One mans madness is another mans etc etc etc :D
I have been in the Apple ecosystem for home use for a long time now. I was in the Windows ecosystem for work also for a long time. I never had issues moving from one ecosystem to the other, although I did install VMware to enable me to work from home from time to time.
Now for home and work I am in the Apple ecosystem. I like the interpretability, reliability and security of the Apple devices and the software. But my external drives, mouses, cables, pods and other stuff are not Apple either because Apple does not sell them, or have design or quality issues.
I tend to have the latest Apple hardware. But the prices have risen considerably and I consider Apple is price gouging. I have a Mac Studio, but I am about to buy a second monitor and that will not be another Mac Studio because of its high cost.
Thank you for these polls. I look forward to the results of this one and for a poll on usage of Apple services.
Iām pretty much āall inā. I started with the Mac SE in '88 and havenāt looked back. Thereās been a long string of Apple products since.
Currently I have a M1 16" MBP as my primary tool, itās probably much more āpowerā than I ever use but I do need the portability and I sure like the screen āreal estateā. I spend way to much time with it. Iām a couple generations behind in upgrading my OS 'cause Brother hasnāt updated the drivers for my printer. (Shame on Brother!!!)
Also have an iPad, iPhone (my 3rd, one quit working), Apple Watch, Home Pods (2), and Apple TV. I do read a fair amount from the iPhone (but prefer the big screen of the MBP), and listen to a good bit of news and music from the Home Pod. Occasionally use the iPad; the Apple TV, not so much.
Iāve begun to play with ChatGPT; probably havenāt challenged it much, thus far it has been useful.
Now a late stage āoctogenarianā, I find the āHealthā information provided by the Watch-iPhone combination of increasing importance.
BTW, living alone, the app āSnug Safeā provides a little peace of mind.
2 Likes
It was all Apple. I use Windows on a MacBook Air. No Vision Pro though - they are yet not sold in Swedenā¦
Swinsian can access your Music library, so you could use it that way if you wished. As for its own library management, it can organise tracks into folders by album & compilation, and by default all editing is saved to the track files.
Fair point, though, on it potentially becoming abandonware again. Iāll admit that I was considering possible candidates to replace it at some point, particularly as version 2 was Intel-only and the clock is now ticking on Rosetta2 support. Version 3 at least gives me relief from the latter.
If the Music app is working okay for you then I wouldnāt suggest jumping ship. Personally, I was fine with most of the appās features ā my problems stemmed from how it āmanagedā my library when connected to the Apple Music service, and even after cutting that cord it still had issues due to the sheer number of tracks Iād acquired over the years.
1 Like
Well, these days, there really are only two. iPad and those running Android.
I suppose you could also count a Windows-based tablet. Those have really fallen by the wayside, but Windows 10 had a tablet mode and Windows 11 has features that can be enabled to produce (mostly) the same thing. But thatās really meant for āconvertibleā laptops, where you can fold a touch screen completely around to the other side of the keyboard and use the device (more or less) as a tablet.
I use my Apple Vision Pro almost exclusively for streaming. It is a much better experience than looking at a TV or monitor.
1 Like
You only need to login to a Google account if you would like to edit or review your answers after submitting them.
You can hit the submit button without logging in.
1 Like
Likedd the Mac in 1984, and its error-reduction Graphic User Interface Learned of its User-Centered Human Interface Guidelines. iPhone replaced Palm and Treo. Recently iWatch replaced emotionally gifted analog watch. Do use a bit of Google Calendar when having to give/get data on sites set up by others.
Thatās exactly my point, if youād read the rest of my post. I have a Windows tablet, which is satisfactory except that it canāt be upgraded to Windows 11 and so will cease to be secure in the fairly near future. And the Windows world seems to have stopped developing true tablet computers. iOS and Android are not robust enough to be answers; they are tablets first and hardly computers at all. The Surface Go was actually a very good compromise: Entirely competent as a tablet and at least usable as an actual computer.
I suppose what that proves is that there isnāt enough market for true tablet computers. Of course, that makes it the perfect place for Apple to define a segment. But theyād need to start doing something original again, which they seem to have lost the ability to do.
I read your post. And I understand your opinion. But the fact is that Windows tablets were never very popular and they arenāt made at all today (not counting convertible laptops).
Whether or not that is significant enough to get a separate line item in the survey is up to @ace. I assume he omitted it because it hadnāt occurred to him and nobody mentioned it in the pre-survey discussion.
ātrueā is a matter of opinions. But a tablet with the power of a PC laptop is really expensive and I think does have only a niche market. Hence the convertible laptops - so you can flip the screen around and use it in whichever configuration is appropriate at the time.
But (and this is another matter of opinion), I would count such a device as a computer, not a tablet.
My main two devices are a Macbook Air (2020, M1) and a 3rd-gen iPhone SE. I also have a 9th-gen iPad and a 2021 Apple TV. No Apple watches, speakers or earphones. Watches: they are what I call āsmart enoughā. Oneās an old Timex analog watch, the other is a Casio LCD digital watch. They do what I need and refuse to die. They have no connectivity to the Apple or any other digital āecosystem.ā Have a couple of non-Apple Bluetooth speakers and non-Apple Bluetooth earbuds. I have no plans to get an Apple watch.
Primary is iMac, also Macbook Air, iPhone, iPad. Started with Apple 11c in 1986.
John Henderson
I thought my responses would indicate my clear metropolitan liberalism, but alas, it appears I am completely delusional, and I am in fact all in with the Apple ecosystem. This probably makes for a very boring response. Well, except that I would never buy Apple Vision Pro, but thatās hardly unexpected, even for someone whoās not blind (Meta is certainly getting our attention, though, sad to say).
But where Apple are concerned, I think itās the hardware and the lock-in, in the endāyou just run virtual machines every time you need the utility (or utilitarianism) of other OSs, and you get to keep a nice *NIX platform running on wicked-fast and low-power hardware, and a nice ecosystem of software to make it broadly useful most of the rest of the time. I do think the transition to Apple Silicon has thrown a wrench into the works, but I doubt itās insurmountable; ARM Windows already runs two of the major screen readers for working around VoiceOver bugs, and the main weakness has been driver support for Braille displays. And my existing inventory of Macs can certainly run other operating systems natively, albeit less well than generic x86 hardware. Even so, I relish competition from AMD, because Iām irritated by macOSās direction of travel and Appleās prices do make it harder to justify for anything but their laptops, so I donāt really know where Iām headed after my Intel iMac diesāwhether I move to an all-in-one-laptop workflow, or divide my workload up between a more balanced platform line-up. Actually, I can well imagine just doing the sensible thing and buying some mini PCs to run server duties on, which could easily include a VM host for x86, and aside from the issue of headless management (including the firmware), that would honestly be good enough. Iād prefer desktop hardware on my desktop, but I could make it work.
What is a loyal TidBITSer? I guess Iāve been reading TidBITS fairly avidly since the days of setext. Does that count?
I run Linux on my main machine but use an iPhone. If I can find an elegant Linux phone Iām switching. if I worked in media production I can imagine being tied to Mac though.
The huge delight of Linux is running it on great laptops that last years and one can upgrade oneself. Iāve just upgraded my Lenovo ThinkPad t470s (which I bought second hand in as-new condition for $450 or so 4 or 5 years ago) to 16GB of RAM and 1TB nvme storage. Also Iāve had the same desktop ā exactly ā for more than 10 years. Thatās not stopping me running last weekās Debian Trixie though; easy-peasy upgrade.
I support others in the family using Apple devices. I personally donāt like the walled garden very much, and I think the OS and physical design are going downhill. The idea that nvme disks on Apple laptops are hardware-keyed from being user-upgraded is simply ridiculous, and seems part of a plot to get one to rent oneās data back from iCloud(!).
Conspiracy theories aside, it would be interesting to think what great software weād have if kids were brought up on the command line rather than clicking stuff. Terminal inputs are the beginning phrases of programs, perhaps.
In any event the TidBITSer community seems full of thoughtful, interesting people, trying to get the most out of technology. Maybe Apple isnāt the best route to doing that anymore?
1 Like
I answered āOtherā for āStreaming Deviceā. Like @Simon I donāt have a TV, so all my streaming is done on my Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Sometimes I will Airplay or Cast what Iām/weāre watching to a projector (usually from my iPhone).
I started with an Apple //e in '82, but that was the last desktop Apple that I owned. Iāve been laptop pretty much since, now with a MBP M4. iPhone SE 3rd gen (everything else is too big!). And instead of headphones, I have Oticon hearing aids (which work great with my iPhone but not with the laptop).
What did you do between 1982 and 1991, when the first PowerBook was released? Or did you have a Macintosh Portable?
Apple //c debuted in 1984. Of course it didnāt include the monitor as modern ālaptopsā do.
True, but Apple dealers always offered bundles including a monitor and other accessories.
When I got mine, back in the day, the dealer bundled the 9" green Apple Monitor //c, an external floppy drive and an Apple Scribe printer.
Other common options were the Color Composite Monitor //c (the color composite monitor IIe and //c were the same display, but with a different enclosure/stand to coordinate with the computer) and the ImageWriter printer.
Maybe the dealer put the bundle together, but there were definitely discounts for buying all the pieces at once.