over-the-air (OTA) reception device and not interactive.
A smart TV not connected (directly) to the internet is analogous to an air-gapped computer. It can interact with other devices on your LAN but it doesn’t phone home what you are doing with it. When combined with an Apple TV, it’s much more private than any smart TV connected to the internet, as recently discussed in this article:
When combined with an [HDHomeRun](https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/), it’s an OTA TV with digital video recording (DVR) capabilities.
All in Apple ecosystem here from multiple Macs to iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and AppleTVs and HomePods.
There’s an Amiga or two and a Toshiba T1000 on the shelves along with a cavalcade of Palms, Sony Ericssons and the odd HP calculator. Any mainframe experience lost to the dim past of the early Eighties…
My sons and daughter are the same though the two boys are fully Windows and Linux fluent given their work.
I get it about finding some common digital ground with family/friends. This is part of why I haven’t yet gone to a simpler digital life.
One workaround I’ve considered, should I eventually switch back to simple phone, is having a code list when it comes to texting. If I receive a longish SMS, instead of typing on the number pad I could send back a coded response, for things like 1=yes/2=no/3=maybe/4=I’ll call you now, etc. Or, wait for it… call the person and talk instead of texting (works best in a retirement scenario maybe)!
For Navigation, I use a Garmin Drive 51, which came with a ‘lifetime’ maps update, so no subscription req’d. The GPS interaction is a bit clunky compared to iPhone and its touchscreen takes some getting used to. I’ve also tried out OsmAnd Maps, which is like having a paper atlas on your iPad or iPhone. You download Open Street Map based maps (there are subscription and one-time purchase options). It has some nav capability that I want to try out. I just find it creepy to have my location tracked by Apps so I try to use offline maps. I learned map usage as a child and worked as a pilot for couple of decades, so I know how to read use a map without gps.
Wasn’t Vizio the first “smart” TV brand that made the news for selling user information to third parties without the users’ permission? (Believe that was settled by requiring an opt-in.)
Wow, I didn’t mean to provoke such a wide-ranging discussion. I was mostly thinking of Adam’s remark about Apple computer users mostly using Apple iPhones. I extended to the Apple Watch. Just a poll about these would be informative.
Alright, folks, let’s stay on topic—I’ve trimmed out the unrelated editorializing and associated back and forth.
Thanks for pointing out the confusion in the TV section—I was thinking afterward that it wasn’t good, but I hadn’t revisited it yet. I took out the fitness bands/rings since they compete with only a very specific feature of the Apple Watch and people (like several of my relatives) may wear both them and a watch. And since the goal here is to determine how invested we are in the Apple ecosystem, I’ve added sections for displays, earbuds, smart speakers, and VR headsets. How’s this updated version? Note that I am emphasizing primary device—there’s just no way to get into other things you might have around or the difference between home and work (where you may not get to make a decision anyway), and so on.
For each category below, what is your primary device? If you choose Other, please describe what you use in the comments.
I think “I don’t have a separate display” may confuse some laptop users. I’d replace this with “Laptop built-in display” and “I don’t use a display/computer”.
For that matter, what about people who use a second screen with their laptops simultaneously with the built-in screen? Both could be said to be “primary” if you always use both together. Maybe you should just add a caveat under “Display” saying not to count built-in laptop displays and then leave the options as they are.
FWIIW I have a “smart” TV but never use the smart features and certainly don’t connect it to the internet. Instead I use it as the monitor for an Apple TV. For OTA TV I use the Channels app and an HD Homerun network streaming device (which provides live TV on Macs and iDevices as well as the ATV).
For many years I used a retired iMac running Apple’s Front Row media app and EyeTV for OTA TV. In effect this was one of the first smart TV implementations and I was annoyed when Apple dropped support for Front Row. In any case I haven’t used a real TV for more than a decade.
Let’s do this poll! I use a Mac, iPad, Google Pixel (Android) phone, Fitbit and Oura ring, Beats and Sony earbuds, a Kindle Paperwhite, and various non-Apple smart TV dongles.
Some of us use multiple devices and one might not be primary. I use my Kindle for reading books more than my iPad but I use the iPad a tremendous amount.
Good option. I have a few Linux systems (one minitower and a Raspberry Pi) that operate headless. All my access is remote-login from another computer.
I wouldn’t consider either to be “primary” for me, but maybe there is a situation where that might be applicable here?
Or maybe not - if your primary computer is a headless system, then your primary display is going to be the display connected to the computer use primarily use for the remote-login session.
COMPUTER: Mac, and never used any other personal computer (although I used an IBM 1400 of some sort in high school)
Phone: Just started using an IPhone last fall after my old feature phone died and my wife gave me an her old iPhone. I rarely use smartphone features because I find the small screen very difficult to work on, and work on a 27-inch on a Mac desktop.
TABLET - Never used any form
WATCH - Never used.
TV: We have a plane old HDTV with no smart features but it’s never used. My wife uses iphone for streaming, not Apple TV.
, ie very little of their paid services.
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