Kira Herdman

Windows vs Mac’s, this is an age old question isn’t it? Apple and Microsoft have been competitors in the personal computing space since the early days of home computers, when the Apple 1 and MS DOS 3 came out.

Apple has always been the go to computers for anyone in the content creation space while Microsoft has owned the office/home user market. Apple has always had a reputation for being pricy, known as the Apple Tax while Microsoft and its partners can pump out cheap office PC’s for the masses.

I think things are slowly changing with the introduction of 3 key product lines.

iPhone

Without question the iPhone was the most important product launch for Apple. On the 29th June 2007 Steve Jobs revolutionised the mobile computing world. While I miss physical keyboards of the BlackBerry and Nokia of old, especially the excellent keyboard of the BlackBerry Bold, there is no question that the iPhone was a revolution. However I also think these days it has stifled the market. Almost all phones these days are slab of glass with an interface that, in most cases, are basically the same. A grid of apps with a touch interface.

Gone are physical keyboards of yesteryear. These days you can get cases for the iPhone that have physical keyboards built into them but they also make the phone so large it can’t fit into the average pocket, and has no chance of fitting into any women’s pocket. While there are some innovation going on with foldable phones, these are still a niche product that are very expensive, even compared to iPhones.

iPad

The iPad is the second revolutionary product that Apple released, on April 6th, 2010. Before the iPad tablets were mainly just enlarged phones, Anyone remember trying to use a Tablet that ran Android 2.1 Oreo, like the Motorola Moto Xoom? I had one of these, and all the apps where basically phone apps that was blown up to fit the screen or ran in a small window.

The iPad at first was just a media consumption device, as Steve Jobs demonstrated in the keynote at WWDC 2010 by sitting in a chair pretending to surf the web and read a e-book. But these days, I know people who use iPads for all their computers needs, like Photo Editing,Video Editing and Office work. I’m using one right now to type this blog post in.

Android tablets just cannot compete with the productivity value that an iPad can offer. I know some people who still use an 2018 iPad Pro for photo editing and light video editing. Before I got the iPads I was changing my Android Tablets every few years thanks to next to no software updates or software updates that took ages to come through to the device.

The latest version of iOS and iPadOS, 18, supports iPads all the way back to the iPad 7th Gen, which came out in 2019. While it doesn’t support the latest features of iOS/iPadOS, it still gets all the security updates and can run the latest apps well enough. iOS/iPadOS 17 still gets security updates from Apple, which means devices older than this are still secure, though may not be able to run the latest versions of some apps.

An Android tablets, especially very cheap ones, don’t get software updates. Even ones by the big manufacturers like Samsung the cheap ones only get 2 years while the top-of-the-line ones get 4-5 years. This is only security updates, at most they get 2 versions of Android installed on them. My last Android Tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite, which cost the same as an Apple iPad 10th Gen, can only support Android 13, which is now 2 versions out of date. It does however still get Security Updates. This tablet came out after the iPad 7th Gen on 16th May 2020.

The apps on iPad are also of higher quality in general. Please tell me what app on Android can compare with LumaFusion, the Affinity Suite, ProCreate or an app I am very familiar with iA Writer, the app I am currently writing this blog post on. This does not even count Apple’s own professional apps like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro.

Apple Silicon

The third revolutionary product that Apple released is Apple Silicon.

Apple released the M1 in 2020 in the Mac’s released that year and eventually to the the iPad Pro’s in 2021.

When it came out, it shook the PC industry to its core. Here was a very powerful chip that ran cool, (the MacBook’s does not even have a fan in them) but blew every other desktop computer out of the water in terms of performance. The only thing letting it down was gaming as developers have not, and still do not in general, develop AAA games for it.

For tasks that Apple are known for, the creative industry, nothing on the market could compete with the M1. Still to this day, the M1 Max, the top of the line version of the M1 family, still gives the best of what Intel and AMD offers a run for their money when it comes to pure creative tasks performance, 4 years after its release (The M1 Max came out in 2021)

The latest version of the M series of chips is the M4, which happens to be inside the iPad I am typing this on, the iPad Pro M4 13”. The performance of the M4 is truly outstanding, even outside the creative world, when developers support the hardware properly. Within the creative space nothing comes even close to the base M4 chip, the one in the iPad Pro M4.

So why do I use iPad’s/Mac’s as my primary business computer

I’ll be honest, at first I didn’t like the M series of chips. I don’t the fact that you cannot upgrade the RAM in any device that has one in it. Some Mac’s you can upgrade the storage but not all. I also don’t like the fact Apple charges an extortionate amount for RAM and Storage upgrades when you configure your Mac/iPad while buying it.

While there are work around for Storage (All Apple Silicon Macs/iPad’s support Thunderbolt 4, some of the latest M4 Macs support the latest Thunderbolt 5 as well, and that is plenty fast enough to use external SSDs with them) there is nothing you can do about the RAM. If you messed up with the configuration when you bought the iPad/Mac, you’re stuck with it.

The performance gain though is massive. Here I am, typing this on a slab of glass that’s only 5.5mm thick yet can run an AAA game, Assassins Creed Mirage, better than a dedicated gaming machine like the Xbox Series S/X and PS5. But that is not why I use iPad’s these days. The vast majority of game’s are simply not available.

I use them for the long software support. I used to think of Mac’s and iPad’s as expensive computers. You have to think about more than just the up front cost.

This iPad Pro M4 13”, which cost £1300, costs the same as a Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra 12.4”. You do however, get the SPen with the Samsung device where you don’t get the Apple Pencil with the iPad, but then again the iPad Pro M4 has a 13” Tandem OLED Screen, probably the best screen on any tablet.

The software support for the Samsung runs out in 2031. Here I am not talking about the last version of Android but security support. The versions of Android supported are usually 2 versions after the release of the device.

Apple just recently released a security update in February for the iPad Pro 2nd Gen, which runs iPadOS 17. The iPad Pro 2nd Gen was released in 2017. The original version of iPadOS that came out for the iPad Pro 2nd Gen was in fact iOS 10, before Apple split the two operating systems. Apple will continue to support that iPad until iPadOS 19 comes out later this year at the minimum.

So that’s 8 years ago. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, which is a tablet you can still buy today from Samsung themselves, has 6 years worth of updates from the time of release.

I wonder what version of Android the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra will be running, since the the 3rd Gen iPad Pro, which is 7 years old runs the latest version at the time of writing, iPadOS 18.

While the iPad is popular, it’s not the only option. Last year, Apple released what I believe is the best value computer available today: the Apple Mac mini M4. For £600, you get the latest M4 chip, 16GB of unified memory, a 256GB SSD, four Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB 3.2 ports, HDMI output, a Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. All this is housed in a case that can literally fit in your hand.

The performance is impressive. I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 3, a modern AAA game, at high settings on this machine, and it managed to run at 75FPS (the maximum my monitor can handle) while remaining silent. Like every other Apple M series Mac or iPad, it runs the latest macOS and includes Apple Intelligence. The support for this machine will likely be just as long, if not longer, than the iPad Pro M4, and it’s significantly cheaper, at less than half the price.

The only downside is that it doesn’t come with a keyboard, mouse, or monitor.

The quality of the apps is also generally much higher on the iPad or Mac than the Android or even Windows equivalent.

With every new Apple device, you also get a lot of first-party software with it for free, like the excellent Garage Band (Music Creation), iMovie (Video Creation), Pages (Fully featured Word Processor), Numbers (Fully featured Spreadsheet), and Keynote (Probably the best presentation program out there), amongst other programs. Just those programs alone are enough for most people who are not interested in gaming.

The Apple Eco-system.

The Apple Eco-system is more than just paying for services Apple offers like Apple TV , Apple Music etc. It’s also the way all it’s devices work together.

Features like when I take a photo on my iPhone, it is automatically available on my iPad/Mac without having to download it, or I can use my iPhone as a webcam with my Apple TV for FaceTime calls, or being able to start something on my iPad then pick up where I left off on my iPhone and all your text messages available on all devices.

I can also use my iPad Pro as a second screen for my Mac mini M4, or just use the Keyboard and Mouse from it. My Apple Watch unlocks my Mac from sleep just by walking up to it. The Apple Watch can also authenticate you for purchase from the App Store instead of you having to type in your password. I have not had to input my password into the Mac mini M4 since setting it up thanks to this feature.

With the latest macOS I can even control my iPhone wirelessly, with a secure connection, all without my hands leaving the keyboard/mouse on my desk.

All these features, and a lot more, are available without installing any extra software.

Conclusion

So yes, while there is a so called Apple Tax on devices from the fruit company, you do get what you pay for, a long lasting, fully supported device that has some of the best software, especially for creatives, you can get.

A lot of people complain about iPadOS, how limiting the multi-tasking can be. That for me is one of the main features I like about working on an iPad: the lack of notifications and other distractions as a blogger/writer. I just get to write.

I also like the longevity of the hardware and the Apple Ecosystem, the way all the devices just work together as one.

That is why I now use my iPad’s and Mac’s almost exclusively these days for any personal computing task that is not gaming.

For gaming I have a dedicated windows based gaming laptop that I use. Though I do game on the Mac and iPad’s more than I used to due to the type of games I play.