Touching the back wall of the Apple store

> [The older non-iPod MP3 player] left a bigger impact on my life, really, than the iPod, because it was the thing that got me into media piracy, and led me to install Linux on an old laptop, which I used exclusively for media piracy. This increased my computer proficiency dramatically (though not to the point where I became a habitual Linux user) and set off a chain of events that made me much more comfortable with amateur web development and eventually game development.

This is such a funny end to this article that is reflected in my time too using Apple and non-Apple products. I had a similar generic MP3 player and I also got heavily into piracy (I remember it had a small screen so I tried to compress and stuff a full movie into it, which I successfully did by learning about and messing with ffmpeg settings, for example). Then when I got an early iPhone, I was flabbergasted as to how locked down the thing was (no, I do not want to sync my entire phone audio contents to iTunes), and soon after I switched to Android. Only recently have I started using a Mac and that's only because for historical reasons it's not locked down like the rest of Apple's devices, you can actually run whatever software you want on it without needing to go through a walled garden.

Macs are the only reasonable Apple product at the moment, except for the ridiculously priced accessories (headphones, mostly). Some of them are even upgradeable through tinkering, which is 2 things literally opposite of what Apple seems to want their customers to be thinking about.

AirPods are the only wireless earbuds I've used that handle 2-way Bluetooth audio between multiple devices well. They also sound okay, although I have $20 wired IEMs I imported from Shenzen that are more comfortable and sound just as good.

I also think the iPad isn't terrible, although it's a bit on the expensive side.

After picking up my young daughters (Samsung) android tablet and finding it flat again after 5 days, it’s refreshing how well things like power management just work on the iPad

If you are still into wired headphones, the basic apple earbuds are a pretty good value at $19. I like them enough to have ordered new ones when I've lost the old ones.