Watching lots of Louis Rossmann has put me almost ideologically against Apple (even though they design great hardware and smooth UX within their ecosystem), but I'm not good at forming coherent points to present to Apple loving friends.
For me so far, I think it's about control over what I buy - but the rebuttal is always "you're buying a product from them, if you don't like it then tough".
I feel I am more frequently encountering software bugs, vaporware,(dESiGnEd fOr ApPle InTelLiGeNce), and ridiculous "innovation" (genmoji). I feel the hardware advances are not very relevant to me, I don't need VR or augmented reality. I want a computer to get out of my way and solve problems for me so I can spend time in plain old reality. The hardware upgrades I DO care about are ridiculously overpriced (Ram upgrades are abusively expensive).
While I prefer my computer to be a tool to get a job done and don't want the computer itself to be a hobby. I also do not want to be forced to use AI. I also dislike the rent seeking and toolbooth behavior of iMessage and the App store. Now that linux has more paved paths, things increasingly "just work" and hardware has basically caught up I don't see a good reason to support Apple's non-vision with my money.
I remember when Samsung had removable batteries, I went in to a Samsung store to buy a replacement for my S5 battery and they told me they didn't sell them, only new phones. Meanwhile I can take my iPhone in to any Apple store and they will replace the battery for me.
So yeah Apple does need to be forced to massively improve their practices but so does pretty much the entire tech industry aside from a few small projects that focus on being repairable.
As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
And you still end up getting most apps from the Google Play Store.
By the way, iMessage supports SMS/MMS/RCS for interoperability. What else do you want?
That’s cool, but you represent a tiny slice of the market that as devices get more powerful, isn’t addressable in the low volumes needed to make you happy.
When the chips needed to make a phone are priced like toys, maybe you’ll find the product for you.
M1 Air or M2 Air, running Asahi Linux. I am posting this using my M1 Air, running Fedora Asahi.
> As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
I use Fairphone 4 with Ubuntu Touch.
As far as the Fairphone - poor battery life, bulky, poor camera, and the IP rating of 55 for water? Well at least it runs Linux.
Have heard good things about framework computers. As a more efficient chip or battery comes out you just upgrade that component if your use case requires it.
What offerings are out there for speed/no fan (quiet)/and lack of heat with battery life?
Battery life, probably none. For the rest it's pretty ok now - I recently got a ThinkPad T14. Performance-wise it's in M1/M2 territory and yes the fans can spin up, but they are not very loud.
I have used MacBooks since 2007, but I have started using the ThinkPad more and more. Why?
I put in 64GiB RAM and a 2TB SSD and it cost me almost nothing. The laptop plus these expansions was 1400 or 1500 Euro, a MacBook with 64GiB RAM and 2TB SSD would cost me 5000 Euro. When the battery has had its time, I can replace it by removing a few screws. I added a PCI cellular modem. The expandability and maintanability is just great.
Even though the GPU in my MacBook Pro (M3 Pro) blows away the ThinkPad's GPU on paper, the ThinkPad with Wayland actually renders everything super-smoothly on my 120Hz 4K screen, while on the MacBook the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz is barely noticeable. On the ThinkPad I can run NixOS, which is generally much nicer than macOS.
The primary thing that my MacBook has over my ThinkPad are battery life and a bunch of really good Mac applications like the Affinity Suite. But since more and more applications are switching to Electron, it has become less of a problem. Heck, I even have 1Password with fingerprint unlock, etc. like if it was a MacBook.
As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
Or I don't know, you buy a Pixel, install GrapheneOS, and you have better privacy than on an iPhone? And no F1 movie ads too.
At any rate, non-Apple laptops have other benefits, like being able to get 64GiB/128GiB memory and large SSDs without breaking the bank.
In the end it's all a trade-off. If you are a sales representative that needs all-day battery life, MacBook is probably the only option. If you are a developer that needs something portable to hop between desks or on the train, but usually have access to a power socket (yay, Dutch/German trains), a few hours of battery is enough and you might prefer to get an insane amount of memory/storage, a built-in cellular modem, and an ethernet port instead.
[1] which means you need a 4 to 6h range when new if you don't plan to replace the battery too often
[2] students, construction companies, people who are always on the road...
When I was in the office full time in the bad old days, you would be in a conference room and every one would plug their laptops in.
After I started working remotely and still doing business trips, one charge could last a full day either going back and forth between conference rooms, in “war rooms” etc and no one with M series MacBooks even worried about charging.
Heck my MacBook Pro (work laptop) can last a full day on power with my portable USB C powered external monitor where the power and video come from one cord.
Not to mention on flights with layovers.
I used to run Linux on a laptop (10+ years ago) and you couldn't even close the laptop lid without risking it not going to sleep and overheating in your bag.
I don't worry about closing my thinkpad lid. Well I do because I disable sleep on lid close and prefer using the dedicated button for that. But my thinkpad goes to sleep when I ask it to.