I hate the tribalism regarding Apple products. There are loyal fanboys who won’t hear a bad word about Apple, and then there are Apple haters who criticise everything about them.
I wish we had some more nuance in this debate. The reality is that there are advantages and disadvantages to Apple products. I’ll outline a few:
Advantages
- Long iOS support. Typically you can expect an iPhone to be supported for 5-7 years, which is well above the average in the industry.
- No bloatware or adverts on the iPhone
- Better privacy than Google Android/Microsoft Windows
- High-end hardware, e.g. M1 chip in MacBooks.
- User friendly design. Nice user experience.
Disadvantages
- Overpriced. Seriously all Apple products are more expensive than the competition.
- Anti-consumer business practices that influence the industry. They normalised removing the headphone jack and using non-removable batteries, which other manufacturers followed. Another anti-consumer practice is using their proprietary Lighting port, rather than USB (luckily the EU should be forcing them to adopt USB-C and removable batteries soon). Also, no SD card slot because they want you to use iCloud
- Walled garden. No support for side-loading apps
- Required to use iTunes to add/remove music to the iPhone, which is a problem if you use Linux (you’d have to use Wine to install the Windows version as a workaround)
I like to say that there are two Apples, Apple the designer and Apple the business.
Apple the designer is one of the best in the world. Yes they have blunders but they consistently put out some of the highest quality hardware and software. The current design language of the iPhone is beautiful, MacOS has its issues but it’s a good OS, the seamlesness with which Apple devices work together is nothing short of incredible. They have some of the best engineers and designers in the world and it shows. (I’ll never forgive them for the mouse though, that thing is a travesty)
Apple the business is a ghoul who hates its users and competition, would rather you buy a new phone than repair your broken one and, if they could, would make your device implode if you do anything they don’t approve of. I’m still waiting for them to be benevolent enough to allow me to code on an M1 iPad, a device that has all the power of a mac but is completely knee capped by its OS.
I love Apple the designer, but unfortunately Apple the business makes it impossible for me to support them.
This is a great point. Anyone that says that the MacBook is a piece of crap has never used one (other than the first gen 12 inch MacBook) they are awesome and the design is great.
MacOS on the other hand really gets on my nerves and all of their anti-consumer stuff is enough for me to avoid them entirely. I won’t even call them overpriced because a PC similarly equipped with a monitor as nice as theirs is just as much.
I wish there was a hardware designer as good as Apple on the PC side but because they are so good people excuse abhorrent business practices. You don’t see people vehemently defending stupid things that Dell does for instance.
Great point. I can’t think of another company in the phone/computer industry that has such a cult following, that it allows them to get away with awful business practices without criticism from its loyal fan base.
I would also love to see a competitor to Apple make equally great products without all the awful business practices… Although I think the sad reality is that Apple’s anti-consumer practices earns them so much money, that it allows them to spend more on UX design, R&D, hardware etc and create better products.
As for the “overpriced” description, I’d say it’s a bit more debatable for a MacBook, but it’s a lot more noticeable on Apple’s other products (The most egregious example, of course, is the infamous $999 monitor stand). Even the accessories, such as a simple charger or adapter, will require you to pay the Apple Tax too.
Oh man I already forgot about that monitor stand. Yeah that’s the kind of ridiculous stuff that people should be angry about.
Well said. I agree with your point. I love Apple designs/products but hate Apple business practices.
I guess my point is that people who buy an Apple product know that it’s a package deal. For instance, you know that you will get a beautiful high-end iPhone but you can’t side load apps. So it’s a case of weighing up the advantages and disadvantages.
And yes, I agree that the Magic Mouse is poorly designed, which is uncharacteristic of Apple. I was given one from work to use with my work-issued MacBook. And it was only when my mouse battery ran out for the first time that I discovered that you can’t charge and use the mouse at the same time! So frustrating!
No bloatware or adverts on the iPhone
Cherry-picked. There are phones without ads or bloat. And, given the incompatibility between facetime/iMessage and apps standardized across all other platforms, I consider these to be bloat.
User friendly design. Nice user experience.
Subjective. I support a number of family members whose grandkids suggested iPhones. Whether it’s swooshing, skootching, swiping, tapping or banging it against a guardrail, I haven’t learned and they can’t remember how to bring up the main app screen now that the functional button was removed – like, none of them. I’m just here to fix their email passwords, and I leave the UX issues to said grandkids.
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iPhones are easy to use, if you do EVERYTHING their way.
Apple absolutely can do some great things, but I cannot overlook their anti-consumer practices towards the right to repair. The fact that aftermarket parts have to reuse a chip for the sole reason of marking the serial number the same as the original is ridiculous and should be illegal.
Also Apple devices are only more “private” in the sense that the prevent third parties from collecting your data (don’t get me wrong, this is great), but then proceed to go and collect the same data for their own uses instead.
Another baffling thing I found is that you can’t transfer files from the device if iCloud is enabled? That’s fucking crazy to me. I get that it’s not a common thing to do but I had multiple customers ask how they’d get something off, and the answer was to slowly download it from the cloud, if it was something that happened to be backed up.
Apple devices are only more “private” in the sense that the prevent third parties from collecting your data (don’t get me wrong, this is great), but then proceed to go and collect the same data for their own uses instead.
While I accept that Apple are far from perfect, my understanding is that even their data collection for their own purposes is still less than the data collection that Google use for their own purposes. And since their are only two major phone OS (Android and iOS), we can only choose between the lesser of the two evils.
After all, do you want to give your data to a company which is the world’s biggest ad company? Or instead give your data to a company whose business model is convincing people to buy $1000+ phone every year?
But yeah, I agree that Apple’s anti-consumer practices are awful. I wasn’t aware of the aftermarket parts re-using chips just for the serial numbers and I’m not even the least bit surprised. We need governments to bring in legislation to protect right to repair, because companies like Apple can’t be reasonable.
Oh google is for sure worse, they are an ad company primarily afterall
-Long iOS support. Typically you can expect an iPhone to be supported for 5-7 years, which is well above the average in the industry.
This I do agree with
- No bloatware or adverts on the iPhone
GrapheneOS
- Better privacy than Google Android/Microsoft Windows
GrapheneOS on phone, linux on PC.
- High-end hardware, e.g. M1 chip in MacBooks.
This I also agree with, but fuck broadcom wifi drivers.
- User friendly design. Nice user experience.
Eh, it is “so easy a child could do it,” yes, but the lack of ability to do what I want with my own computer or phone negatively impacts my user experience, personally. This one is way more subjective than people give it credit for tbh.
Isn’t GraphebeOS just for pixel phones?
Yes, as they are the most secure phones out there for flashing since you can re-lock the bootloader. They’re the only one that lets you do that iirc.
The whole apple ethos is to entirely control your product because you’re too stupid too. You can try to see the nuance in that if you want I suppose, but I’m not really seeing anything meaningful myself.
I use Iphone and Ipad just for the banking. I distrust Android. It is an open system, and used a lot more for data collection than Apple’s ecosystem is. The return you get from a data request between apple and an Android system is vast. I refuse to use Facebook and the likes.
I never buy the latest edition of Iphone anymore. I have done in the past, but the idea of spending £1200 on a phone seems stupid to me. I have very few apps on both the Iphone and Ipad. I use a PC for other stuff. Iphone hardware is good with the CPU side of things, but the cameras are very inferior compared to some android phones.
I use a windows PC to move my own music to my iphone, but it is a hampered system. I really do not understand why they have not been brought to the spotlight of the monopolies commission because of how bad they hinder transfers. I have a process I have to follow to get new music on my iphone. Anyone who wants movies on their apple products should look at VLC. It is the easiest method. I should add I haven’t added new music for a long time. This could have changed, but I would be sceptical until I saw it for myself.
I look down on anyone buying a Macbook. They are total dogcrap, and massively overpriced. They are designed to fail in many areas, the latest being the SSDs that are causing surges in the motherboard, which destroys it. Apple constructively inhibits any repairs behind software encoding and pressure it puts on 3rd party suppliers. They lobby US government to restrict self repairs. You are literally throwing money into Apple’s bank account for very little return.
Intel macbooks deserve the hate, but the apple silicon ones are genuinely impressive to the point of being worth it until the competition catches up in terms of ARM performance, especially in terms of battery life.
I don’t know, I have an M1 Mac Mini and it is awful, I’ll never buy another M chip. It’s fast when you’re just using a single program, but having more things open and it slows right to a crawl. Plus it’s inability to do actual virtualisation is a real pain.
Very odd… i multitask and run both paravirtualized (arm) and virtualized (x86) linux and windows without issues. You are more likely on the base model and out of RAM.
It is the base model, I have about 2gb of ram free but it does run out quickly and due to apple bullshit there’s no way to just open it and upgrade the ram (also, how the hell do they think 8gb is acceptable?). And they’re capable of emulation, but not true virtualisation and things like VirtualBox don’t run at all, unless that’s changed recently because I admit I haven’t looked into it since I found it was impossible after I got the machine.
Also once I have a single docker container running, it causes things like chrome to crash all the time, and I can’t even run chrome, vscode, insomnia and a docker container together. Absolutely trash machine, doesn’t compare even slightly to my 6 year old i7-8700k machine that’s fully customisable. I don’t see any reason to ever get another arm machine, and definitely not another Mac.
8GB is more than enough for someone who only does a little light web browsing and sending the occasional e-mail. Anyone who needs more from their computer is expected to know better and not order the base model. 32GB is workable, 64GB is better.
I have a MB pro with M1 Max and 64GB RAM and it’s an absolute beast. I can throw everything at it and it doesn’t break a sweat, and I’m a demanding user. I’m a developer and have a lot of software running all the time, 400+ tabs open in Safari, lots of PDF files and other documents open. I’m also running it with 2 high-res monitors (5k2k ultrawide and a 4k). Lots of work related apps (e.g. Teams, Outlook, and bullshit like that). The fan doesn’t even come on. Not even when I compile a large codebase using all 10 cores. It’s an absolute monster. And all that in a 14” laptop. Easily the best computer I ever used.
When was the last time Apple used an Arm chips over intel ? According to the Wiki, this was 2005. X86 software and GPUs were behind apple by quite a way back then. Did they still add Arm to later versions?
Originally X86 was not built with graphics processing in mind. It did not really show anything worth while until the Nvidia viper GPUs in the mid 90s. Prior to that Amiga had the best for graphics processing. I seem to remember Lightshow being the software for Amiga (don’t quote me on that, it is from memory). PC became the best for gaming when Voodoo release their first card (possibly 97/98), but they still could not compete with an Apple in graphic processing. Amiga had fell away by this time.
When was the last time Apple used an Arm chips over intel ?
Today.
All their computers are Arm now.
Sorry, but Techreader agrees with me on this one. Apple Macbooks are simply not worth the money spent on them. Techreader does not mention the way Apple inhibits servicing or upgrades. A problem that does not exist at that level on the PC platform. Even with a laptop the CPU, memory and HDD are interchangeable. Apple does not want you to upgrade; they want you to spend 10X the cost by buying a whole new product.
How is that in any way related to whether or not they use ARM chips, which was the only thing I responded to?
Because of the conversation thread.
natebluehooves@pawb.social indicated that my opinion was out of touch. Since you say his opinion is based on current editions of Apple Macbooks, then my original statements still holds up that current Macbooks are a bad purchase all round.
This is not a remark towards your input, and only that my opinion has not changed.
@Syldon @1993_toyota_camry I bought a Macbook Pro in 2008 and used it happily (with little performance degradation) until 2018 when the displays logic board died and that vintage wasn’t being supplied any longer.
I’ve honestly never heard of a PC laptop lasting 10 years like that, except maybe by grannies who put it in a cozy every night, just play solitaire on the thing and never heard of a Windows update.
Lol, seriously my friend do not repeat that argument. OFC people use very old PCs. If you had a mac running for 10 years, this is not a regular event. The guy mentioned in this post, Louis Rossman, has made a lot of cash from pointing out the flaws behind the Macbook design. He makes a good living repairing them.
The company I worked for had 286 PCs running the stock system all the way up till 2013. This is a PC that was running for 24 years before they considered replacing it. The company was not some back street mickey mouse set up who didn’t want to spend cash. This was one of the major car companies. Large companies do not change things that are critical to the operation without a lot of effort to makes sure it goes right. They rely heavily on old systems because they know they work. This is very much the case across a lot of large companies.
I agree with everything you said except the lightning port. The lightning port came out 4 years before USB C did and it did a much better job than any other port on the market at the time. Apple wasn’t going to make that investment if they weren’t going to stick with it for a while, for one every iPhone user would hate having to switch cables again that quickly, but also there was no guarantee USB C was going to succeed. Apple even participated in creating the USB C spec, as I detailed in another comment. Honestly I think the lightning port is actually better than USB C for what it does: incredibly thin, non clogging, waterproof phone port.
They should not have used it for other junk like the fucking Magic Mouse or whatever other mice or keyboard peripherals there were used for.
Lightning ports do clog up with fluff though.
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The issue isn’t that Apple made the lightning port. The issue is that USB C has been standard on THEIR OWN DEVICES since 2012. I understand not wanting to switch immediately after introducing a new port, but I would argue that USB has been the clear winner ever since the Switch came out in 2017, which was still 6 YEARS ago.
Apple would not have changed to an objectively better port if it weren’t for the EU regulations.
Also, lightning better than USB-C? A USB 2.0 port that transfers at 1/100th the speed? You’re insane.
It’s literally impossible for USB C to have been
standard on THEIR OWN DEVICES since 2012.
It wasn’t even announced until 2012, much less have any sort of spec. The spec wasn’t even finalized by the USB Implementers Forum until 2014 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C
Apple would not have changed to an objectively better port if it weren’t for the EU regulations.
… they already switched on all their other devices. Why would they have not switched eventually?
Also, lightning better than USB-C? A USB 2.0 port that transfers at 1/100th the speed? You’re insane.
Yes. I don’t give one shit about transfer speed, just like the majority of phone users (not just iPhone users - all phone users). You sync using the cloud. If you’re using a cable to sync you are in the minority
This fight about whether owning an android device or an Apple device having any morality associated with it at all is stupid.
Change my mind
I also think it’s interesting how many people are trying to de-google their lives but still simp for android. One reason I like Apple is because they jealously guard my data and don’t sell it.
They guard your data? Quote from Apples Privacy Policy about the Apple-ID:
［…］we process the following categories of personal data as necessary for purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third party, including information about:
Your Apple ID account, including information you use to sign in, as well as all the contact, payment, and security details, such as trusted phone numbers or security questions, that you use across Apple services Your devices, including your device’s name, serial number, and other hardware identifiers Your use of, and subscriptions to, various Apple services, such as iCloud, iTunes Store, App Store, Apple Music, and Apple One Payment details, including account numbers and expiration dates, billing and shipping addresses, and gift card redemption information These legitimate interests include:
- Providing you and others with better service and support
- Using your data to send you offers via email and push notifications that may be of interest to you
The fight is actually about the non-repairability of apple products, mostly laptops in Louis Rossmans’s case, and not related to android.
I think repairability is a discussion. But we can also talk about how android makers cut updates off sooner which dooms the hardware to be trashed quicker. Or the very real human cost of google killing projects related to android and selling data. Also, a lot of the Apple stuff has to do with cost to repair, not repairability. At the end of the day, Apple can and does repair and resell their stuff. They just charge more to do so. But a lot of their users pay up for it. Would be interesting to see the stats on where broken devices end up for each
Sure, but this is a Louis Rossman quote. if you follow his channel he delves into what othe companies do also, but Apple is going above an beyond to make it so you can’t get your product repaired. Even a tiny switch to know if lid is open or closed can’t be changed because it will stop the device from booting, or if it is just a tiny ribbon cable apple will tell you it is not repairable and have to buy a new device. He is a right to repair advocate, not a bash apple ignore android manufacturers. Anyway there is GrapheneOS for “Android” phones. You can kiss google goodbye and get 5 years OS updates with Graphene
Simping is not the same as lacking a reasonable alternative
This. I’m trying to switch to a pixel 3a running ubuntu touch, but there are still apps i need that i do not have a decent alternative for, so I still need both phones
Everything except inheriting and modding phones is unethical
I have no interest in changing an obviously uneducated opinion.
I’ll continue to enjoy my iPhone, my development MacBook Pro, my Windows gaming rig, my Linux server, and everything else that I choose to buy because I use all of it, happily every day.
noooooo, you can’t do that! you have to pick a side and fling poo at the other side! /s
NOOOO YOU MUST BUY LINOX PC AND PHONE AND GAME CONSOLE!!!
A 14 year old girl once tried to berate me for having an android versus her iPhone. I asked her why her iPhone was so much better thsn my android? She didn’t have a response. I told her that I had an iPhone, and found it inflexible and frustrating to use. It’s overpriced and boring…
She didn’t really understand what I was getting at, and why ear buds or blue text bubbles weren’t important to me.
The iPad is great for art so I would mostly agree except for some things
Rossmann was a lot better before he realized he could use his platform as a soapbox for weird right-libertarian politics. No, Louis, I didn’t come here to hear you rant about how much you have to pay in taxes, I want to know how you solved the problem of no power on this MacBook.
I also don’t get why he refuses to have accurate descriptions on his videos so they can actually be found when searching instead of having to skip through the videos to see, and instead just spams his parts store and a million other things on every video.
I had a chance to train with him, but went with Jessa at iPad Rehab instead, and I’m glad, because her class was an actual class plus dozens of hours of practical work, compared to Louis’s “come over to my shop for like 2 hours after we close and I’ll kinda just give you crap to do while bitching at you if you don’t understand my ineffectual explanations” that I’ve heard his class is from multiple people who took it.
Louis has stated many times that shitting on consumers for buying Apple products is not productive.
not productive =/= not true
I ended up buying a Pixel 7 and slapping EndeavourOS Linux on all of my laptops and PC’s in the spur of the moment because I was sick of Windows and was not a fan of Apple. I dont regret it at all. I also grabbed a steam deck recently and I love it. Its so nice to not have to deal with the absolute bullshit that both microsoft and apple force you to go through. I have full control over my device and what goes in it. It’s quite nice.
based
Mac is the only way work will let me use bash. You can pry my MacBook from my cold, dead, hands if it meant I have to go back to Windows/pwsh.
Does your work not allow Linux?
Nope 😂
That sucks
Bought Asus laptop, just 1.5 year later the product is discontinued and no support page can be found. They also stopped selling the charging brick for it.
Bought Sony headphones, a year later wanted to replace the foam. No customer support, no repair, just nada.
Bought Samsung phone. Filled to brim with bloat. Shows me ads on lockscreen. Crawling speed in 2 years. No updates.
Bought an iPhone for mom. Still getting updates after 4 years. Got battery replaced with no hassle.
Don’t knock it till you try it.
These seem like cherry picked examples to an extent.
Most Asus laptops charge with basic USB C which can easily be purchased anywhere. They also use M.2 SSD’s instead of soldered one’s and standard screws vs Apple’s special shaped ones.
Apple’s only headphones + replacement pads are going to over 2x the price of even high-end Sony headphones. Plus Apple exclusively puts the Lightning jack on them instead of USB C or a 3.5mm jack
None of the Samsung phones I’ve ever used have had ads on the Lock Screen or any bloat that wasn’t easy to completely ignore. The ones that do are typically cheaper than the cheapest iPhone and an unfair comparison
Asus also sells many parts individually for self-repair, in contrast to Apple and the shenanigans that accompany their ‘self serve repair’ program
Bought Samsung phone. Filled to brim with bloat. Shows me ads on lockscreen. Crawling speed in 2 years. No updates.
Which one did you get? Mine’s 4 years old, still gets updates, no ads, zippy enough that I can dictate messages.
Okay, this one’s not 4 years old, because I cracked the face on mine and ordered a refurb so really it’s a year old copy of a 4±year old phone.
Framework laptop is your answer. https://frame.work/
Framework laptop is too expensive for me at the moment
I just use a Dell laptop upgraded with an SSD with Xubuntu on it
Honestly I gave up on Samsung a while ago. Not generally a fan of Google’s business practices but I switched to a Pixel a year ago and it’s already leagues better than any of the Samsung phones I used.
Samsung has been becoming increasingly like Apple.
The S23 Ultra (their top of the line phone) has an excellent camera and image stabilization and a stylus. It doesn’t, however have expandable storage, an IR blaster, headphone jack. or a removable battery.
I have a Galaxy Tab A7 Lite (rooted and debloated)
I don’t like that I don’t get updates after I rooted it. Also screw Google safetynet (although this is not just limited to Samsung devices)
Also FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, Samsung, please use a standard fastboot implementation instead of Download mode/odin bs
It is a decent tablet though in terms of hardware
So, you replaced the battery yourself or went to an independent repair shop?
Bought an iPhone for mom. Still getting updates after 4 years.
Updates, yes. Security updates, hell no. Apple admit this himself, only the latest iOS if compatible get security updates.
Yes security updates.
Latest iOS is still available to 4 year old hardware.
Based on previous trends, GP’s mom will get another year of updates.
Wasn’t Rossman’s whole point that people that clowning on others for buying Apple instead of clowning on Apple is aiding Apple anyway?
If Apple get away with it, Samsung’ll do it. So will Huawei, and Google, and Motorola. Apple users are not good punching bags
But Apple wouldn’t be able to get away with it when their customers wouldn’t gobble up their bad decisions.
hard agree, but a post shaming apple users and calling them suckers is not useful towards that end
Like everyone using chrome and allowing Google to control the browser ecosystem? Or Samsung and get all that delicious unremovable bloatware on their phone? Every company makes these decisions because rich people who invest in them force them to make profit year over year or get sued. This is a flaw in capitalism.
Yes and we should scold Apple, Google and Samsung and consorts for their behavior. And also educate their users that are seemingly unaware of the shit that is going down.
So, tell me what mainstream phone manufacturer is without sin? Don’t tell me to root either, because you know the average person can’t do that
Nobody is without sin. Mainstream phone manufacturers, since they love to build via foxconn and the like, especially not.
But there are atleast two I know, certainly not mainstream, that try to be very good: Pine64 and Fairphone.
Don’t tell me to root either, because you know the average person can’t do that.
why not? Because of tech illiteracy or because the big wigs don’t want to enable people to have an actual choice; but we know its both.
Yes. Both. We live in the real world, so we have to deal with what actually exists, not what we want to exist.
You should look into the GrapheneOS installation process. It’s actually pretty easy, you can flash it from the web browser. I had a slight problem during install, so I hopped into their matrix room and someone said “try a different cable” and it worked, simple as. The process was pretty well documented, other than my bad cable all I had to do was follow the prompts, and the good cable was the one that came with the pixel, so just use that and you’re gold, you can even flash it from a different android phone’s browser instead of a PC, they really couldn’t make it any easier.
Used to sell Apple gear. One of the sales managers still owes me an apology for embarrassing me in front of customers, and then returning a week later and repeating what I said and not admitting they were wrong).
But, gave up on windows finally. The Xbox console gives me a black screen on Windows, and got sick of edge hijacking my chrome tabs and cookies
Apple’s attitude sucks, but at this point, Microsoft keeps doing weird things in Windows
Been using Android for over a decade now. With the recent removal of 3.5mm jacks, I had to look into usb-c to 3.5mm adapters, because I prefer using my wired IEMs.
It turns out the apple usb-c to 3.5mm adapter is actually top notch, and only costs $9. Plenty of folks use that as an upgrade for their computers built in soundboard, because the digital to analog converter on the adapter is excellent and superior to most built in soundboards.
Their best value product haha
This is solid advice for anyone who loves their music.
I miss the 3.5 so much. Especially the LG G20(on onward) series. But it is not to be. But the apple adapter on your phone is a great substitute. I’ve done it for a while now.
Didn’t know it was used for folks on the comp, so that pretty neat to know.
I’ve always liked their earbuds, they’re the only reputable manufacturers that still use the old style rather than those SkullCandy or beats ass inserts that don’t fit in my ear, so they’re the only headphones I can actually use. The old Bose inserts worked for me too but idek if Bose makes that style anymore.
I cannot do the suction cup ones at all. But the Galaxy Buds Live work really well for me. They’re a little weird at first but after a few wears they’re like my favorite. Not for all ear shapes though but worth looking into.
Thanks, I’ll look into them.
I freely admit to being that sucker. In a weak moment during a Covid lockdown I bought an iPad Pro. Worst purchase ever. It’s too heavy to use comfortably, the battery life is shit and the paucity of apps compared with my Android phone is ridiculous. Worst of all, it died suddenly less than 18 months after I bought it. It was replaced under consumer laws here, but still. I feel like an idiot for having bought it.
The only other Apple product I own is a 160GB iPod Classic, bought in 2007 and still going strong. Sturdy, good battery life, small size, decent interface, room for all my music. So of course it’s no longer produced or supported.
Rossman has been spewing literal facts for years now.
