Not at all. Apple is selling a 'brand' and most of their success is down to marketing. They know they can charge more, because their average customers don't really understand what they're buying.
Would love to see hard numbers on the claims of 'apple/macbooks are just much better'... :) I just read ~20 apple fanboy comments in this thread making absurd claims about 'apple is way better than everyone' based on nothing but anecdotal experiences and BS.
I ask because I used to be like you, calling Apple users "fanboys", throwing hard data from benchmarks in discussions, being proud of my true h4ck0rz Linux installation on a IBM ThinkPad for work that was a pain in the ass to maintain in working state, had to stop updating after too many hours spent troubleshooting. Or relegate myself to working in Windows on ThinkPads.
Until one day I begrudgingly accepted a Intel MBP at a new job some 15 years ago, I was going to install Linux on it anyway so didn't care. Started using macOS in the meantime, it had the shell utilities I needed so I kept using it while checking how you install some Linux on it, the UI worked flawlessly, the OS was a breeze to learn, after a few months I had barely had to troubleshoot anything, I'd just turn it on and work.
I never went back, I want my tools to work well and found a tool that worked much better than anything else I had used before.
When something better shows up I'll be very excited to try, unfortunately nothing in the past 15 years has changed my mind.
Not everyone likes it, and that's ok, but calling satisfied customers "fanboys" is a tad bit immature. The product works, and works well.
I've used many apple computers for the last ~10 years. I work on them daily.
> I ask because I used to be like you, calling Apple users "fanboys"
I'm not calling 'apple users' fanboys, I'm calling people who are literally fanboying in the comments fanboys.
> Started using macOS in the meantime, it had the shell utilities I needed so I kept using it while checking how you install some Linux on it, the UI worked flawlessly,
Ahahaha, there are soooooo many bugs in the macos UI and macos in general, many of these are well known and have existed for years.
> the OS was a breeze to learn,
What kind of point is this? You said you've used Windows and Linux before... what else is there to learn for macos? A few new shortcuts?
> I'd just turn it on and work.
I turn my windows and linux laptops on and they just work! Magic!
So again, you didn't make a single rational argument for why macbooks and macos are actually better... literally a fanboy.
What's the point of this? I didn't say it was perfect and bugless...
The point about turning it on and working is that I never had an issue where my soundcard simply stopped working (many times on Linux), nor issues with sleep mode not working and draining the battery (many, many times on Linux), nor my graphics configuration randomly going out of whack and KDE/Gnome getting stuck in a bizarre resolution.
Maybe I should just disengage, you sound a bit deranged in your quest, best of luck!
I'm not sure why you think "anecdotal experiences" are invalid when people are talking about a personal choice. I.e. I don't need some sort of double blinded study to "prove" Mac laptops are better. I've used other laptops, and I have a strong preference for Macs for a myriad of reasons that have nothing to do with marketing (to be honest I can't even remember the last time I saw an actual ad for a Mac). You may disagree, that's fine, but it's silly to pretend the personal preferences of others are somehow invalid or less than.
> Way over-priced storage and RAM upgrades, can't connect multiple monitors unless you pay up, and you're stuck with MacOS.
Basically boils down to "Apple is selling a much better product, and they know it." I.e. your first bullets (over priced storage, RAM, charging for multi monitor support) all just boil down to "Apple charges more because they can". The "you're stuck with MacOS" is obviously true but just highlights that Apple has always been about optimizing hardware and software together.
If anything, I think the "dark times" for Apple laptops was the late teens during the era of stuff like the butterfly keyboard, the touchbar, and too few ports. I think Apple consumers have consigned themselves to paying more for a much better product. What they're not willing to do (as much anyway) is to pay a premium for a crappier product. The butterfly keyboard especially was such a disaster ("We shaved .2 mm off the width, all at the minor expense of any key randomly stopping to work at any time!") Admitting mistakes in big corporations is hard so I'm glad they just jettisoned all that stuff.