I've been an Apple user since the Apple ][+. I learned Apple Basic on it in third grade. I learned to program x86 assembly in the mid 80s. I have had other OSes come and go in my home and on my desk at school and work over the years, and the late 90s was especially bad for Apple product quality. Microsoft Windows has come a long way and is better than ever. Even so, I can say I'd rather have a Mac for general purpose computing in almost any circumstances if for no other reason than I know I can drop down to a Unix-ish CLI to do some real work if needed, although I am not a fan of the switch to zsh. At least Windows has WSL now too. With Windows however, there is still an element of fiddling involved that exceeds what is necessary on a regular basis on Macs. Ask IBM:
IBM says it is 3X more expensive to manage PCs than Macs
The thing that continues to mystify me about Windows after all these years is how wonky the networking stack remains. I swear, I'd almost rather deal with Trumpet Winsock than Windows 10 TCP/IP configuration. It should be the most straightforward thing in the world at this point, but somehow it isn't.
These days I have a MacBook Pro 15 at home and a MBP 13 at work to go with my Debian-based work desktop. I am a Unix/Linux sysadmin for high performance computing systems at a major university with 27+ years of professionsl experience supporting all sorts of devices and platforms, including multiple years doing solely Windows support. My wife has a MacBook Air at home and a Windows 10 laptop for her work in Finance. It would be hard for her to do her job on a Mac, so it is not the best tool for her job. She swears when using computers in general, but I can tell you the rate and volume of expletives are far greater when using Windows than using her Mac.
Windows, Android, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. are all really good these days. That said, there is something extra you get with most Apple products. Not that Apple products are perfect (Apple Music is terrible for instance). I would not choose to run Linux on Apple hardware for instance. The vertical integration of hardware and software you get with Apple does result in a better overall product IMHO, even when it isn't perfect in execution.
With respect to the AppleTV 4k, it is by far the smoothest, most consistently responsive UI of any streamer I have tried, including the 2019 Shield, 2nd Gen FireTV Cube, etc. I can see why Apple doesn't think they need to hurry to update it even though it is using 4+ year old technology. Apple's ARM-based chips are second to none in the consumer space (check out the A64FX from Fujitsu if you want to see what a really powerful ARM CPU looks like
). If it only had a great BT remote to go with an otherwise excellent product, I would buy 3 more for the other TVs in my house.
EDIT: I assume this is going to get me labeled a Apple Fanboi, but I am really not. I use a lot of different technologies, and frequently opt for ones that don't come from Apple. My preference for Apple products, where it exists, is all on a case-by-case basis. The fact that I choose Apple more often than not is merely a function of the general quality of their offerings. I'd still rather have a Blackberry than an iPhone for instance, but that isn't really an option any more and hasn't been for a long time.
