Why buy Apple?

I recently decided to switch to a Macbook Pro. On telling my friends about this, I was met with a lot of criticism. I don’t know if this is just me, or something others have also noticed. Phrases like, “Well, Windows is more programmer friendly”, and “It’s a pain in the ass to run most things on Macs”, are thrown around. But, in spite of the PC Master race fanboys, Macbooks hold a large portion of the laptops in the CS community. Why is this? A big part of it is the Apple Ecosystem (AE). What is the AE? And why is it getting people to buy more Apple products?

What is the Apple Ecosystem? Well, like a biological ecosystem, the AE is a collection of devices that co-exist, and communicate with each other, in a common environment. For example, my current AE consists of my iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and soon, a Macbook Pro. So now you know what the AE is. 

The next question is, why is it getting people to buy more Apple products? (Marques Brownlee has done a great video on the topic)

Doesn’t Google have a series of products that form an Ecosystem of their own? Why don’t they attract customers? This is because the AE works like magic. Let’s see why. Lets assume you have no Apple devices. You will likely see iPhone’s reviews online, and the notoriety attached to it will definitely attract you to it.  Now, let’s assume you have an iPhone.

• If you’re looking for a tablet for content consumption, the iPad makes the most sense. Because your App Store purchases, Notes, Photos, Messages, and Contacts from your iPhone are on your new iPad.
• Hey, you want a pair of earphones? Airpods connect to your iPhone and your iPad, with basically no pairing process. Anything else is just more work. 
• Want a smartwatch? The Apple Watch isn’t just the obvious choice, but also arguably the best one, as of now. Not many smartwatches have gotten near the level of Apple Watch. What more? Your Airpods sync directly with your watch, and you can now use them without your iPhone.

• Want a new laptop/computer? Macbook/Mac line-up is such a duh choice. Your Airpods work seamlessly with this too. Your Apple Watch can authenticate payments for you on the Macbook, much easier than entering your password all the time. Oh, you made a big movie on your Macbook and want it on your phone? You can Airdrop it to your phone in seconds, or upload it to iCloud and get it on any other device. You can use your iPad as a second screen for it. You can use any of the devices to seamlessly import scanned documents and signatures directly into your macbook, and the list goes on.

Keep in mind, I haven’t even touched on the Apple Homepod, Apple TV, iMessage, and FaceTime. The possibilities are endless when it comes to what you can do in the Ecosystem. Each purchase incentivizes you to buy another product. There’s many concerns that can be raised, like, Isn’t it unsafe to give all your information to a single company? Well, that’s better than giving all of it to multiple companies. Furthermore, Apple has set good precedence when it comes to protecting its customers’ privacy. This was a highly controversial case at the time, and a lot can be said about Apple’s decision to not share private information from a phone. But at least we can rest easy, knowing Apple probably won’t give out our information as well.

So, we can see how it’s easy to see why so many of the people choose to buy Apple products.