> no matter what specs you pick it will always be much more expensive than equivalent specs from a non-luxury provider
On the phone side, I guess you would call Samsung and Google luxury providers? On the laptop side there are a number of differentiating features that are of general interest.
> The things that Apple provides are not the headline stats that matter for a tool-user, they're luxury properties that don't actually matter to most people
Things that might matter to regular people (and tool users):
- design and build for something you use all day
- mic and speakers that don't sound like garbage (very noticeable and relevant in the zoom/hybrid work era)
- excellent display
- excellent battery life
- seamless integration with iPhone, iPad, AirPods
- whole widget: fewer headaches vs. Windows (ymmv); better app consistency vs. Linux
- in-person service/support at Apple stores
It's hard to argue that Apple didn't reset expectations for laptop battery life (and fanless performance) with the M1 MacBook Air. If Ryzen has caught up, then competition is a good thing for all of us (maybe not intel though...) In general Apple isn't bleeding edge, but they innovate with high quality, very usable implementations (wi-fi (1999), gigabit ethernet (2001), modern MacBook Pro design (2001), "air"/ultrabook form factors (2008), thunderbolt (2011), "retina" display and standard ssd (2012), usb-c (2016), M1: SoC/SiP/unified memory/ARM/asymmetric cores/neural engine/power efficiency/battery life (2020) ...and occasionally with dubious features like the touchbar and butterfly keyboard (2016).)
Looking even further back in Apple laptop history, we find interesting features like rear keyboard placement (1991), 4 pound laptop with dock for desktop use (1992), and trackpad (1994). Apple's eMate 300 (1997) was a Newton laptop rather than a Mac, but it had an ARM processor, flash storage, and 20+ hour battery life, making it something of an ancestor to the Mac M1.
Once Arm and battery life shift occurs with Linux and Windows, they'll (ie. Apple) be on the front foot again with something new, that's the beauty of competition.
On the phone side, I guess you would call Samsung and Google luxury providers? On the laptop side there are a number of differentiating features that are of general interest.
> The things that Apple provides are not the headline stats that matter for a tool-user, they're luxury properties that don't actually matter to most people
Things that might matter to regular people (and tool users):
- design and build for something you use all day
- mic and speakers that don't sound like garbage (very noticeable and relevant in the zoom/hybrid work era)
- excellent display
- excellent battery life
- seamless integration with iPhone, iPad, AirPods
- whole widget: fewer headaches vs. Windows (ymmv); better app consistency vs. Linux
- in-person service/support at Apple stores
It's hard to argue that Apple didn't reset expectations for laptop battery life (and fanless performance) with the M1 MacBook Air. If Ryzen has caught up, then competition is a good thing for all of us (maybe not intel though...) In general Apple isn't bleeding edge, but they innovate with high quality, very usable implementations (wi-fi (1999), gigabit ethernet (2001), modern MacBook Pro design (2001), "air"/ultrabook form factors (2008), thunderbolt (2011), "retina" display and standard ssd (2012), usb-c (2016), M1: SoC/SiP/unified memory/ARM/asymmetric cores/neural engine/power efficiency/battery life (2020) ...and occasionally with dubious features like the touchbar and butterfly keyboard (2016).)