It's the Ecosystem. Period.

I’ve just completed one week using iOS 8.1 on my iPhone 6+ and OS X Yosemite on my late 2013 15” Retina MacBook Pro. I can sum up my experience with one sentence…

What a great time to be an Apple fan!

Like many of you, I spend a lot of time consuming Apple news, reviews, podcasts and the like. Maybe unlike many of you, I’m one of those guys who is unashamed to say “I drank the KoolAid”. By that I mean by any measure I am all-in when it comes to Apple hardware and software. I use AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express routers exclusively for my home network. I regularly use my iPad Air for consuming content and some light creation. I listen to my iPod Nano while working out or going for my daily walk. As mentioned, I have a new iPhone 6+, but I’ve owned an iPhone since standing in line for the original at my local Apple store in late June of 2007. I’m on my third MacBook Pro since 2006 and I’m typing this post on my late 2009 27” iMac and iPad Air using the newest version of Pages. I organize and edit my photos with Aperture and record and mix the MacTexan Podcast with Logic Pro. There’s an AppleTV hooked up to all three TVs in our home that share content with every Mac and iOS device we own. All three of my daughters and one son-in-law are also exclusive Apple users in no small part due to getting my hand-me-downs and receiving Apple products as gifts for Christmas, birthdays, graduations, etc. We regularly use FaceTime and iMessage to communicate and have since its introduction. I’m also a registered Mac and iOS developer (mainly to get beta versions of Apple software, but I do like to play “Code Monkey” from time to time). Yep. Any way you slice me you come up with Apples.

I take time to enumerate this extensive fanboy evidence to give more/less weight to the following:

While iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite are wonderful products in their own right, using the two in combination is the most pleasurable technology experience I’ve ever had. (And I’ve been making a living at this for 32 years!)

While I freely admit to being fascinated by a few of the upper-tier Android devices (my buddy’s HTC One M8 comes to mind), with their nearly limitless available tweaks and configurations, I am quickly brought back down to earth when the Safari page I’m viewing on my iPhone pops up on my MacBook Pro as soon as I approach my desk. The same thing happens when this Pages document is available instantly on my iPad Air when I go downstairs to the sofa. Right now, this works for all iWork apps, Safari, Contacts, Notes, Reminders, Calendar, Maps, Mail, (basically all the built-in Apple apps), but soon I expect a flood of third-party apps to add these Continuity features. Apple has supplied all the tools to do so in the latest iOS and OS X SDKs (Software Development Kits). Additionally, if I leave my iPhone downstairs I can answer or initiate calls with FaceTime on my Mac. The same goes for SMS. With Yosemite it's no longer just iMessages, it works for all text messages.

Apple has also added AirDrop features allowing you to "drop" a file from any iOS 8 device to a nearby Mac running Yosemite and vice-versa. This turns out to be very handy when you want to share a song, picture or video with a friend. Before, the only way to do this was to attach a file to an email or text message. This meant the file had to go over the internet and through someone else's server and if the file was too big it could be rejected.

When you add these new features to the already extensive list of functions and interactions between Apple devices that existed before Yosemite, its next to impossible to construct a comparable infrastructure no matter how much you spend. Hell, it took my daughter and I over two hours to get her XBox One to stream movies from our library (one that I built on a DLNA-compliant NAS) over our home network and we continually struggle to keep it working. The XBox often can't find the library or we get some cryptic error message about authentication when we try to play a movie. In contrast, my three Apple TVs will stream any song, movie or photo from any of our four Macs and it always works. The only setup steps were to sign into our iCloud account and turn on Home Sharing. Period.

There is no other company capable of providing this level of interaction between devices. Why? Apple owns all of its platforms, both hardware and software. The only way a company can assure everything works together perfectly is to have complete control of all aspects of the ecosystem, from design to development to testing. Apple absorbs a lot of criticism for being a "walled garden" regarding OS X and iOS devices. I'm guilty of some of that. For example, I've been envious of Android's ability to use custom, third-party keyboards. For the life of me I couldn't understand why it took Apple more than five years to allow this on iOS, but it didn't even tempt me to switch to an Android device. Now that point is moot. Just like cut, copy and paste, Apple tends to be very (some would say overly) conservative when adding new features, but once delivered they usually work exceptionally well.

It’s impossible to discuss the overall Apple experience without mentioning service. One of the most pleasant surprises I experienced after switching to Mac in ’06 was how accommodating Apple’s on-line, phone and Genius Bar support is. My first experience was with my first MacBook Pro in 2007. I got to my office one day, pressed the power button on my Mac and the machine didn’t boot. It never even showed the Apple logo, just a blank gray screen. The machine was only six months old and still well within the hardware warranty period. I called 1-800-MYAPPLE and after the phone support didn’t resolve the issue the tech support engineer made a Genius appointment for me at my nearby Apple store for that afternoon. I showed up at the appointed time, the Genius tried unsuccessfully to boot my machine then took it into the back of the store. Five minutes later he returned with my MBP running like nothing had happened. It turns out one of the memory sticks was bad and it was my fault. I had replaced the two 2 gig sticks with 4 gig ones from a third-party vendor. He mentioned that some memory doesn’t measure up to Apple’s quality specs, but didn’t charge me anyway! I was dumbfounded. I’ve had very little trouble with my hardware, but the sheer number of products my family has purchased over the past 8 years has had us in for service a few times. Without exception, we felt we were treated courteously, fairly and promptly. In my opinion Apple’s technical support organization is far superior to everyone else and is what makes the Apple experience complete.

So, if you find yourself making a decision about which smartphone, tablet or computer to buy, you may be well served by considering more than which device is cheaper, has the biggest screen or longer feature list. If you'd like your device to be more that what it is, you need to consider how well it will work with the other devices in your home or office and how easily you can get things fixed if something goes wrong. When all is considered, the Apple ecosystem has no equal.

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