8 ms·

Maybe it's just me, but the integration of my Apple ecosystem makes each device feel generations ahead of my Windows/Linux devices. The whole UX flow is just so

Maybe it's just me, but the integration of my Apple ecosystem makes each device feel generations ahead of my Windows/Linux devices. The whole UX flow is just so damn smooth and convenient, from AirPlay to controlling my smart home. I can't imagine doing this with non-Apple devices. Apple does not even have to be the best at everything, or even particularly great at everything. What they need to do is be good at integrating everything, which they are.

quelsolaar 5y ago
You are right. If you do mainstream things and stay within their products it works great. The thing is that what is bleeding edge today is mainstream tomorrow. The worlds brain trust is moving away from Apple, and if Apple wants to keep up they cant rely on anyone else to help them.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  That's the Nintendo problem: how do you create a platform, when your first party solutions are incredibly well-executed? You need third parties (sort of) for scaling and long tail reasons, but it's always an uneasy relationship. If you don't expand enough, or the market doesn't generate a solution, your platform has a gap. If you expand too much, third party developers feel burned and desert your platform. Microsoft solved this by clearly staking its monetized territory ("the office suite"), and not really expanding in other directions (after those weird 90s attempts).
  - quelsolaar 5y ago
    Thats a great example. I love Nintendo. Mario and Zelda is always great, but historically Nintendo has not been a good platform for 3rd party developers (I read somewhere that 30% of wii owners didn't know you could take out wii sports and replace it with another game...). The bets that Nintendo has made that hasn't been smash hits, have been terrible failures, because no one else is there to pick up the slack. If you buy an X-Box, and the next Halo turns out to suck, you are still going to get your moneys worth of 3rd party titles.
    - blacktriangle 5y ago
      The Nintendo comparison is missing some nuance as well. Nintendo was a gaming company that got caught in a war between the two giants Sony and MS for total control of the living room. For Sony and MS, gaming was just a single division that they were willing to take losses on or invest heavily then wait years for payback due to the consoles filling multiple strategic objectives. MS and Sony dumped tons of cash into developing their 3rd party game libraries where Nintendo relied on their in-house development to seed their consoles with games and make most of their money.
    - coffeeling 5y ago
      There's a big difference between the two in business model: Sony and MS had to care about attach rates and third party software sales, because they (at least initially) took a loss with each console sold: The only way they could make money was if people bought a bunch of software so they'd get licensing revenues. The Wii was designed with different assumptions in mind, which led to a lean machine they could sell at a profit. Someone buying and Xbox and Gears of War was a huge problem for Microsoft, if someone bought a Wii and Mario Kart, it was just fine for Nintendo as long as the customer was happy: Every sale was profit, plain and simple. I don't know about the Wii not being good for 3rd parties either, it's more that the Wii didn't do what the 3rd parties wanted to do (high tech edgelord games). So we got completely moronic things like a Castlevania fighting game, a Soul Calibur that wasn't a fighting game. How about Dead Space, a slow, ponderous horror title? Yeah, the devs turned it into a rail shooter, just about the most anti-horror genre choice imaginable. In simple terms, they thought the Wii userbase were morons who would lap up anything - after all, they'd bought a motion control toaster to play technically really simplistic titles, and in the devs' world, technically simplistic = bad. So they gave people disrespectful shovelware, which, surprise surprise, bombed. They had the opportunity to make solid titles - the Wii may have been a toaster, but it was still beefier than the PS2 or Gamecube which had a lot of really good titles and anyone who's played Metroid Prime knows those controls are crack. I think the big miss with the Wii wasn't how good/bad it was, but communication. What was the philosophy behind the machine, Nintendo communicating that, the devs really trying to understand that.
- toxik 5y ago
  > The worlds brain trust is moving away from Apple Not really, the M1 is a smashing success with most techies. People seem to like the phones too. The watches are doing really well too. Oh, and the tablets are really popular also. Even with techies. There seems to be a group of people sworn never to be corrupted by the evil Apple and their evil ways. I first saw it on /., and the same group has been ringing out death knells for Apple ever since.
  - aphroz 5y ago
    I don't know if I live in another world but I rarely see an Apple Watch or an iPad (not anymore). I've seen maybe 5 Apple watches in my life between Europe and Asia.
    - bregma 5y ago
      Apple is small potatoes outside of the USA. There is a world beyond the Valley and it's orders of magnitude larger.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        I wish I had such "small potatoes" growing in my backyard ... Apple has a significant presence in Central Europe. Not overwhelming one, American market is obviously a stronger one. It might have something to do with purchasing power parity, which is still not that good behind the former Iron Curtain. But it is a big player here, especially in the richer demographics. I have never used any Apple products, but I am tempted. People will sing paeans about how their gadgets just work and interact together. I am more of a tinkering-hacking type, so I do not really mind delving deep into my Windows or Linux installation, but Android messes with me sometimes.
      - coffeeling 5y ago
        One thing about those small potatoes though: They buy software. You can actually get paid for apps on iOS way easier than Android, and it shows.
    - skohan 5y ago
underwater 5y ago
That's the very reason I stay on the fringes of the Apple ecosystem. The approach of an Apple branded version of everything means that if you don't want exactly what they give you then you have a terrible time. You're either all in or all out. I don't consider myself overly dogmatic about controlling my devices or data but the thought of going all in on one tech company for my gadgets for the next decade or so is both gross and, to be honest, really boring. I don't see how I could get excited about tech when the only choice I get is what colour it is (or the storage space).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- matt_s 5y ago
  Really boring is how I want my phone to behave: secure and boring. The fact they have a watch that works seamlessly also helps. I don’t think of these things as gadgets anymore. In the past I’ve built a Linux DVR - so I know how to tinker and find it fun for certain things but not things I depend on and want to behave like appliances. I don’t tinker with my refrigerator or my automobile either.
  - salamandersauce 5y ago
    I would describe modern Android as boring and not require tinkering either. Secure is tougher and up to the OEM to keep up with patches. Certain things with iOS are just overly difficult like getting files on or off or trying to add new music to the music app without a PC.
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      Android is extremely secure if you don't put a bunch of relatively unknown apps on it and don't root it. I would say on par with iphone easily. I only pick iphone because they do a much better job of keeping apps and such from spying on you. Also android is constantly updating the google mothership on your location and habits.
marban 5y ago
Plus, show me another (mobile) device maker that still provides major OS updates after 5+ years.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Seriously. iOS 15 supports the 6s, released in 2015, and it’ll work fine assuming you put new batteries in it as the battery degrades.
  - gbrown 5y ago
    That’s why I finally switched to iOS for my phone, and iPhones are quite affordable if you buy used a few generations old. Nevertheless, I couldn’t go back to OSX after years of using primarily Linux.
- JamesSwift 5y ago
  This is ultimately why I switched from android to ios. The new SE at < $200 was also a factor.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The SE is $400 for 64GB, $450 for 128GB, and $550 for 256GB. https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se
    - thekyle 5y ago
      Yes, but you can easily find it for less than that. Here is one for $282 on Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B088NQXD8T https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B088NQXD8T I'm sure you could find even better deals on eBay.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - 5y ago
sbarre 5y ago
I used to think like you.. Then Apple took away my ability to fully control network traffic on my computer. Before that they took away my ability to upgrade storage and RAM. And even before that, there were always sacrifices to be made to get the Apple experience. So yes the UX is great (I would not say amazing) and when the integration exists, the experience is almost always fantastic.. But I've always felt like it has come with trade-offs, and in recent years Apple has moved the balance enough that I no longer believe the trade-offs are worth it for me, at least when it comes to my daily driver computer. I moved back to Windows (+Linux thanks to WSL2) in 2020 - after being a Mac-first user for almost 15 years - and am very happy with my choice.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wesleyfsmith 5y ago
  This is exactly how I feel too...
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  You can imagine that controlling network traffic or upgrading RAM are not abilities that the vast majority of people are concerned about, even in tech.
  - quelsolaar 5y ago
    Thats the thing, most people don't need those particular things. But a lot of people need something very particular that very few others need. The problem is not that apple doesn't support a particular use case, but that they cant support all niche cases. Microsoft / Linux doesn't do everything, but if you need something specific you can bet that there is someone out there that provides that functionality for those platforms.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    They're concerned about it, but non-technical people get hooked on the familiar. They often don't want to learn a new UI when they know one already. I have a friend who has a 2015-ish Macbook with 4GB RAM - and she is getting into Photoshop. So her computer works well for her. The monitor is good enough, the CPU is good, and so on. 4GB just won't cut it. Since she can't upgrade her RAM for $150 like she should, she has to get a new computer. But she likes the trackpad and the Apple UI so much, she is going to get an iMac with 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $1600, instead of a Windows PC with a top-line processor, 32GB RAM, 27" screen and 1TB+ of SSD.
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
> from AirPlay to controlling my smart home. I can't imagine doing this with non-Apple devices That's because many smart home devices are only supporting the duopoly OOB due to their market prominence, indeed both Apple & Google are doing something good enough to retain their *poly position. If the smart home devices have open API, then there's no reason for it to work great with anything else. A case in point, put KDEConnect on Android, Linux Phone or Sailfish and you can even play the audio from your desktop browser on your phone speaker.
- Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
  >then there's no reason for it to *not work great with anything else
jorvi 5y ago
> from AirPlay It’s funny that you take AirPlay as an example. I would have agreed with most other things, but AirPlay is light years behind stuff like Google Cast or Spotify Connect.
salamandersauce 5y ago
It ain't. It's also far easier to integrate everything when you control everything. My current Samsung tablet and phone have the same levels of integration as my iPad/iPhone did. They can share calls, texts, pass files etc. Windows does a good job integrating with my phone too. Smarthome is one place Apple fell down. I tried to add my hue lights and instead of just automatically finding the hub like Amazon and Google I was supposed to take a picture of a sticker? Could never get it to work. They also took far too long getting an affordable voice speaker for the home out. I'm not digging my phone out every time either.

quelsolaar 5y ago

You are right. If you do mainstream things and stay within their products it works great. The thing is that what is bleeding edge today is mainstream tomorrow. The worlds brain trust is moving away from Apple, and if Apple wants to keep up they cant rely on anyone else to help them.

ethbr0 5y ago
That's the Nintendo problem: how do you create a platform, when your first party solutions are incredibly well-executed? You need third parties (sort of) for scaling and long tail reasons, but it's always an uneasy relationship. If you don't expand enough, or the market doesn't generate a solution, your platform has a gap. If you expand too much, third party developers feel burned and desert your platform. Microsoft solved this by clearly staking its monetized territory ("the office suite"), and not really expanding in other directions (after those weird 90s attempts).
- quelsolaar 5y ago
  Thats a great example. I love Nintendo. Mario and Zelda is always great, but historically Nintendo has not been a good platform for 3rd party developers (I read somewhere that 30% of wii owners didn't know you could take out wii sports and replace it with another game...). The bets that Nintendo has made that hasn't been smash hits, have been terrible failures, because no one else is there to pick up the slack. If you buy an X-Box, and the next Halo turns out to suck, you are still going to get your moneys worth of 3rd party titles.
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    The Nintendo comparison is missing some nuance as well. Nintendo was a gaming company that got caught in a war between the two giants Sony and MS for total control of the living room. For Sony and MS, gaming was just a single division that they were willing to take losses on or invest heavily then wait years for payback due to the consoles filling multiple strategic objectives. MS and Sony dumped tons of cash into developing their 3rd party game libraries where Nintendo relied on their in-house development to seed their consoles with games and make most of their money.
  - coffeeling 5y ago
    There's a big difference between the two in business model: Sony and MS had to care about attach rates and third party software sales, because they (at least initially) took a loss with each console sold: The only way they could make money was if people bought a bunch of software so they'd get licensing revenues. The Wii was designed with different assumptions in mind, which led to a lean machine they could sell at a profit. Someone buying and Xbox and Gears of War was a huge problem for Microsoft, if someone bought a Wii and Mario Kart, it was just fine for Nintendo as long as the customer was happy: Every sale was profit, plain and simple. I don't know about the Wii not being good for 3rd parties either, it's more that the Wii didn't do what the 3rd parties wanted to do (high tech edgelord games). So we got completely moronic things like a Castlevania fighting game, a Soul Calibur that wasn't a fighting game. How about Dead Space, a slow, ponderous horror title? Yeah, the devs turned it into a rail shooter, just about the most anti-horror genre choice imaginable. In simple terms, they thought the Wii userbase were morons who would lap up anything - after all, they'd bought a motion control toaster to play technically really simplistic titles, and in the devs' world, technically simplistic = bad. So they gave people disrespectful shovelware, which, surprise surprise, bombed. They had the opportunity to make solid titles - the Wii may have been a toaster, but it was still beefier than the PS2 or Gamecube which had a lot of really good titles and anyone who's played Metroid Prime knows those controls are crack. I think the big miss with the Wii wasn't how good/bad it was, but communication. What was the philosophy behind the machine, Nintendo communicating that, the devs really trying to understand that.
toxik 5y ago
> The worlds brain trust is moving away from Apple Not really, the M1 is a smashing success with most techies. People seem to like the phones too. The watches are doing really well too. Oh, and the tablets are really popular also. Even with techies. There seems to be a group of people sworn never to be corrupted by the evil Apple and their evil ways. I first saw it on /., and the same group has been ringing out death knells for Apple ever since.
- aphroz 5y ago
  I don't know if I live in another world but I rarely see an Apple Watch or an iPad (not anymore). I've seen maybe 5 Apple watches in my life between Europe and Asia.
  - bregma 5y ago
    Apple is small potatoes outside of the USA. There is a world beyond the Valley and it's orders of magnitude larger.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      I wish I had such "small potatoes" growing in my backyard ... Apple has a significant presence in Central Europe. Not overwhelming one, American market is obviously a stronger one. It might have something to do with purchasing power parity, which is still not that good behind the former Iron Curtain. But it is a big player here, especially in the richer demographics. I have never used any Apple products, but I am tempted. People will sing paeans about how their gadgets just work and interact together. I am more of a tinkering-hacking type, so I do not really mind delving deep into my Windows or Linux installation, but Android messes with me sometimes.
    - coffeeling 5y ago
      One thing about those small potatoes though: They buy software. You can actually get paid for apps on iOS way easier than Android, and it shows.
  - skohan 5y ago

underwater 5y ago

That's the very reason I stay on the fringes of the Apple ecosystem. The approach of an Apple branded version of everything means that if you don't want exactly what they give you then you have a terrible time. You're either all in or all out. I don't consider myself overly dogmatic about controlling my devices or data but the thought of going all in on one tech company for my gadgets for the next decade or so is both gross and, to be honest, really boring. I don't see how I could get excited about tech when the only choice I get is what colour it is (or the storage space).

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
matt_s 5y ago
Really boring is how I want my phone to behave: secure and boring. The fact they have a watch that works seamlessly also helps. I don’t think of these things as gadgets anymore. In the past I’ve built a Linux DVR - so I know how to tinker and find it fun for certain things but not things I depend on and want to behave like appliances. I don’t tinker with my refrigerator or my automobile either.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  I would describe modern Android as boring and not require tinkering either. Secure is tougher and up to the OEM to keep up with patches. Certain things with iOS are just overly difficult like getting files on or off or trying to add new music to the music app without a PC.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Android is extremely secure if you don't put a bunch of relatively unknown apps on it and don't root it. I would say on par with iphone easily. I only pick iphone because they do a much better job of keeping apps and such from spying on you. Also android is constantly updating the google mothership on your location and habits.

marban 5y ago

Plus, show me another (mobile) device maker that still provides major OS updates after 5+ years.

judge2020 5y ago
Seriously. iOS 15 supports the 6s, released in 2015, and it’ll work fine assuming you put new batteries in it as the battery degrades.
- gbrown 5y ago
  That’s why I finally switched to iOS for my phone, and iPhones are quite affordable if you buy used a few generations old. Nevertheless, I couldn’t go back to OSX after years of using primarily Linux.
JamesSwift 5y ago
This is ultimately why I switched from android to ios. The new SE at < $200 was also a factor.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The SE is $400 for 64GB, $450 for 128GB, and $550 for 256GB. https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se
  - thekyle 5y ago
    Yes, but you can easily find it for less than that. Here is one for $282 on Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B088NQXD8T https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B088NQXD8T I'm sure you could find even better deals on eBay.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - 5y ago

sbarre 5y ago

I used to think like you.. Then Apple took away my ability to fully control network traffic on my computer. Before that they took away my ability to upgrade storage and RAM. And even before that, there were always sacrifices to be made to get the Apple experience. So yes the UX is great (I would not say amazing) and when the integration exists, the experience is almost always fantastic.. But I've always felt like it has come with trade-offs, and in recent years Apple has moved the balance enough that I no longer believe the trade-offs are worth it for me, at least when it comes to my daily driver computer. I moved back to Windows (+Linux thanks to WSL2) in 2020 - after being a Mac-first user for almost 15 years - and am very happy with my choice.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wesleyfsmith 5y ago
This is exactly how I feel too...
ricardobeat 5y ago
You can imagine that controlling network traffic or upgrading RAM are not abilities that the vast majority of people are concerned about, even in tech.
- quelsolaar 5y ago
  Thats the thing, most people don't need those particular things. But a lot of people need something very particular that very few others need. The problem is not that apple doesn't support a particular use case, but that they cant support all niche cases. Microsoft / Linux doesn't do everything, but if you need something specific you can bet that there is someone out there that provides that functionality for those platforms.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  They're concerned about it, but non-technical people get hooked on the familiar. They often don't want to learn a new UI when they know one already. I have a friend who has a 2015-ish Macbook with 4GB RAM - and she is getting into Photoshop. So her computer works well for her. The monitor is good enough, the CPU is good, and so on. 4GB just won't cut it. Since she can't upgrade her RAM for $150 like she should, she has to get a new computer. But she likes the trackpad and the Apple UI so much, she is going to get an iMac with 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $1600, instead of a Windows PC with a top-line processor, 32GB RAM, 27" screen and 1TB+ of SSD.

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago

> from AirPlay to controlling my smart home. I can't imagine doing this with non-Apple devices That's because many smart home devices are only supporting the duopoly OOB due to their market prominence, indeed both Apple & Google are doing something good enough to retain their *poly position. If the smart home devices have open API, then there's no reason for it to work great with anything else. A case in point, put KDEConnect on Android, Linux Phone or Sailfish and you can even play the audio from your desktop browser on your phone speaker.

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
>then there's no reason for it to *not work great with anything else

jorvi 5y ago

> from AirPlay It’s funny that you take AirPlay as an example. I would have agreed with most other things, but AirPlay is light years behind stuff like Google Cast or Spotify Connect.

salamandersauce 5y ago

It ain't. It's also far easier to integrate everything when you control everything. My current Samsung tablet and phone have the same levels of integration as my iPad/iPhone did. They can share calls, texts, pass files etc. Windows does a good job integrating with my phone too. Smarthome is one place Apple fell down. I tried to add my hue lights and instead of just automatically finding the hub like Amazon and Google I was supposed to take a picture of a sticker? Could never get it to work. They also took far too long getting an affordable voice speaker for the home out. I'm not digging my phone out every time either.