My Mac is awesome, so why worry?
Nearly everything about my Mac experience is wonderful. macOS is, in my experience, far superior to the alternatives for my needs. My new iMac is big, beautiful, and a joy to both look at and use.
My 2016 MacBook Pro is solid, svelte, gorgeous, and tight. I’ve never used a nicer trackpad. The screen is bright, crisp, and clear.
In fact, the only real complaints I have are with a few things I don’t love about the MBP.
- Not having a single non-USB-C port is still a pain, and will remain so until every device I own uses USB-C. Someday this may be a non-issue, but right now it kind of sucks.
- I never use the Touch Bar, so would much rather have real Function keys
- The keyboard, even when it works, is the most annoying thing that I touch all day. I really, really hate using it.
So basically, other than the MBP keyboard, the overall experience is fantastic.
Why then do I hedge my bets with Apple?
I shy away from going all-in with macOS-only apps because WHAT IF?!. I use Firefox instead of Safari because it’s synced across platforms. I edit plain text files stored in Dropbox using Emacs. I read reviews of Dell XPS 13 and ThinkPad Carbon notebooks because the hardware (aka keyboard) is so nice. I dual-boot Windows and Linux on an old ThinkPad as a way to practice, just in case something happens.
What else concerns me?
- Apple hardware has been becoming progressively less interesting to me, and other manufacturers have pretty much caught up. Hardware is no longer a reason I use a Mac.
- Apple software and OS updates have continued to introduce changes that make the OS more, not less, locked down. Makes me nervous.
- Apple hasn’t been focused on the Mac in years. Their new focus on services could make that even worse.
- Marzipan (or whatever) could dumb down macOS even more. I worry about that.
These concerns add up, and point in a direction that worries me.
None of these things will matter to the majority of Mac users. They matter to me, though, so I worry a little.