I'm 27 and just want my rig to work. That's why I build my own PC, demand mobile phones with replaceable batteries, and have a great 6 year old Lenovo laptop that, besides a slow-ish CPU, is spec'ed pretty well for 2016.
Different strokes. I've got better things to do with my time. I'd rather walk into the Apple store and replace my MBA or my iPhone when I've got a problem. That saves me time for my wife or my hobbies.
Trade money for things that save you time, to spend that time on what's important to you (if you've got the money).
Using non-apple hardware and software does not take more time, nor does it incur more frustration. It generally does cost less money for the same level of performance. It often lasts longer than the apple-branded alternative as well due to the relative ease of repair and upgrade where the apple-branded alternative would have to be replaced.
This saves me time for my wife, my children and my hobbies. It also saves me money. Time, and money, to spend on what's important to me. It also sends a signal to companies: there is a market for upgradable, repairable hardware.
Unfortunately, upgradability is the niche use-case. Most everyone that I have ever known after a couple years of owning a computer, when faced with upgrading or replacing, they almost always choose replacement.
Because of the depreciation curve, a $500 computer is almost worthless after several years while a $1000 computer might be worth a hundred or two hundred dollars. Do you spend $200-300 on your $500 computer for say memory + SSD or put that $200-300 towards a new $1000 computer?
As far as time is considered, engineered solutions are generally read-to-go, Apple or Windows, but the Windows world still seems to be rife with bloat. Navigating the hundreds of models & manufacturers is overwhelming for the non-technical user. For many technical folks, it's much simpler to just say, 'Get a mac' or 'Get a Dell', nut the Dell option will be a small pain with navigating the choices.
Non-engineered solutions (building your own) do cost a little bit of a time investment in research, assembly and tweaking. For the technical folk here, it's merely a couple of extra hours. For the uninitiated, it's a lot of hours for knowledge that may not be readily applicable to them on a day-to-day basis.
> It also sends a signal to companies: there is a market for upgradable, repairable hardware.
I absolutely guarantee you that there simply are not enough of you to make hardware manufacturers cater to the upgradable/repairable market.
The only way upgradability/reparability will continue is if people like yourself form a non-profit or B Corp that makes open hardware that allows for it. The vast majority of people don't care.
> I've got better things to do with my time. I'd rather walk into the Apple store and replace my MBA or my iPhone when I've got a problem.
I don't get the comparison.
It's like apple users think the only options are buy apple (expensive, but "allegedly" rarely needs fixing, works 99% of the time, lasts a long time, etc) and a PC ("allegedly" breaks all the time, requires more maintenance, requires more time to keep up with, "cheap", etc...)
Those are not the options -- it's a false premise. There are laptop PCs which have the exact same performance & reliability as apple, but for a fraction of the price. I've gone through 4 PC laptops since 1996. My first 2 laptops, I admit, I spent a lot of time repairing but that was due to my own youthful tinkering, experimenting and the general instability of earlier OSs (DOS, Win95, Win98/ME, etc).
But my last 2 have lasted me 7+ years a piece. And I only decided to upgrade because they were beginning to show their age (slower compared to newer stuff). You can buy PC laptops with the same "just works" fidelity as apple. More options open up, and you can save yourself a fortune, if people would just eschew their brand loyalty.
> You can buy PC laptops with the same "just works" fidelity as apple. More options open up, and you can save yourself a fortune, if people would just eschew their brand loyalty.
What do you consider a fortune? $1000? $1400? That's about two days of my time consulting. I'm fine paying the premium for what I consider a better experience. It's not brand loyalty, that's for sure. I've had a terrible, terrible time trying to get work done on Windows 7, Windows 10 looks like a train wreck, and there are no Lenovo stores I can walk into same day and get a replacement like I can with an Apple store (which is in every major metro I visit).
Build a better experience, and I will gladly pay for it. Until then, Apple (grudgingly) gets my dollars.
I've had a lot of PC and Mac laptops, my first one being a Powerbook around 1994. But the --only one-- that ever died catastrophically was an Early 2011 Macbook Pro. Its problems are legion on the Apple support boards, and Apple wouldn't admit that the problems existed.
It wasn't until after I bought a new replacement laptop that Apple finally acknowledged the issues and started a repair program. I wasn't able to just walk into my Apple store to get it fixed (I live in a major metro), so I ended up going to a local authorized dealer instead.
It was basically the last straw for me. I'm happily on Windows. I don't miss the OSX Terminal because I've got CMDer, and just about everything else I was using on Mac for work is either available for Windows or has a decent equivalent. Windows is not the wasteland it was when I switched back to Mac a decade ago.
