A lot of heat has been placed on apple for their decisions. While I think a lot of them are just people jumping on a social high of vilifying a corporation. Sure they can think of justifications to their criticisms, but most of them can be dismissed and straw targets. Apple is not without its faults though, they could design their products to last longer or be more easily repaired.
Apple’s targeting of third party repairs is not always justified. However, I believe that if your product is repaired by a non-certified repair person your warranty should be void. This is because the repair person may not have the same level of expertise as an Apple certified repair person. This is not to say that a third party repair person is not as good as an Apple certified repair person, but it is to say that Apple cannot guarantee the quality of the repair. This is not to say that Apple should not allow third party repairs, but that they should not be held liable for the quality of the repair. ** Wow Copilot filled most of this out for me. I did not write half of this. But it is my thoughts. Have to be careful in case it is plagiarized. **
The walled garden is another issue, but I believe this is not an apple issue and more of a developer issue. The walled garden is needed for an easy to use and safe environment. Those development costs for the iOS software and tools come from the yearly fees. Apple is also a company and it is required for them to turn a profit. However they should really look at the fees and make sure it is justifiable for the people who contribute to their success through apps in the store.
I have owned a lot of iPads over and recently decided I was treating my 10.9” iPad Pro as more of a laptop than a portable screen. I had the smart keyboard cover and that limited the ways I could use it as well. The screen size made the whole thing unwieldy to carry around.
Recently I wanted to move away from my Kindle Paperwhite to something that could handle colors and was not as restrictive as Amazon products are. This led me to look at the iPad Mini. I chose the 64g version with cellular. I have been using it for a few weeks now and it really takes care of my needs. Not only can I easily carry it around it works with the 2nd generation of Apple Pencils. I no longer feel like it is a portable laptop and actually a tablet for different use cases. The one problem I have with it is it is 100g heavier than my Kindle Paperwhite so holding it up can lead to arm fatigue after an hour or so. Obviously the battery is consumed faster because of the screen and backlighting. I think an OLED display would help alot for this.
My point is that sometimes the bigger badder thing is not what you need and even though it is nearly the same product except for scale the use case is different. I am not saying that the iPad Pro is not a good product, but that it is not the right product for my needs. I will probably be selling it and keeping the iPad Mini line as my main tablet.
Not much to say about this, I wear my watch every day and it has become nearly vital for my daily function. It is one of those things you configure and forget about. I have not had any issues with it and it has been a great addition to my life. The leaps between the different generations are minor for me and I would wait 3-4 years before upgrading. It is not something you need to upgrade every year.
This is one place where I splurg a bit on the higher end models. Technically I would be fine with the non-pro version as long as it plays my music, audiobooks, and handles other functions. I spend money on the higher end models because I think I need those shiny new feature. In reality I rarely or never use them. The cameras in my iPhone 14 Pro Max(What a mouthful) are excellent, but I do not use them very much. My idea was to start vlogging with it, but I am a bit camera shy so never get around to it.
The iPhone is another place where one needs to deeply think about their choices. I am happy with Apples App Store and supporting family members on this device. But I will no longer offer assistance if side loading becomes a thing. Seriously, a person with lack of technical knowledge will follow an Online Video to install some stupid app store, get infected, and forget to tell me they did that. If you want to sideload apps you are better off with an Android device. The EU telling apple how to run their bussiness seems like a ploy to weaken tech companies for something else. The lawmakers have no real understanding of technology or technological security risks.
Mac Mini might be a bit niche, but is good for content creators to get an easy device to work with. I use the M1 of both the Mac Mini and Macbook Pro. I rarely have to reboot like windows and the battery life on the Macbook beats any windows devices I have ever had. I do have a gaming laptop, but I don’t count them towards battery comparison. It is not what was made for. But if I had a macbook equivalent the macbook would win hands down. It also has an easier interface for development. I have not had any issues with the M1 chip and it is a great device. I would recommend it to anyone who wants an easy to use device for content creation or browsing. I would still use Windows for gaming though. Linux is my flavor of choice for servers and I have extensive experience with all three operating systems.
These just work. Apple TV can be replaced with just about anything and I would probably go with Roku if I did not already have one. It still beats the Firestick, but is equal to Chromecast.