this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Apple
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Apple offers average turd polished to perfection. If you are looking to solve problems then you look at specs and what hardware/software can do for you. At that point Apple stops being viable option because just for the RAM upgrade itself you can buy a decent used ThinkPad laptop more powerful than Mac you are trying to buy.
Apple is a statement, just like Supreme is. Charge 150$ for plain white t-shirt and people buy it because they want to be part of the cult, not because it's 150x higher quality cotton or more durable material. You buy it because of the name or because they have you by the balls, because Apple makes it very easy to enter their ecosystem, but impossibly hard to leave.
I would normally agree as a 25 year windows enjoyer, however the apple chips are a gamechanger for laptops
They are no black magic. ARM is simply better optimized for mobile devices and Apple being a walled garden with tightly controlled hardware and software, they had the ability to transition into ARM chis on laptops without much hassle. However ARM chips do suffer in performance and some other areas. That said, the rest of the gang is following up with this move. Won't be too long before they lose even that advantage.
Also, I wouldn't really call them a game changer. I understand what you meant by your statement, but as a laptop MacBooks are a really bad choice with almost zero repairability these days. From glued batteries, soldered memory to programmed chips which stop working if you move them to another board. All of this (and much more) combined with their repeated engineering failures with even simplest of things makes them extremely undesirable in my eyes. Problem is, people never realize there's a problem until warranty program runs out and devices start massively dying. Those that do survive are touted as "Apple quality", but millions of others remain forgotten.
No.
As a user (not a tec person) I seek solutions that fit my daily life problems. I don't care for technical specs. I don't want to fiddle and tweak my system until I can finally start proceeding my task. I want to take decent photos, I don't care about the chip size or brand. I want to share those with others and not take care of the technical infrastructure (cloud, encryption, compression, etc.). I want to rotate videos I took, I don't care about the processor who does that. If the product is not capable of doing so I will return it.
Apple does not overwhelm me with technical specs. They offer those features I need to proceed my daily private leisure time tasks. In 95% of my cases I probably don't need to care about "RAM" or "Lidar", unless I experience some downsides. I am willing to pay for a higher price tag to enhance my system if everything else "around" that system eases my daily life. And no, I am not willing to pay a ridiculous higher price tag like that monitor stand. Yes, there are some customers out there buying those products. No, they are not the majority.
You are contradicting yourself when you say you are willing to pay higher price to enhance your system. If you don't understand what you are paying how do you know you are upgrading. Everyone seems to be focusing on that monitor stand as an example of Apple = expensive, when in fact everything is more expensive for no other reason than to milk your loyalty and habits.
I also disagree with the whole differentiation between user and tech person. Of course there are people who care about numbers more than they should, but in general you should care about what you are buying. If you go to buy a washing machine you don't go and point finger and black and say I want this one. You check the amount of clothes it can take, you check if there's a program you need. Same with buying literally anything. Is it a smart TV or not, how big is it? Are these shoes water proof or not? Etc. You don't go on saying "as a walker and not a mountain climber I don't care about shoe specs". Of course you do. At least to a degree.
And let me tell you, as a user and not a tech person, 99% of your daily life problems is solved with literally any laptop, PC or phone out there right now. What you are looking for is style over substance. For something to look pretty and to be part of a group which has a habit of praising themselves for their choices. Problem is, you all live in a bubble now and think no other manufacturer can produce quality and looks at the same time. Which is wrong but distortion field is strong.
Want to prove me wrong? Next time you want to go buy a phone or a laptop or a car... just ask for random one. Since you don't care about specs, screen size shouldn't be the problem, nor storage space. Funny how not caring about specs but when buying a new device it's never the last years model.
I am fully aware of what I am paying for. I pay for more convenience in my life and for that ~~I don't need~~ I don't want to understand everything underneath the surface. I want to take photos, maybe in bad lighting. For that I don't want to read a manual, buy some extra equipment, take some sort of classes, etc. I don't care about the underlying technology (long-time exposure, lense-shift, AI-stuff, etc.)
Of course not. I also check the programs what the product is capable of and how it eases my daily life. Therefore I don't need to know the material the barrel is made of, how many holes it has and if the water flows counterclockwise or not.
Sure, but within the Apple world there is no initial setup or tweaking required. Set the default browser on a Windows PC to Chrome? Windows: "I sometimes don't care". Attach two external monitors to a Windows PC? Lottery game, which one is left and right. Close the laptop in the same setting? Windows will ask you for your fingerprint to log in. I have encountered so so many absurd situations within the Windows world. Yes, maybe some Linux distro might be better, but just ask your neighbor two doors further to install it all on her own and I bet you she will fail.
This mindset is the exact problem 80% of tec-savy people why there are still so many products that fail miserably in usability tests. No, they are NOT looking for "stylish" products (maybe some are, yes, but not the majority) but for products they can actually use without the need of taking care of them like a child ("I need an app to find those apps that drain my RAM on my Android device".) or needing to take evening classes to sync contacts between phone and laptop. Sorry to say, but declassing these customers as blatant sheep, thinking they run for style only is condescending.