Apple is, without a doubt, a company that makes controversial decisions. This post attempts to summarize a history of me interacting with their products and my general opinion on what they do.

Disclaimer: all of this relates to Apple's pre-Apple-Silicon era. Some of the points may be corrected with a new hardware release.

The Good

Laptop touchpads

This is a niche that hasn't been tapped into by any other consumer laptop company. At best, touchpads on other laptops are bearable but at worst they are disgusting. No matter which Apple laptop I was using (the model year 2011 and onwards), I've never been disappointed but has been amazed on multiple occasions. The good bits include:

• surface that's pleasant to touch and swipe on
• gestures and scrolls that precisely follow your finger movements

Resell value

Given Apple is a brand that's widely recognized as a premium one by consumers, the resell value of the devices tends to hold pretty well.

Limited model line-up

Usually, it's very easy to identify the laptop in question when purchasing, putting it up on sale or debugging any issues with it - it's either an Air or Pro, one of several screen sizes, RAM side & SSD side. Give or take, that describes it better than a long model number, such as Asus ZenBook 15 UX534FTC-A8101T.

macOS

It's a UNIX-based OS that's also made with general consumers in mind. Think Linux, but your drivers are all preinstalled, you don't need any kernel tweaks and updates don't mess up your bootloader.

The Bad

Port selection

Starting from 2016, the port selection has been limited to USB-C (which I like for its universal capabilities) and the headphone jack (thank you for keeping it on laptops still!). What's notably missing is:

• USB-A (for connecting my flash drive collection)
• HDMI (for connecting to TV)
• Ethernet (for connecting to high-speed & reliable wired network)

Prices

MacBooks are expensive. Especially when paying in volatile currency.

The Ugly

Anti-repair and anti-upgrade stance

• What you buy is what you get. There's no possibility of adding more RAM and/or storage - they are soldered to the motherboard.
• Soldered SSD is a bad decision. It wears itself out every time you use it which means at some point it needs to be replaced. Also, if any other component of your laptop dies, you're left without access to your data.
• Battery is glued in and OEM part is unavailable for direct purchase by consumers.

Manufacturing defects

Keyboard

Ever heard of butterfly keyboard, or, as people usually refer to it, bbutteeerrrfllyy? It should be illegal to produce a keyboard that fails because of dust particles that get into it. Additionally, it's noisy and has very little travel which makes it uncomfortable to type on for long periods of time.

#flexgate

As with keyboards, it should be also illegal to produce a laptop that kills the backlight with each open and close. You can read more about it here.