Apple fanboy and software developer here. Also disappointed with the Catalina release. Had do an NV RAM reset, boot into safe mode, talk to Apple support to solve iCloud issues, and also click away dozens of privacy notifications.
But I still really don’t consider windows or Linux as legitimate alternatives because of the ecosystem log in.
Yes, macOS has its downsides. But what keeps me from even thinking about Linux are all these little niceties:
- copy something on my iPhone, paste it on the Mac (still regularly leaves people speechless when they watch me do it: “what!? You can do that?”)
- my watch unlocks my Mac
- my desktop is always in my pocket, all files sync’ed per default, zero config
- Start Reading something in safari, Hand it over to my iPhone in a second and walk out the door
- All my browser tabs synced across my Mac, iPhone and iPad
- I can curate my TV Watchlist on my Mac and it’s automatically available on my AppleTV when I get home that night
I could go on with dozens more of these little things that I can’t imagine living without anymore. I know that it’s probably possible to achieve most or all of this with a Linux/Android/Chromecast Setup. But every time I watch some of my friends do it, it just looks like so much work to set up and maintain.
The only argument I understand here is the joy of tinkering and that feeling of achievement when you get it to work in the end. Apple is a bit boring in that regard. A lot of the integration stuff just works (yeah, yeah, sure not all, but still more so than on any other platform I know).
I’m not 20 anymore and I just prefer to spend my time with other things these days than tweaking my OS.
So although I wish Apple would invest more into quality on macOS again, for me the walled garden just totally works, and I’ll stick with the lesser evil.
Those features are in no way exclusive. The clipboard sync? KDE connect does that for me between my phone, my laptop and my desktop (even though I use gtk desktops). All my files are in my pocket with syncthing, updated in real time through the filesystem watcher. Tab sync? Just log into Firefox, boom, done. All those things are set and forget - enable once, never think of them again. And they just work and keep on working.
The thing is that non-technical people aren't using those features on windows/linux desktops even if it is possible to do them, whereas they are using them for macOS and iOS
It's the barrier to entry and knowledge. I agree for tab sync but for most things it takes a degree of setup and also knowing that the feature even exists to set things up, but even casual Apple users seem to know about and use these features
But I still really don’t consider windows or Linux as legitimate alternatives because of the ecosystem log in.
Yes, macOS has its downsides. But what keeps me from even thinking about Linux are all these little niceties: - copy something on my iPhone, paste it on the Mac (still regularly leaves people speechless when they watch me do it: “what!? You can do that?”) - my watch unlocks my Mac - my desktop is always in my pocket, all files sync’ed per default, zero config - Start Reading something in safari, Hand it over to my iPhone in a second and walk out the door - All my browser tabs synced across my Mac, iPhone and iPad - I can curate my TV Watchlist on my Mac and it’s automatically available on my AppleTV when I get home that night
I could go on with dozens more of these little things that I can’t imagine living without anymore. I know that it’s probably possible to achieve most or all of this with a Linux/Android/Chromecast Setup. But every time I watch some of my friends do it, it just looks like so much work to set up and maintain.
The only argument I understand here is the joy of tinkering and that feeling of achievement when you get it to work in the end. Apple is a bit boring in that regard. A lot of the integration stuff just works (yeah, yeah, sure not all, but still more so than on any other platform I know).
I’m not 20 anymore and I just prefer to spend my time with other things these days than tweaking my OS.
So although I wish Apple would invest more into quality on macOS again, for me the walled garden just totally works, and I’ll stick with the lesser evil.