I’ve been giving Apple a bit of a kicking lately — first by telling my story of why I stopped wearing the Watch, then criticising its mess with chargers, and then criticising the MacBook lineup.
And I stand by all of those pieces: I’m still not wearing my Apple Watch, I still think the Frankenstein approach of charging ports is lunacy, and I still think the 13″ MacBook Pro should lose the “Pro”.
But I say these things as a fan. As someone who is deep into Apple’s ecosystem, working exclusively from Apple computers, as an iPad, iPhone, AirPods Pro and Watch owner with subscriptions to Apple TV+, Apple Music, and iCloud+.
So today, I’m going to explain what’s so great about the Cupertino giant.
Apple creates exceptional products that create no drama in my life
They’re so reliable that when my MacBook had a software bug and randomly rebooted itself, it shocked me. 99.9% of the time my Apple products are as reliable as my fridge: they’re just there, doing what they’re supposed to. They don’t bug me for my attention, they don’t install updates on their whim, they don’t need babying, and they don’t throw tantrums that require me to lose hours trying to fix them.
I first turned to Apple out of exasperation. My Dell laptop kept losing my user profile, if I put it to sleep and woke it up the resolution was screwed up until I restarted it, and it took literal minutes to shut down. Every Windows computer I’ve owned became more of a project than a utility, in that frequently something was wrong. And even when things were working as expected, they sucked, like licence codes to prove you owned Office or Windows’ refusal to let you have multiple dialog boxes open at once. And if you want to rename a file in File Explorer while that file is open? Forget about it.
When I bought my first Mac, a used 21″ iMac, it was a revelation. It turned on faster than my laptops turned off. It woke from sleep instantly and exactly as I’d left it. It informed me updates were available but didn’t force me to install them immediately or, worse, shut itself down to install them while I was mid-work.
And what’s this, free software updates, high-quality software like Pages and GarageBand are built in, and Word documents can be read and exported?
Their customer service is second to none
With Windows, your point of contact for customer service varies — it could be Microsoft, it could be Dell, Lenovo, or any of the other companies that sell Windows.
In any case, good luck!
If you’re using Google, just hope nothing goes wrong. Those guys seem to have made it a mission to never talk to a customer on the phone, so instead you’re stuck navigating a labyrinthine mess of support pages that are as helpful as a torn parachute.
Apple’s customer service is truly exceptional. There’s live chat with people who aren’t reading from a script and actual help. There’s phone support by people who can help you. Both options take just a couple of minutes to connect. In-store service is just as good, and on more than one occasion a family member has taken a damaged iPad into an Apple Store and the staff did a straight swap instead of trying to repair it.
Yes, Apple charges premium prices — but one result of that is seamless, empathetic, truly helpful support. Which leads me to my next point:
They’re not just about specs
For people new to Apple or users of other platforms, Apple’s “lower” specs are a point of criticism.
“Why aren’t they using more RAM?”
“LOL my Samsung has twice the hard drive storage!”
Here’s the thing: if you’re in the market for a Windows or Android device and you’re not attached to one brand in particular, a lot of your decision comes down to specs. And with hard drives and memory not costing much money, it’s easy for manufacturers to throw more into their computers and phones and lure you in that way.
It doesn’t matter to them that the vast majority of casual, everyday users won’t get close to using 512GB let alone 1TB of storage. Just chuck it in there and boast about how good it is. That’s the marketing trick.
Apple doesn’t play that game. As the sole operator of its software, Apple has two advantages:
- It can, and does, optimise the hell out of them to be far more efficient. This is why even the lower-end iPhones are still buttery smooth, while cheaper Androids are laggy. Also why it took even the higher-end Android devices years to truly remove the notorious lag.
- They’re the only company you can buy it from, so there’s no need to put unnecessary space or memory in just to compete on the specs.
You’re buying into an overall product and service — that means reliable devices and exceptional support and aftercare. You’re not just buying specs, nor do those specs always translate into a better product or experience. And if it doesn’t lead to better product or experience, Apple rarely wants a part of it.
They support their products
When you buy an Apple device, you know it’s going to be supported for a long time. Not only that, but every iPhone that’s eligible for an update gets it at the same time — there’s none of that fragmented mess Android users suffer from, where different devices receive updates at different times, if they receive them at all.
And not only does Apple issue these updates, they’re also free. While Microsoft started to follow suit and offer Windows for free, that was for a limited period of time — for Windows 10, anyone who upgraded after July 2016 had to pay.
The ecosystem is incredible
The way that Apple’s devices work together is not only brilliant, it’s also seamless and useful.
Visiting a webpage on your phone and then open your Mac? An icon appears that lets you pick up from the same spot.
You can cut or copy text on one device, then immediately paste it on another (this is fantastic for long URLs, passwords, notes — actually, lots of things).
If you’re trying to log into Netflix or buy a film on your Apple TV, you can use FaceID on your iPhone instead of entering your password with the little TV remote. And speaking of TV, there’s a remote for it in Control Centre, where you can fully control Apple TV, from powering it on or off to navigating.
AirDrop is perhaps the most convenient way to transfer files from one Apple product to another — yours, or someone else’s.
And if you misplace any of your devices, even your headphones, the native Find My app will ping a sound and tell you where they are.
Resale value
Because Apple’s products are good and last a long time, they hold their value.
My first two Macs were used — both an iMac that I used for a few years until moving to a MacBook Pro, purchased in 2015 and sold, still in perfect working condition, in 2020.
This means that it’s less of a risk purchasing an Apple device, because you can move it on if you don’t like it, and it means you’ll almost always be able to at least part-fund an upgrade to the newer model.
Needless to say, this isn’t an exhaustive list, but they’re my highlights.
It’s become trendy to bash Apple in recent years, and it’s always interesting to listen to those criticisms because they often reveal whether or not the person is actually a customer. If they’re complaining that the specs are too low without mentioning what it’s like to actually use a device, they’re probably judging without experience of using one.
That’s not to say Apple is perfect (as my own recent stories demonstrate), but the good is exceptional and far outweighs any downsides — at least that I’ve found so far.
