Moving to the Apple Ecosystem

Roughly 2 years ago, I made the decision to leave Windows. At the time I was working with a Surface Laptop Studio, and while I absolutely loved the hardware (I’ve always been a fan of the Surface hardware), I grew more and more frustrated with Windows 11. There was the lack of consistency in the UI that lots of people complain about, sure, but what really floored me was the ads showing up in the Start menu, in the browser, in the Office applications… and the constant reboots that I did not initiate because some update installed. No warning, no option for deferrment, just my waking up and finding that my desktop was empty, and that the machine had rebooted due to an operating system update. Microsoft lost me at that point.

So I bought an M3 MacBook Pro and changed to MacOS. And I’ve loved it so far. Developing on it is a pleasure, it’s fast, it has a fantastic keyboard (now that they got rid of that stupid Touch Bar) and track pad, and looks awesome (I have the all black MacBook Pro). It runs all of my development software, including Rider for .NET, VSCode for web development, and DataGrip for database work.

Fast forward a couple years, and as of 2 weeks ago, I changed from a Galaxy S25 Ultra to an iPhone 18 Pro Max. I still love Samsung’s hardware and the One UI layer on top of it on Samsung phones. My switching to iPhone has literally nothing to do with anything that Samsung or Android did or did not do. But I wanted to go ahead and give the full Aplle ecosystem a try. I loved my S25 Ultra. I liked (not loved, but liked) my Galaxy Watch. But they didn’t integrate with my MacBook the way that an iPhone would. I got around text messages by having the web version of Android Messages pinned to my task bar, which worked fine, but it was a workaround at best. The integration between my phone and my laptop is now so much nicer. I get my phone alerts on my laptop now, whether text messages or application alerts. And though I haven’t played with it much yet, the iPhone screen sharing is kinda cool! I also have the Apple Watch Series 12, and have been using it to track fitness and sleep, and the display is gorgeous!

Like when I moved to MacOS off of Windows, there are definitely some things that I’m having to get used to. I MISS the back button on Android. To be fair, I 100% knew that this would be the case, but I know I’ll get used to it soon enough, and then it won’t matter. I’m also getting used to the gestures. There’s really nothing major at all that I had on my Samsung phone that I don’t have on the iPhone. Android lets you swap launchers, but the reality is that even though I tried a bunch of different launchers, I still always came back to One UI. So not being able to change launchers on iOS is not remotely an issue, and not something that I’ll miss.

So far, the complete Apple ecosystem has been great. I’m recording my fitness and health using Apple Fitness and Apple Health. Apple Pay is amazing. I’ve started writing a journal using Apple Journal and find that I truly enjoy the process. Apple Music is fantastic. Apple Arcade is a ton of fun! There’s still a lot to explore, but I’m definitely enjoying the ride so far!

Again, I still love Samsung, Android, and One UI. And have ALWAYS been a firm believer in using the tools that work for you. My wife is still very much a Samsung user. And I love that for her! It gives her exactly what she wants and needs. But this is a personal journey for me. And I’m loving the ride!