Life long Windows / Android user switched to Apple Ecosystem, what happened?

After life long usage of Windows and Android, and recent fuck ups from the said platforms, Apple was a fresh breath of air.

The Tinkerer’s Trap

For most of my life, my tech philosophy was simple: if I can’t break it down to its bare metal, I don’t truly own it. I was a tinkerer, I enjoyed swapping out one UI with another, and when I was in the market for such extensibility for a mobile phone I was recommended Xiaomi brand.

I believe it is fundamental right of the customer, to remove useless bloatware from their phones, and protect their privacy form companies they deem intrusive, and in my opinion, Xiaomi was one of the worst offenders on both fronts. Xiaomi's MIUI came with a ton of unwanted bloatware, built in advertising into core applications such as file manager. MIUI would sometimes have two of the same applications, for example gallery. So you could understand why I immediately decided to be rid of MIUI.

Unlocking the bootloader was rather simple in the old days of Xiaomi, I remember you would go to a website to request it and wait approximately 7 or 30 days, I don't remember the details. The manufacturers would consistently inform you that your decision could end up bricking your device, but mostly they are soft bricks, meaning they can be reverted. One of my "fondest" memories was when I updated a custom Pixel UI Xiaomi Redmi 5 I owned which resulted in the phone to go complete apeshit insane, turning on flashlight would cause the phone to vibrate, the cellular was off, and I was in one of the most remote places in Azerbaijan for my university, with no computer in sight. Thankfully I had an additional SD Card with me, so I used my friends phone to install the MIUI from official Xiaomi site, slide in the SD Card and install it to my phone, fixing it.

Doing all this, even at the cost of locking myself out of most essential tool of 21st century was worth it, so when I saw people using Apple, I genuinely couldn't understand how people could pay thousands of dollars to a device, they have no control over.

A Wager

The shift didn't start with an open mind; it started with an argument.

A close friend of mine had just abandoned his Samsung Galaxy S21 to crawl back to an iPhone. Naturally, I gave him hell for it. From where I was sitting, Android was untouchable on pure value. I was daily-driving a $200 Xiaomi packed with a buttery 120Hz display and 12GB of RAM specs Apple wouldn’t sell you without demanding four figures and your firstborn child.

Whenever I pressed him on why he'd willingly downgrade his hardware freedom, his answer was always the same vague evangelism: “You pay a premium for peace and quiet. You pay for the ecosystem.” To me, "the ecosystem" was just a billion-dollar marketing euphemism for a golden cage. The debate peaked the only way stubborn tech nerds know how: a wager. He was upgrading, so he offered to sell me his used iPhone 15 at a steep discount on one condition I had to use it as my primary device and actually put my smug talking points to the test.

Convinced I'd flip it back on the market within a month and collect my bragging rights, I took the bet. And before I even knew it, I owned an AirPods, and a MacBook, and recently an Apple Watch 0_0

Event Horizon

Hardest pill to swallow for me was that, Apple ecosystem wasn't a marketing term at all. It was indeed, very VERY real. What made iPhone user experience stand out for me was that, it just did what it was supposed to do, and nothing more, nothing less. In Xiaomi/Android version of apps I used, I would often see small visual bugs, crashes, lags, one very pesky bug I would face was when my fingerprint scanner would take a second of two to work and open my key applications such as Google Pay.

Gone were those days, iPhone was superb when it came to the experience of using it. The animations were buttery smooth, the apps were consistently high quality, zero screen freeze, zero crashes.

Built in passwords system of iOS was something I was really fan of, I no longer had to go into my KeePass on phone synced with my Google Drive, open it, find the needed password, copy paste etc etc. Apple does this in 3 steps. You click the input field, iOS prompts you, you authorize with Face ID and voila, as Todd Howard once said, "It Just Works TM".

Apple makes sure their products works well with, and they make extra sure that it works with their own products. Example? AirPods.

I was looking for a pair of earphones, and I thought, "what the hell, I am already using Apple, might as well try AirPod Pro" and oh my God, as soon as it was out of the box, it worked flawlessly. Pairing took no more than 1 minute, and the earphones had features that wasn't available to any other device other than Apple's. They also offered 3 months of free Apple Music but, no, no thanks.

MacOS to Windows

Current state of Windows, to put it bluntly, is abysmal. Suffering from bloat, useless features shoved down our throats (cough..Copilot..cough..cough) and terrible optimization. Windows 11 has been on a constant thorn on my side for a while, and I have tried to switch to Linux multiple times but faced issues with Nvidia drivers, and unnecessary complexity on basic tasks, so at the end of my journey, I thought "what the hell, I am already using Apple, might as well try a MacBook" so I got one, and dear lord, it was perfect.

Just like my experimentation with my iPhone I decided to not spend too much money on a tool I am unsure of, so I decided to buy a second hand MacBook Pro M4 for 2500 AZN, which is roughly 1800 USD. MacBook was possibly the most elegant laptop I have ever used. The design, the materials, the feel, weight, etc. However, one thing I was most grateful for was the fact that I was no longer dependent on Windows. I still keep my Windows laptop, don't get me wrong, however it is now a secondary laptop I use for gaming only rather than work.

Unlike the performance issues I have faced on Windows, MacOS was a smooth sailing. It took a bit of getting used to however, if you have used Linux, you will easily get the hang of MacOS, and if you happen to be in a market for a new laptop, I wholeheartedly recommend a MacBook. The M-chip is literally the greatest consumer electronics chip released.

Conclusion

I guess ultimately, my over indulgence in customization and setups burned me out, whereas once I was looking to tinker and manipulate my devices, now I seek simple comforts of opening my laptop and seeing it work without needing to restart, update every second, etc. However, some of the blame falls on the platforms as well. A lot of companies (including Apple themselves) have decided to chase AI features, that may not be interesting to consumers at the cost of putting core components of the platform behind. Perhaps what I am experiencing right now is the "honeymoon" phase, where Apple feels amazing to use and without any faults, and maybe 1 to 2 years down the line I will find Apple to be annoying too but honestly, it feels like a breath of fresh air.

— Elnur