My mobile phone came up for renewal last week. After a few days of abject indecision, I finally pulled the trigger on its replacement this afternoon. An iPhone will arrive through the post tomorrow. After several years using an Android phone as a daily driver, I’m heading back to Apple.
This was all triggered by the arrival of a MacBook from my other half’s work a few days ago - retired from office work, but plenty good enough for home use.
To be honest, it’s high time I started whittling down the veritable museum of old or dysfunctional computers that litter the room - the old Windows XP machine that’s sat dormant for years, the half-broken Windows 10 machine sitting under the other desk, the Chromebook(s) that we never quite got around to disposing of (we’re good at pouring tea and coffee into laptops, so held on to them), and the collection of various Raspberry Pi machines.
We won’t talk about the vintage iMac sitting in the attic. Or the ZIP drive.
They’re all being replaced by an iPhone, a MacBook, and a Mac Mini. A refurbished iPad could make an appearance in the not-too-distant future too - replacing the Amazon Fire tablet. We’ll see.
I was talking to a co-worker recently who has done the same thing. He works with Windows computers all day at work - the same as me - that’s not changing - but just wanted something that wasn’t Microsoft related when he got home.
There’s also the integration question. One of the huge advantages of the Apple ecosystem is the integration of its various parts. Sure, you’re not always going to agree with them way things work, and of course Apple is pretty unbending in that regard - but then if you’re happy to live with the way things have been designed, life suddenly becomes a LOT easier.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not about to become one of those zealots that champions whatever they have chosen over anything else. I’ve owned Macs before. I’ve owned iPhones before. I’m just making decisions that make sense to me, for me, at this moment. It might not be the right decision for anybody else, but it is for me. There will be things about the Apple machines that drive me crazy, but then there are things in Android, Windows, and ChromeOS that drive me crazy too.
Anyway.
I need to go sort something out for dinner. There were rumours of ordering a delivery from somewhere earlier. All the kids are out. That kind of opens up a world of dietary possibilities, doesn’t it.
In related news, I tried out Ramen noodles for the first time at Wetherspoons last night. Now I understand why everybody raves about them - they were very, very good.