I’m switching to PC after 27 years of Mac.

I have a problem. I need a new computer, and I have money to spend. But this time, I don’t think I’ll be buying a Mac.

I already have an iMac Late 2014, fully upgraded and top of the line, but it is too slow in CPU and GPU performance. Especially so, when editing 42MP photos from my Sony A7R II where both components are stressed at once, and the poor thermal design of the iMac adds a further bottleneck . I also have a late 2013 Retina MacBook Pro 15″, and it too, desperately needs an upgrade.

So, what should I buy? I need a new desktop, for gaming and photo editing, and a laptop, as a more mobile workstation. Price is not an issue for me per se, but I do want to get good value from my hard earned.

Apple doesn’t make pro-grade hardware

• Apple T2 chip is causing major system instability for many users.
• Their aggressive pursuit of thin-ness is coming at a cost:
  • Apple Macbook’s have terrible keyboards, I don’t want shallow travel let alone fragile reliability.
  • The Macbook screen cable flex-gate.
  • The iMac chassis design overheats during operations that use GPU and CPU simultaneously, such as gaming – but this is now becoming an issue for video editing or photo editing too.
• No Mac is available with sufficiently powerful graphics for modern-day top-tier gaming.
• No Mac is available with expandable internal HDD and SSD storage, and thunderbolt options are so exorbitantly priced its eye watering…

Their prices are ridiculous

• Mac retail prices are overpriced by a significant margin, more than they ever were in previous years.
• The components Apple chooses to put in their machine do not make sense for my needs, I would end up paying Apple prices for parts that I wouldn’t choose myself.
• Then, if you look into a build-to-order, you are again hit with crazy overpriced RAM and SSD upgrades.

I would be locking myself into future pain

• If I buy an iMac, I’m again locking $1200 worth of 5k screen into a machine that is not upgradable.
• Thunderbolt accessories are crazy overpriced, and precluding a fate that is similar to FireWire, broad adoption/support has not eventuated as it was expected.
• I experienced screen burn-in 3 times with my 5K iMac screen, thank goodness I paid (extra!) for Applecare. If the screen on the iMac dies, the computer is worthless, so I would have had no option but to fork out $1000 each time for a new screen if I hadn’t opted for applecare. That’s a scary prospect.
• Dongle life. SD cards are clearly not going anywhere, yet the SD card readers were removed from all Apple’s laptops, which is no fun as a photographer.

The quality of their software is getting worse

• Mac OS is becoming worse. I stayed with High Sierra after everyone I know who upgraded (power users) had major problems. That was my first warning sign that the end was near.
• Safari, which used to be my browser of choice, has been cut off at the knees, with existing plugin support destroyed with little to no warning.
• Apple Mail smart folders are still buggy. Were buggy. Are buggy. Will always be buggy. I’m talking simple things – a smart folder with the criteria “all unread email”, and inside, it has read emails that won’t disappear.
• My Macbook Pro has been seriously affected by High Sierra, which completely obliterated graphics performance. Things now become stuttery and laggy all too easily. This problem has not been fixed in Mojave either. Looks like I’m not the only one with this problem:

• I don’t need or want to stay in the Apple ecosystem any more.
  • I pay for Dropbox, since iCloud drive is just a joke. It’s the Google+ of cloud file storage.
  • Apple photos / iCloud photos is clunky and inflexible.
  • iCloud bookmark syncing is buggy and glitchy.
  • I don’t have an iPhone X, or Apple watch, and I don’t really care about sending heartbeats, or Animoji.
  • Keychain password sync is a bad sport and doesn’t work with other platforms. As for the app “Keychain Access” … do I need to say more?

Am I nit picking? Perhaps. But Apple’s specialty has always been good attention to detail, and for me the experience is cumulative.

For many years now, I have gotten used to explaining to people why they can’t do something that seems obvious easily on their computer: “because Apple didn’t design it to do that”. Having worked at an Apple Store, I’m quite capable of coming up with creative “positioning” statements to explain and justify these deficiencies as “carefully thought through deliberate decisions”. However, I’m just plain tired of doing that for myself with my own issues I encounter.

Over the years, I’ve definitely spread a lot of goodwill for Apple. I’ve definitely been a “promoter” of their vision and their ethos. When things weren’t perfect, I was quick to believe that Steve Jobs’ passing wasn’t a factor.  However, in the last few years, I have been finding myself running into insurmountable limitations myself more and more often. Issues and inconsistencies that I couldn’t explain away or justify. Frankly, I’m just over it. I no longer feel like Apple is listening, and my patience has worn away. It’s actually a little sad, to recognise that the fondness I once held for such a special company, has practically evaporated.

Goodbye Apple. I’ll miss the good times fondly. 