Those that have known me long enough will remember that there was a time that I was vehemently anti-Apple to the point where I refused to use any of their devices. This would have been previous to 2016 while I was still a die hard Linux user. That all changed when I got a job that required me to use their provided MacBook Pro and I was in the position of use the laptop or not take the job.
Despite my initial reluctance, I learned to enjoy working on the Mac and slowly found myself enjoying the fact that things just kind of worked on it. No more struggling with kernel updates wiping out my video drivers or things just breaking for no reason. There’s a reason the tag “it just works” was thrown around by Apple for so many years.
Once they got their claws in me, I switched my phone from an Android to an iPhone which was a welcome change because I had just gone through a series of bad Android phones after the Nexus 5. I was also in the beginning stages of de-googling my life so I was stuck with either Samsung or I guess LG 🤮.
By the time the watch was introduced, it was a no brainer as I was fully on phase 3 of the Apple mentality. I had gone from vehemently anti-Apple to not knowing what I would do without them.
This continued until sometime last year when I got my yearly “it’s time for an upgrade” email for my phone because of course I’m a part of the Apple Upgrade Program, but this time I asked myself “why?” All of the reasons I had previously been able to give, better camera, faster processor, etc… all made sense when my wife and I were traveling full time and using our phones constantly. But now, I just live in Mexico and don’t use the camera as regularly, and the phone is still in great shape. I imagine planned obsolescence will get it in the next year or two but that’s a future me problem. At that point, I’m not sure what I’ll do but it’s definitely not an immediate new iPhone decision. I might consider a good Android based phone and then drop an alt-OS on it or something. It’s too bad Linux phones aren’t ready for prime time.
Next I started running into issues with my watch where it won’t hold a charge for more than about 12 hours. I figure I’ll get that fixed when I go to the states next but even with Apple Care, which of course I have, it’s still going to cost me $80! I started asking myself what I want out of a watch and it really boils down to tracking of sleep, workout, and health metrics and a silent alarm. I don’t really want excess notifications on my wrist and, let’s be honest, the unlock/authenticate your computer with your Apple Watch works about 30% of the time in my experience. I have far more options available when I just go for the features I’m looking for and so now I’m checking out some of the Garmin lines.
All this leads to my M1 MacBook Air starting to run very slowly with apps taking 4-8 seconds to even start bouncing in the dock, let alone be ready for use. So I naturally have been trained “time to replace the Mac” and started looking at what I might get next. Apple has always been expensive, but I was not prepared for the costs I was looking at. I never go for the entry level version of the device so depending on if I chose a new air, pro, or mini, I was somewhere in the range of $1800-$3000+. All for hardware that I cannot upgrade and will again be part of the planned obsolescence cycle in a few years. Again, I asked myself, why and this time I had no good response.
For $3000, hell, even that $1800 price point, I can build pretty much any computer I want minus some crazy top of the line ultra video game rig. I have my Steam Deck so I don’t need a gaming PC. I’m well past the years of sitting an additional number of hours in front of my computer after a full day of work. So I’m currently looking at mini-PCs. Mostly because I don’t necessarily need to build a full on desktop. I’ve also considered just saying hell with it and buying an off the shelf model and swapping parts down the line as needed. Honestly as long as it can run whatever browser I am deciding to use and PHPStorm, I’ll be fine. Of course that means I need at least 64 GB of memory 😂
I think this might be a Midwestern goodbye Apple and one that will take probably 6 months or so. I don’t think I’ll swing so hard the other way to where I have no Apple devices, but I think the value drop is enough for me to not look to their devices first.
So yeah, any recommendations on computers/mini PCs?