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Ask Slashdot: What Is the 'Special Appeal' of Apple Products?
Reader dryriver writes: As someone who comes from MS-DOS/Windows PCs background, I've never quite understood the appeal of Apple's products. I don't think Apple's products are terrible or anything, but I just fail to see what is so special and different about Apple's electronics that many Apple users would never dream of switching to a non-Apple product. Where does the 'special appeal' of Apple products reside? And why are Apple users so very loyal to Apple products, even though with Apple's pricing policy, you rarely get the best bang-for-the-buck in a product?
I have a 2011 MacBook Air that i use at home, and it works as well today as it did the day i got it. This thing has seen some shit, man...and every single component still works flawlessly.
I can't say that about *any* other computer that i've ever owned.
Not everyone is trying to optimize compute performance per $ or any othe sort of technical spec per $. Some of us just want to be happy with our phone and laptops and some of us can afford to pay more than rock bottom prices for them.
There's a lot of weird ego stuff in these discussions on all sides. But beyond that, try to understand that everyone isn't trying to optimize the same things.
I used to buy PC laptops and desktops to run Linux and found I was always having issues unless I bought top spec equipment and even then for laptops the build quality was subpar unless you spent a lot of money so I would kill laptops each year with all the hard use and travel. I tried my first Mac back when the G4 iBook came out and that lasted 3x longer than any PC I had had and when I retired it, it went to my wife and continued to work for another 6 years in various uses. That's the thing, the Macs may not be the best bang for the buck but you get a well integrated and supported UNIX on hardware that is built to last so unless you're very cost sensitive at the time of purchase, the Mac will save money and be a better long term experience. Nothing to do with hipster this or shiny that, I'm a scientist working in genomics and the vast majority of my peers also use Macs. PCs running Linux are second most popular and Windows PC are a pathetic third place. We use Linux extensively for computing but for desktop and portable use a Mac is terrific.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
After a long day at work, either smashing my head against against the codeface down the Linux-mines, or being assaulted by a wide variety of sadistic corporate-grade Windows software, I get home tired and worn out.
I can put on the TV, sit on the sofa with my macbook, and not have that paranoid feeling that it's going to do something unpleasant and surprising. It won't interrupt me demanding to update, and then reboot my machine without saving 5 minutes later, despite me pressing the button that looked like it said "Don't do that". It won't shart itself because upstream decided to replace upstart with systemd during the last update, and now it won't load vital start up dependencies.
I don't want my home life to be as arduous as my work life. I have precious enough time to myself without having to fight my computer.
In my experience, it's the customer service. Apple has a couple of orders of magnitude better customer service than the rest. When I had a defective Samsung phone, my option was to go to the carrier store and hope they could help me. Usually they couldn't do so in any way that was convenient to me. When I first got an iPad, after a couple of months, a pixel died. I made an appointment at an Apple store and within 7 minutes of my arrival, I had a replacement device in my hands being restored from backup. Shortly after, I bought an iPhone as a result.
Additionally, most Android devices have a software update life cycle of maybe a year if you are lucky, compared to the 2-3 years that Apple will support their devices.
The Mac is good because you're not forced to update (unlike Windows).
The iPhone is good because you CAN update (unlike Android).
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I will consider my parenting to be a success if my kids never end up thinking like this.
That's pretty much why I like and use Apple products. I have used three laptops in the past 14 years: a high-end HP laptop, a mid-range from Lenovo, and the MacBook Air. HP's laptop worked fine for two years, but things started to get messy after that. Opening more than half a dozen tabs on Chrome would turn the laptop into a room-heater. Ubuntu never really worked with issues on that laptop. Lenovo's laptop worked fine for four years, but it started to run into same issues after a point. I have been using the MacBook Air (2013) for last three and a half years and I have had zero issues with it. It just works every single time. I would like to give something else a try as soon as this device dies. Windows 10 and Ubuntu run better on Paralles (a VM) on the MacBook Air than any laptop I have tried them on.
It took me less than three days to feel home on OS X (now macOS). Coming from Ubuntu and Windows, things were a lot different, but my impression OS X is just a dumbed down version of Windows in terms of complications. Everything is in right front of you. While I see no use of Siri that they introduced last year, and all the bells and whistles around PiP, and things like having two windows placed side-by-side, working on OS X has never made me feel frustrated. Again, for the things I need a laptop for, the MacBook Air has continued to deliver, so I have no reason to look elsewhere.
Resale value, as in, >2 year old Macs actually have one.
Which is a good reason to buy 2 years old PC for $0.
You've apparently never used iTunes then.