What bothered me was this paragraph:

>Apple has great design

Functional design. A lot of haters misunderstand it as style.

>but

Uh-oh

>they sell things that are locked down, both physically and in software.

OK, I guess you read that on the Internet. But you should question it.

When I bought my first Mac the first thing I did before buying it was call Apple support and check whether I could open it and upgrade the hard drive without voiding the warranty. The answer? YES. Same goes for memory, etc.

Was true then, is true today. Although for some models the options are now removed due to technical limitations put in place not because Apple is trying to offend you, but because that's how they get the battery life you like. In my experience Apple is very cool about user upgrades.

What they're not cool about is stuff like putting in third party batteries, which then explode, and then asking Apple to eat the cost for that. Um, no.

On the software side, of course Apple doesn't want to set all its users up with totally vulnerable systems that can lead to all manner of harm. But it doesn't prevent more advanced users like us from doing what we want to on our own systems. Feel free to install Linux, even though it's already a UNIX machine, whatever... So you don't have to let the software factor in to your decision about a machine.

>You're not supposed to open them, you're not supposed to replace parts

It's just normal life that some things can be replaced, and some can't. This isn't specific to Apple. If you attempt to open a lithium battery, it may burst into flames. Therefore, they are made, deliberately, to be hard to open. And you being not supposed to open them is a correct thing, not a problem.

We don't know the story behind pentalobe screws But I imagine maybe third party battery replacement businesses were getting out of control, leading to damaged phones and fires, and that little side industry needed a speed bump while it got its batteries up to snuff. Who knows. It's easy to think up legitimate reasons rather than "Apple hates your freedoms." But bashing Apple is just the cool thing to do, right?

> and if they break you're supposed to take them to your nearest "Genius Bar". Not my style.

I would encourage you to think beyond style. I build my own PCs too but the Geniuses are backed by a truly awesome knowledge base with problems, troubleshooting tools, solutions, and discretionary power to make you very, very happy when things go wrong, if you're not a dick about things.

>Also, Apple makes beautiful hardware

Functional. I'm sure beauty is also a goal but I think a lot of it comes as a side effect of the intrinsic functional nature of every detail. But yeah, it's beautiful too.

>but their software is getting worse.

You read this on the internet too. Please. Think for yourself. Of course their software has problems. All software has problems. Apple's software is taking on HUGE challenges, basically helping each person manage all their information, and responsibly, which means with security measures in place, which are there to reduce the likelihood of actual harmful real threats to their users. Yes, it's complicated.

All that being said... I agree with one thing, which is that it would be great if there were more fantastic machines out there, from more vendors. But I think to make machines really great, they would inevitably end up including some of the features that you diss when talking about Apple, like security features and tradeoffs on end-user upgradability in return for other benefits.