# buying Apple product for first time



## Harp (Jul 18, 2012)

So I am normally a Windows/Android guy but have heard so much about Apple products I literally am thinking of going with them, more specifically, looking at an Apple Ipad. Nothing fancy just their 16g Ipad 4.

My biggest thing is this: are Apple products worth the money you pay? Are they really a superior product? I am tired of throwing away money for garbage.


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

If you are in the android camp don't bother.

You'll quickly get annoyed at the limitations that Apple places on you.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I would recommend comparing to Nexus 10. Maybe try watching a comparison video on Youtube? It's about $100 less and a very nice device.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I think it depends on what you plan to use it for. DW has had a retina iPad for a year now and she loves it. I have had an Android phone for 2 years and I like it. She is going to upgrade her Motorola Razr to an iPhone 4S 32gb.


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## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

Harp said:


> are Apple products worth the money you pay?


To me they are not worth more, in fact, maybe worth less due to a few limitations. 
Lots of good tablets coming out now and the months ahead, look for the ones with specs that matter to you and compare.



Harp said:


> Are they really a superior product?


Not that I can tell, I have android and GF has an iPad ... nothing has ever made me think they have a superior product.



Harp said:


> I am tired of throwing away money for garbage.


Just make sure you buy a quality "brand name" tablet and stay away from really cheap ones.


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## indexxx (Oct 31, 2011)

I've become convinced over the last few years that Apple products are indeed worth the money. After using windows-based products for years, my switch to Apple couldn't be happier.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

We've had a Nexus 7 for almost 2 years now. Love it. I shouldn't say "we", it's my wife's tablet...I haven't been able to get my hands on it.


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## indexxx (Oct 31, 2011)

Harp said:


> I am tired of throwing away money for garbage.


That's exactly why I switched- my Apple products have run absolutely flawlessly since I bought them, but I always had issues and extra expenses with Windows stuff. I have so far found Apple to be cheaper in the long run.


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## fred123 (May 8, 2010)

You may want to consider a refurbished iPad (sometimes available) from the Apple store. 

Lots of comparison data on Wikipedia, for example:
As of March 2013, mobile data usage showed 61% of mobile data traffic to be from iOS, 25% from Android.......
By 2012, Android tablet adoption had increased, with 52% of tablet owners using an iPad, while 51% use an Android-powered tablet.


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

My experience with Apple products is that there is a longer useful life than with other technology products. I'm on a three year old iPhone, a 14 month old iPad, a three year old Macbook and a two year old Apple TV. No real desire to upgrade because the products still do exactly what I want. 

When I used Windows products I found that I was on a treadmill. Software "updates" seemed to render my products obsolete within a year or so and I was constantly looking to upgrade. 

No experience with Android but I have noticed that Android folks seem to upgrade a lot.


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## fraser (May 15, 2010)

DW has an ipad and loves it. We use it for travel. No interest in the iphone.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Android sells more devices yet iOS is used more according to web stats. That tells me Apple devices are kept longer, upgraded longer, or just more enjoyable to use? I think it's mostly personal preference but specs and number of "features" aren't everything. I help an app developer and it is annoying to wait for approvals, but it does hold a certain standard. The glitches and complaints we get on Android are terribly more common and harder to sort out. Developers really like iOS for many reasons, especially because far less of the users pirate their hard work (just $2 for an app common..). You're buying into a healthy ecosysytem more than anything.

I like Windows 7 at work and on my desktop, but there's no question I prefer the Mac as a laptop. The minimalist but quality hardware goes a long way for a portable device and the trackpad is a dream. With iTunes you are frustrated at first if you can't warp your mind from windows and folders, but it manages all of your music and files across many devices. I'm perfectly comfortable to use Adobe Premier and Photoshop, but I find Final Cut and Aperture to be far more enjoyable to use (similar to iTunes file management) You can actually get better performance from less specs when the hardware is tweaked for the software, with less power consumption.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

iTunes is really polarizing. Some people love it, others hate it with a fiery passion. No software is perfect. I had a coworker who is not very computer savvy wipe her device by accidentally syncing her iPhone to her husbands iTunes when charging it.

As far as web traffic share for mobile devices, personally I find I only do light browsing on my phone, because keyboards really are vastly superior to any touch device when it comes to inputting text. I haven't seen any stats, but I wonder what the OS share is for accessing youtube from mobile devices. It could be in part that iPhone/iPad owners are likelier to be casual tech consumers and less likely to have desktops/laptops that they use for serious web browsing.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

I refused to buy an iPod because all my music was organized in folders and I preferred to simply drag and drop. But times have changed and that is a very tedious way to do what iTunes can actually do. I think people hate it because they don't like change. If she synced her iPhone before, she could have easily just restored it.... blatant user error... like someone who never used Windows before closing their work without saving or reading any popups..

Most of the internet is content, that's the thing. Most people don't need a huge noisy gaming laptop to watch youtube or read blogs. The market share is based on the number of sales but it doesn't seem to correlate to what I see in real life - a lot of people using iPhones and iPads. I've also noticed the overwhelming "serious geeks" convincing "casual consumers" not to buy Apple based on nerdy specs and feature lists and then they just don't use it much


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Do you think that effect is significant? I know there's some, but are there enough 'serious geeks' to account for 80% marketshare?


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

m3s said:


> I refused to buy an iPod because all my music was organized in folders and I preferred to simply drag and drop. But times have changed


In my case, times didn't change, I did. As I got older, my interest in organizing music and dealing with technical issues has declined. Apple lets me avoid all that extra work, but I pay more. :apathy:



andrewf said:


> Do you think that effect is significant? I know there's some, but are there enough 'serious geeks' to account for 80% marketshare?


IMO, The Windows laptops are significantly cheaper than Apple. You can get a basic Windows notebook for under $300. Apple Macbooks start at around $1,000. That may account for market share in the notebook/computer area.

The disparity for smart phones and tablets is not as great which may explain why Apple has been more successful with these devices.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

olivaw said:


> I
> IMO, The Windows laptops are significantly cheaper than Apple. You can get a basic Windows notebook for under $300. Apple Macbooks start at around $1,000. That may account for market share in the notebook/computer area.


I think, though, that this reflects the fact that Apple doesn't offer any "basic" or "low end" products, so it doesn't make sense to compare a basic Windows laptop with an Apple laptop. I don't know how the specs compare today, but a few years back I did a comparison of Lenovo ThinkPads and Apple MacBook Pros, configuring each machine's specs to be as close to identical as possible (same speed, RAM, hard drive capacity, webcam, etc.), and the Apple machines actually came out about $50 to $100 cheaper. I don't think that's true today, but I do think that if you do an apples-to-apples comparison (no pun intended) the price premium on the Apple machines would be considerably smaller than in this example.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

The other thing is that the Apple specs mean no upgrade for longer and this in itself can save money.


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

I don't know about tablets, but I'm happy with Windows for a PC.

I'm currently on a 2009 build. I have updated the RAM and video card, though I didn't really need to (mainly for the type of stuff I do with my computer, things that most people wouldn't do like Bitcoin mining). The motherboard, hard drives, OS, are all approaching four years old and I expect to get another 2-3 years out of them. It cost me about $600 to do this build and its been rock solid with Windows 7.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I guess the question is whether a Windows PC that costs $500 and lasts 4 years is worse than a Mac that costs $1200 and lasts 7 years.

I'm a more demanding user than average. I bought an Asus laptop with an i7, 16 inch 1080p display, terabyte of HDD, 6gb of RAM. I bought this about 2 years ago for $900. An equivalent macbook would have cost a fortune. Can/could you even buy an equivalent macbook?


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Apple has never made a 16" laptop, so no. But you can buy a 13" MacBook Pro, i7, 2.9 GHz (with turbo boost to 3.6GHz), 8 gb of RAM, 1 terabyte hard drive for $1,600. You can see all specs here for the newer Retina and legacy hard-disk MacBook Pros: http://www.apple.com/ca/macbook-pro/specs/


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

andrewf said:


> I'm a more demanding user than average. I bought an Asus laptop with an i7, 16 inch 1080p display, terabyte of HDD, 6gb of RAM. I bought this about 2 years ago for $900. An equivalent macbook would have cost a fortune. Can/could you even buy an equivalent macbook?


i7, 13" (wanted small for travel) 1280x800, 750GB, 4GB RAM for $1000. There's no reason to change the screen but I will probably upgrade the storage and RAM at some point ($200 after 3 or 4 years) so not exactly a fortune. My roommate had an Asus and we had the same discussion, and Asus would be my choice for Windows. His looked like a Macbook copy (high quality case and keyboard etc) the biggest difference to me is always the trackpad and gestures. I could also run the laptop for an entire flight which he couldn't. Really they're very close it just depends if you want a Mac or not. I needed the higher specs for video editing on the road, otherwise a Macbook Air would suffice for the same price


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## praire_guy (Sep 8, 2011)

andrewf said:


> I guess the question is whether a Windows PC that costs $500 and lasts 4 years is worse than a Mac that costs $1200 and lasts 7 years.
> 
> I'm a more demanding user than average. I bought an Asus laptop with an i7, 16 inch 1080p display, terabyte of HDD, 6gb of RAM. I bought this about 2 years ago for $900. An equivalent macbook would have cost a fortune. Can/could you even buy an equivalent macbook?


I paid 2600 bucks 7 years ago for my Mac Pro quad core. A useable windows machine could be had for around 500 or so. However for an apples to apples similar machine , I.e server grade motherboard, high quality, fast ram, etc (apple didn't, and I still believe does not build junk) was about the same cost back in the day. 
The main difference is the software, and lack of headaches with apple. 

Windows has constantly been a pain in the ***. Even my mother in laws laptop win7 needed a reformat after about a year, as ALL windows machines seem to need. 

Not to mention the constant updates, patches, hot fixes , antivirus updates, blah, blah, blah. 

My 7 year old Mac,pro still does what I bought it to do, and then some, without the windows headaches. 

In my case I was better off buying the more "expensive" apple product.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I don't think the geek set will ever buy Apple. Windows 7 is pretty solid. But if all you want to do is get the job done without focusing on the medium, the Apple is the way. 

DW has an iPad and I said she needed AppleCare because I would be no help. So far her biggest problems have been with MS mail because she was a Windows user with yours truly as tech support. Other than that it is impressive what she has accomplished without having to master geek.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I know people (CS majors) who bought macbooks and installed windows xp or ubuntu (or various linux distros). Go figure.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

andrewf said:


> I know people (CS majors) who bought macbooks and installed windows xp or ubuntu (or various linux distros). Go figure.


That's because we use Linux based OS in class so they are familiar with it or maybe just want to show they can. Same as the people who insisted on using Comd Prompt in Windows just because they knew how and didn't want to learn Windows yet. Mac takes some learning too if you're a demanding Windows user, although for most people a browser is a browser and you can still manually manage files and programs like in Windows. Files on a Mac can all be organized within the software and they all integrate/sync together across various programs and devices. This is annoying and mind warping at first.. but if you have a lot of music, edit a lot of photos or video it is much more efficient to manage. It's a natural progression. 1's and 0's, lines of code, windows and folders and independent programs, fully integrated graphical software.. the gestures are also like a touchscreen and I would say natural progression as well. Windows hasn't really changed in a decade but it works fine, you just have to spend a lot to time to tweak it if you're a demanding user.


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## Jim9guitars (May 5, 2012)

I've never owned an Apple product and don't feel like I missed a thing.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

andrewf said:


> I know people (CS majors) who bought macbooks and installed windows xp or ubuntu (or various linux distros). Go figure.


And of course there are loads of people who buy Macbooks and use the command-line interface to work in Unix. 

I run Windows 7 on my Mac and actually prefer it to my Windows machine -- it boots up in half the time and does everything faster. It actually boots into Windows faster than it boots in to Mac OSX.


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