I’m talking here about their hardware (MacBook, iPhone, iPad, iWatch) and software (iCloud, Apple One, mail, passwords, wallet, other apps), in terms of owning all of that.
What’s your opinion on using everything that comes from Apple? Is there anything that you would throw away from the “basket” full of apples? If yes, then what would be that and why?
For professional use, iCloud storage is a non starter. For stuff like client/collaborator file handoff and versioning and basically anything outside of basic <place to put things>, I prefer a service like Dropbox.
Their password manager is also not up to snuff yet for me but they seem to be improving it. It’s just nowhere as full featured as an app like 1Password and it only works on Apple stuff which can be a real problem in some cases.
For notes I prefer a robust option like Notion. The free plan is going to be enough for most people and it’s just such a good app with so many features under the hood.
I prefer Fantastical for adding content to the Calender over iCal. It’s a lot better for granular details and its smart parsing is 2nd to none. You can simply type Meeting at <place> every Friday at 3pm and it will turn that into a recurring 3pm Friday meeting with location info (if available online) for that location.
I actually think Apple Mail is fine for my uses but a lot of people find it to be lacking compared to other apps. It definitely has its rough spots.
Wallet is fine. If you’re using an Apple device there’s not really an alternative that I am aware of for easily storing cards for contactless payments or stuff like boarding passes and event tickets.
I use Apple Music mainly because it’s integrated and easy and I have a student discount still working on it. It’s not amazing but it’s not that bad.
Apple Maps is still not up to par with Google Maps for now.
If you live outside of the US or some other country where either SMS or “blue bubble” iMessage is standard, iMessage will not be sufficient for messaging and you’ll prob need something like Whatsapp.
For hardware I’m all in on their stuff and don’t find it lacking but I’m not a gamer. If I were I would likely want a PC for that purpose. For my work (design/illustration) their stuff is great. I use both an MBP and iPad Pro for what I do and love using them. They’d not be a great option for people doing heavy 3D modeling/rendering and I don’t think it’d be the best bang for your buck for motion graphics either. For video editing and audio work they’re quite capable.
Edit to add:
Facetime is great for friends/family but I have never once encountered it being used for professional settings.
Their podcast app is outclassed but a number of 3rd party apps. Right now my daily driver is Overcast
There are official Apple password manager extensions for Chrome and Edge on Windows.
Ah just looked that up. That’s a good development. Still no support for Firefox or any other browser and nothing for Linux or non iOS mobile devices. So hopefully they’ll continue to extend support but it’s still not comparable to something like 1Password. The UI for filling and managing stuff is also just no nearly as nice to use last time I gave it a shot.