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8
kiki
4y

Here, a full retrospective of my Apple products ownership.

iPhone SE – after Android, I was absolutely amazed by how fast it worked. No UI lags, camera works absolutely instantly no matter the light conditions, all the GPU-heavy games work butter smooth.

After camera and charging port failures on Xperia flagship and CPU literally melting through screen rendering it unusable on Meizu, it was enough to make me interested in Apple products.

When I was using Meizu, I actually got a twitching eye which was triggered by UI lags. After two months of using iPhone, I noticed that something was missing – my eye wasn't twitching anymore.

iPhone actually cured me.

MacBook 12 – a 900 grams laptop with passive-cooled mobile CPU running many Chrome tabs, heavy Webpack HMR build, VSCode and Slack just fine. Yes, you can't play games, but I don't even require it from a laptop this tiny.

Butterfly keyboard that internet hates so much actually increased my typing speed and comfort compared to MX Red mechanical keyboard, and ForceTouch trackpad made me forget about mouse. I learned how to disassemble the Butterfly keyboard if I ever need this but the keyboard never failed.

I use this laptop to this day and it still even smells like the day one, a beautiful smell of a new Apple product.

iPhone X – got it because of the camera, stayed for great battery life and amazing OLED display. I use telephoto lens exclusively and it made me lay off my Canon DSLR with Helios lens which stays on my bookshelf covered in dust to this day.

True black of OLED display which is undistinguishable from the screen bezel is stunning. To this day, battery surely works for one and a half days and I watch youtube really often.

I sometimes struggled to unlock iPhone SE with wet fingers, but with FaceID, as soon as I look at the screen the phone is unlocked. Works perfect every time, never had an issue with this.

Stainless steel body feels premium compared to aluminum. Stereo sound is a major selling point if you're like watching videos and playing games on your phone. Overall amazing product and a huge improvement over SE.

Apple Watch series 4 – really comfortable fit. Nice battery life, once I forgot about it for like ten days during lockdown and it was still working, even though on power reserve mode. Really reliable in terms of battery life and liquid protection. Very satisfying Taptic Engine crown clicks. I run every day and Apple watch always measure my heart rate correctly, and the running app is well designed and a pleasure to use. Overall a nice accessory to have if you use iPhone.

Powerbeats Pro – great sound and battery life. I switched from Shure SE215 which was great, but it had wires. I listen to a lot of music so the sound quality is important for me. When I was choosing earphones I visited a store where you can listen to them all. I listened through earphones like Noble Audio Kaiser Encore and JH Audio Layla, and of course $4000 Laylas sound better than $249 bluetooth earphones, but the difference in sound doesn't justify the difference in price to me.

Powerbeats pro is the Apple H1 chip true wireless earphones with largest driver of them all which makes them sound better than AirPods Pro – it's just physics. Bass in Powerbeats is amazing, which is also true for my Shures, but Powerbeats also win in clarity.

It connects seamlessly to both my MacBook and my iPhone, and everyone in voice chats can hear me really good.

Huge case is a major throwback compared to AirPods, but the battery life of earphones themselves is so great that I just leave the case at home and only carry earphones and it works for me.

Apple Link bracelet in space black – really better than I expected. Intricate detailing, literally the steel that Rolex uses, top-notch finishing and polishing – all that for just 450 dollars. I only used it for several days now, but it already feels like a really satisfying product.

Before all that I was using Linux. It took a year for elementaryos devs to fix wifi for my laptop. Ubuntu looks and feels ugly. Pop OS felt like garbage. Manjaro was also just that – garbage. KDE Plasma – I don't even want to talk about that. A monstrocity where you accidentally click a wrong switch in the settings and your system won't boot up again. Also, PulseAudio. Struggles with proprietary drivers and software updates.

Windows? I serviced a lot of Windows PCs through my career and it never, never worked as intended. I'm no dumbass, I always managed the rights correctly and never installed sketchy apps. My latest ryzen gaming build with a lot of ram also lags somehow even in Windows 10 UI.

Before I switched, I defended Linux.

My life was a lie.

I'm sorry to everyone who I offended based on their opinion on Linux.

rant

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Comments
  • 1
    4y
    how good is force touch?

    I keep hearing about it and reading about it but I'm skeptical that any non-physical thing could feel like an actual button click.
  • 0
    4y
    @Wisecrack it's actually pretty decent. Not as tactile as an actual bump but when you're working you don't notice.
  • 0
    4y
    @Wisecrack man, it feels even better than actual click. Buttons wear out but simulated things like force touch live forever. Also the pressure needed to actually perform a click is perfectly even no matter the actual spot you click.

    You can also choose between two different click sounds: the hi-frequency-ish edgier one and the deeper, more silent one. I prefer the latter.

    After force touch trackpad it’s hard to use old style trackpads even on older MacBooks
  • 2
    4y
    > Butterfly keyboard that internet hates so much

    You probably don't mean it this way. This sounds like it's unfounded. It's not, there are genuine reliability issues with the butterfly mechanism. Apple abandoned it and went back to the scissors mechanism for that reason.
  • 1
    4y
    @Wisecrack it’s uncanny how realistic the trackpad clicks but you turn off your MacBook and it doesn’t click anymore
  • 0
    4y
    @VaderNT I know, but the internet in fact hated it and how to explain that I never had an issue with it even though I’m not the most tidy person?
  • 0
    4y
    @Wisecrack it feels damn close to the click of a physical button. In day to day use of various touchpads I don't notice a difference.

    As an aside, I recommend against touchpads. They strain the wrist a lot, especially quick swipe gestures. Well, at least for me. Something to keep in mind if you get wrist or forearm pains and wonder where they come from.
  • 0
    4y
    @uyouthe

    > Buttons wear out but simulated things like force touch live forever
    The linear actuators that produce the simulated click can fail, too. Don't get me wrong, force touch is kinda cool, but this is a bad argument.

    > how to explain that I never had an issue with it
    It's not that all keyboards or all keys failed. So not everyone had an issue. You're part of the luckier group. That's the explanation. (As am I, btw. Some of my MacBook Pro's keys started feeling "crunchy" even though I treat it with utmost care. Luckily, no failure so far.)

    How's this for an analogy: Let's say you bought a lottery ticket, but didn't win. Just because you didn't, it doesn't mean there's no lottery winners at all. Same principle.
  • 0
    4y
    @VaderNT linear actuator can fail but if it works, it works, the moving part are actuated by magnetic field. Without physical damage to the hinges that holds the moving part, this construction will last a lot longer than a button. In the physical button there’s always a microspark between contacts which build up carbon residue and that’s why buttons wear out.

    With lottery ticket argument, I agree. Butterfly keyboard failures are undeniable
  • 4
    4y
    Always nice to see people supporting a company that sues people who repair their own devices.

    Sure, Apples devices/ecosystem might be nice, but the company is super anti-consumer.
  • 0
    4y
    @VaderNT I agree with this, touchpads really strain your hand. I love the ThinkPad trackpoint for this, my hands never leave the keyboard and it's incredibly comfortable.
  • 1
    4y
    Give it a bit of time, when all your stuff throttles itself and refuses to install updates / app its fully capable of running you might be more than just a little annoyed.

    Unless you have the disposable capital to just keep throwing lots of money at it, anyway.
  • 2
    4y
    No worries, no offense taken. (although I'm really wondering how on earth you can fuck up Manjaro KDE with only clicking a settings thing.... manjaro thing? I I've Kubuntu running still as smooth as day 1)

    Are the prices lower over there or are you willing to pay a lot for convenience? Like, the iPhone x starts at over 1K here, which I find insanely expensive for a phone (for comparison, I have a Moto G5 Plus with a custom rom (android 9/Lineage based) which runs fucking smooth but cost me about 60-70 euro). I can hardly justify a phone more expensive than 200 euro for myself.

    As for Macbooks, the ones with the specs I'd need start at about 2,5K here (computer compared), the lower spec ones ('only' 2/4gb ram etc) start at around 900/1K.
    For the first option I bought computer parts and built a desktop for around 500 (saving me 2K in comparison to a Macbook), for the second option (for doing stuff on the road etc) I currently have a 200 (got it second hand) euro Microsoft Surface 3 Pro running Pop OS which will soon be replaced by a phonebook which goes at 100 dollar.
    For me, those devices provide all the convenience I want/need, for the record.

    I don't have a smartwatch yet, waiting for a stable release of the the PineTime (25 dollar, programmable).

    The main reason I don't use apple stuff is that its systems are proprietary and thus we can't check whether there are backdoors or not, but I also don't find their OS's convenient at all.
    And of course, the price(s). If I'd buy everything I'd conveniently want, I once estimated about 10K in total, right now in total at around 1K I think... (including computer/laptop/tablet(x2)/phone/headphones/watch (non-smart).

    For the record, not trying to bash you, genuine question(s)!
  • 1
    4y
    @LesMore But I'd like it if the layer that I can possibly control with my knowledge is at least reviewable.
  • 0
    4y
    @LesMore It all depends what are you doing. For office work and some programming I am using i3, 4gb ram small laptop with SSD(I drop it and this is why I change it) and linux with tilling windows manager. Only problem is small screen, but it isn`t suitable for any gaming or heavy duty work so it depends.

    Whatever works for you and makes your job done.
  • 0
    4y
    @linuxxx but if you compare the 2.5k macbooks to equivalent Notebooks the price difference isn't actually that high. 12" macbooks have a huge premium though.
    What do you use now? And what did it cost?
  • 1
    4y
    Good for you, but I honestly cannot justify the pricing.
  • 1
    4y
    @eval I don't actively use a laptop so that would be a false comparison but I've recently seen very affordable dell/lenovo laptops which have amazing specs for under 1K. (at least 32gb ram)

    @dontknowshit Define can't beat apple? In software? In hardware? In what? I've had an iPhone to try it out and I was so fucking glad when I got my new android device so that I could stop using the iPhone.
  • 0
    4y
    @linuxxx ahhh of course, i mean desktop beats it all :)
  • 0
    4y
    @eval But then still, I've got a self built desktop with 24gb ram, 8 cores, 128gb ssd, 2tb hdd....
    For like 500 euro or so? Why the fuck would I need a Mac?
  • 1
    4y
    @dontknowshit My 3 years old phone with custom rom (android 9) runs very smooth and only one tiny issue so I don't share that experience.

    But it also depends on what you define as way ahead. In pricing they are, I don't know many people who can afford iPhones.
    As for OS, I wouldn't find a nearly completely locked down/proprietary OS ahead at all. I'd like to have full control of the software and not be dependent on a commercial software vendor for patches and updates.

    I've had an iPhone for about 5 weeks and I find the OS highly intuitive and to get this fucker working with Linux or basic things as importing contacts... that's insanely hard to impossible.
  • 0
    4y
    @dontknowshit I think a more productive question is: What would convince you iPhones aren't "just better" and "can't be beaten"?
  • 0
    4y
    @linuxxx you definitely don't.

    If you are happy with linux as your main OS and don't need portability, it would make 0 sense to buy mac.
    If you need performance and portability, and don't mind spending the extra 2-300 for OSX (because you like it or want to use apps that are win/osx only without too much tinkering), then a MacBook pro is great. As long as we can agree that windows is crap, i'm ok :D
  • 0
    4y
    @dontknowshit
    My abdroid runs as smooth as my moms iphone. I get more flexibility though, even without a custom rom. At least i can install an APK without gplay...

    Also, it cost me 250 and has a just as good if not better camera.

    As for the mechanical build quality, that's just not really true. I've dropped my phone all the time without breaking, while my mom and sister (apple fanboys) always break theirs. I won't say mine is more robust though... It just comes down to what exactly happens, and a huge part is just luck. You get stories from both sides - in the end i believe:
    Yes, iphones have quite good build quality, but so do like 50% of Android phones. You just have more choice....

    Always remember, Android is just a OS. The end result, both SW and HW wise is mostly up to the actual manufacturer.
  • 0
    4y
    @dontknowshit the portability part was about using desktop vs Laptop because for desktops macs are even more overpriced.

    I have a xiaomi redmi note 8 pro, and i honestly don't know what you mean with the delay. Everything is super smooth.

    If you're talking about safari loading pages quicker, that is because of some non standard caching behavior that overall does more harm than good. I can live happily without that!
  • 0
    4y
    @VaderNT I guess I'm in the 1990's-early-2000s peasantry still using a mouse because trackpad was invented by the devil.
  • 0
    4y
    @dontknowshit I have experienced that as well but not on my current phone/rom.

    As for the closed vs open source, this is definitely a thing for me. With closed source systems you can't verify shit and thus I'd rather not use it. But especially since apple is integrated in one of world's biggest (illegal) mass surveillance programs... I'll take my privacy and security.

    "they" - hahaha. There are more than I can count so unless you tried them all, that's not really an argument imo. There aren't many that work smooth/near flawless for my current phone but my current rom does.

    Importing contacts was just an example, can one import vcf files by now?
    But other than that, I refuse to login with an online account on my phone (apple id or gmail account), I need (NEED) an sd card slot, headphone input, root access (it's my goddamn phone and thus I want goddamn control), customizable interface... and so on. It's just not for me.

    Oh, and, I'd like to spend below 1K for a fucking phone! (I love phones with big displays and those iPhones start at like 1500 euro over her)
  • 0
    4y
    @dontknowshit Oh and as for snappyness (cc @eval), there are slightly bigger delays on some android apps in comparison to iPhones (but also the other way around, from my own experience) but if I have to wait half a second longer or even a whole (!!!) second, the 1400 euro I'm saving with not having an iPhone right now quite justify this for me :)
  • 0
    4y
    @dontknowshit I do agree with that but I'm just a little stronger minded about open source.
    Maybe it's also because I'm in the world of cyber security and the change of getting target for surveillance is higher than normal, thus I don't want to use iOS. (so, for security and privacy reasons).

    But damn, that's nearly 1700 euro! No way on earth I'd pay that for a phone haha.

    But then also, what do I do with a smartphone? I mostly use Firefox, Signal (fuck WhatsApp), sms, calling, SSH... that's about it? I don't (except for this one) use any social media or other messengers than Signal either so yeah..

    But I'll soon be going for a PinePhone! I just have to find a signal client that works with Linux and I should be good :) (150 dollar)
  • 0
    4y
    @dontknowshit Join the signal club haha.

    I manage about 20-40 servers so it's kinda a requirement :)

    Well, I'm going to use Kerckhoff's principle here; can you show me that iOS is secure? Can we get the code publicly reviewed by cyber security specialists who are good at this? If not, why on earth would I be able to find it secure? I, or people who are qualified to do judge this, can't even remotely verify this haha.
    For all we know apple could include backdoors but as long as we can't verify the code... We can't verify shit. And since the 2013 Snowden revelations I'm wary about this since documents appeared showing a secret NSA iPhone backdoor program + snowden refusing to use apple products because he says they contain NSA spying capabilities. I'm not blindly trusting him on his word but.... I can't verify this which I'd like to if I'd were to use the product.
  • 0
    4y
    @dontknowshit so it isn't about the "overall package" after all, and only about performance? I think you're moving the goalpost. You've moved it to the one thing where Apple actually is ahead: Their custom silicon.

    Because here's the thing: When one says "better", the question is "better for what"? I absolutely want a headphone jack, USB-C and an SD card slot. And that means the iPhone isn't only not "just better", it a flat out failure as it provides none of that.
  • 0
    4y
    @dontknowshit That entirely depends on how it's programmed haha. Is it something that's listening? Easy to detect. Is it something that triggers when a specific incoming http header has a specific value? Without source, you'd probably never figure this out.

    And as for the likeliness, I would agree if it were not for the fact that apple is also integrated within the PRISM mass surveillance network.
  • 0
    4y
    @dontknowshit
    > I accidentally reported your comment, sorry.

    Don't worry about it. 🙂

    > I understand some people do want those things but I’m willing to give them up for what I see as the other advantages (for me) of owning an iPhone.

    That's fair, we talked past each other. When I read "iPhones are just better", to me this is equivalent to saying "iPhones are just better *objectively*" or "iPhones are just better *for everyone*".

    As I understand you now, you actually mean "iPhones are just better *for me*". Yeah, I'm cool with that. Use what works best for you. 👍
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