[thisislife2]

True. But there's also the plus side - Intel Macs allowed us to run multiple OSes and that was a very desirable feature that was part of its attraction. With ARM Macs, this attraction is truly gone (even if Apple fans taut its ability to run a crippled Linux). So, many will no longer buy any ARM Macs at all. That's Apple's loss. As soon as the battery of my old iPad also conks out, I plan to buy an Android tablet with an unlocked bootloader - I am never buying a locked device that infringes on my rights, ever.

[seec]

Yep, that's the major problem with Apple hardware nowadays. It is very good in term of quality (at least if you don't need too much RAM of storage) but for the price you are entirely at the mercy of Apple for long term support. And recent Apple behavior has shown that they drop support on cue, regardless of the actual capacity of the device. I think they have actually become way more aggressive in that regard to boost sales, because the reality is that recent progress isn't really relevant to most people. Without forced deprecation, many would use their device almost indefinitely.

It cannot be a good deal to buy an expensive device that is guaranteed complete deprecation in a 7 year window (and very likely to suffer some major annoyance at the 5 years mark).

If you buy an equally expensive Android device (or Windows PC), because the model is different, you'll fare much better. And the reality is that at equal characteristics/performance the Android/PC version is generally quite cheaper.

Apple aficionados will rave about the build quality and ecosystem but I think they are irrelevant (most of the ecosystem advantages are to be found in the alternate world) and the devices feel more premium than they are actually qualitative (in fact they are very fragile in many ways).

They are surfing the Apple Silicon wave but as their efficiency lead is shrinking it will lose relevance/power.