Thinking about the “Best-Value” Apple Products of 2018
When I visit family every year for the holidays I always get many, many questions about which devices I think they should purchase. It may be because their current devices have reached the end of their lives or they simply want something new. I learned a long time ago now that my wants and needs in a product are often at odds with the normal person. I’m a geek and I love the newest tech and fiddly bits even though I am a Mac user. At my core I’m a hardware whore and if you throw a shiny chunk of hardware, ESPECIALLY if it has solid and thoughtful software integration then you have my attention. Most people are not like that, they simply want their devices to work fast, reliably, and as long as possible. They do not seek out speeds and feeds and can be sway just as easily by good ergonomics or economics than they can by AMOLEDs screens, USB-C, NFC, etc. My non-geek friends and family (Read: People who do not delight in new technology all the time) are more about what a device can do for them rather than what they can bend the device to do. I feel like that’s an important distinction and where I have to draw the line sometimes in my recommendations to them. Sometimes things I perceive as important such as multiple Thunderbolt ports on my MacBook Pro and its true-tone display my family members could care less about because they are living the wireless life with bluetooth headphones and AirDrop already and they are just pleased with how much a normal Retina display looks over their old screen on their 2014 MacBook Air. With that in mind, I’m starting to think of Apple’s product lines as being broken up into two parallel tracks, the best-value line and the professional/enthusiast line. The Pro-line of Apple products are either for people who need the best possible devices in those categories or want to pay for next year’s technology today even if that involves a premium. The “best-value” Apple product is still a premium product as far as the rest of the world is involved (Their are often much cheaper Windows and Android devices at various levels of quality), but these products provide most of what Apple advertises as the Apple ecosystem and advantage of simplicity and thoughtful design while being attainable by the average consumer…basically affordable luxury products as John Gruber says on his podcast Daring Fireball.
What devices do I consider “Best-Value” Apple products? For the iPhone-line I consider the iPhone XR as the best value iPhone for most people. It has the internal guts of the iPhone XS and Max such as the amazing processor, single-lens camera system, FaceID, edge-to-edge screen, design-language, and will run iOS for years and years. It shaves off the more expensive AMOLED screen, secondary telephoto lens, more premium stainless steel, and 3D Touch, but it still retains almost all of the premium iPhone experiences such as FaceID, Animoji, portrait mode, the amazing camera, etc. It’s cheaper than the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, but sits squarely in the middle of these devices in terms of screen size and comes in 6x colors that are exclusive to the iPhone XR line. Because of all of that, I feel like the iPhone XR is the best value iPhone. You can save money with last year’s iPhone 8 if you don’t want to make the jump to FaceID yet and edge to edge screens and you can save even more money and get into the Apple ecosystem with the iPhone 7 at $450. You can go higher up the chain if you want with the iPhone XS if you really want the deep blacks of the AMOLED screen, the premium metal materials, 1GB LTE speeds, and utility of having a telephoto zoom lens and a more flexible portrait mode like I did or even go up to the Max and have the biggest, best iPhone experience like some of my friends have, but at the end of the day they are all iPhones. I feel like for most people they use their smartphones these days as their most personal and influential computing devices and encourage them to put more money into their phones than they do their laptops. There is no one-size-fits-all iPhone anymore like there was when we started this journey over a decade ago, but I think that’s for the best. People can choose the best experience for them. I went with the iPhone XS because I do take a lot of photos so I wanted the telephoto lens and the best iPhone I could get in a small package since at my core am a computer geek, but for most people I really do recommend the iPhone XR. They can save $200+ depending on the model and get the color of their choice. I do think it’s a fantastic phone.
As far as laptops go, I feel like the new MacBook Air is the best value laptop that Apple sells. It starts at $1,300, which still puts in squarely in the premium laptop category for most people, but I think that given what most people do on a laptop for personal and home use that the new MacBook Air is the perfect mix of size, battery, portability, keyboard, trackpad, screen, and ports that they need. The 13” MacBook Air has been Apple’s best selling laptop for years for good reason. I feel like the new MacBook Air with its retina display, TouchID fingerprint login, 2x Thunderbolt ports + headphone jack, and updated keyboard and larger trackpad made it the best Mac for most people. It possesses a great mix of portability and just enough power to make sure that everyday tasks such as web browsing, document editing, photo editing, music listening, and home video editing should be a breeze. I feel like if you need a MacBook Pro for its expanded memory, processor, ports, and graphics options you already know what you need to get or work should provide you want you need to do your job. I myself use a 15” MacBook Pro and went with the 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar a few months ago prior to the new MacBook Air came out because my 2013 model died an unceremonious death after half a decade of hard-core usage as a work, personal, and school laptop. Honestly, if I had to do it again, I would have a hard time deciding on the MacBook Pro vs. MacBook Air now that we have external graphics cards and 5K displays that these devices can push over the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the side. I feel like the thing that really pings my laptop are video editing and podcast editing. Work provides me a very capable iMac in my office for video editing and my podcast editing is purely a hobby, as is the photo editing that I do. If I had to do it again, I would strongly consider a maxed out MacBook Air for myself with as much RAM and storage as I could get. I feel like most people should get the 256GB of storage, but if you lean heavily on iCloud Photos and Document sync or Google Photos/Google Drive than maybe you could live with the 128GB MacBook Air. I feel like for most people the Air they need really just boils down to color and storage. Unless you’re using Pro apps like Final Cut or Lightroom 8GB of RAM on a MacBook Air should be plenty for most consumer tasks. At this point, I don’t really recommend the 1x port Macbook unless you’re really sure that you never need to charge and plug something in or are really desperate to get that rose-gold fix before Apple retires the color permanently. I think for most people that new MacBook Air is the best value Mac for most people.
For me, the iPad line is the hardest to recommend a best-value product simply because the iPad, like the iPhone X last year, is in a transition point between TouchID to FaceID and moving from having a home-button to edge-to-edge full-screen glory. For most people, I feel like the baseline, $330 iPad with Apple Pencil support is the best value iPad. It has a capable A10 processor that should play most games and run almost all apps without sweating too much. It comes in the 3x colors that Apple sells their other products in and the screen is good even if its a little thicker than the iPad Pro lines and still has a home button. For everything that most people I imagine use an iPad for: reading, games, web browsing, Netflix, social media, basic email, etc, the entry-level 9.7” iPad should be more than enough. The Apple Pencil is a big deal for schools and people who want to use the iPad for hand-written notes. My biggest hesitation with the device is simply that it has a home button in a world where the iPhone XR, my other best-value pick finally omits. If you can get over that, I can without hesitation recommend the 9.7” iPad as the best value iPad for everyone. It will last you the longest period of time for the least amount of money. If you do want FaceID, the edge-to-edge screen, Apple Pencil, and Apple folio keyboard, be prepared to spend upwards towards $1000 to get all the necessary replacements to turn it into a laptop alternative. For most people though, I think if you want to use an iPad as an “iPad” I would just get the baseline $330 iPad with as much storage as you can afford/want.
Finally, the Apple Watch, I think that the market has spoken with this one, but the Apple Watch Sports, namely the Series 4 watch is the best value Apple Watch. The series 4 gives you the redesigned body with the larger screen on both the smaller and larger watches as well as the portable ECG reader, swimming support, GPS for running, LTE data options, and the fall detection. The Series 3 watch is still a great value, but I feel like since most people are going to keep a watch for 2–3x years and mainly use it for fitness features over fashion that the Series 4 has the benefit of having the biggest screen for both screen sizes without getting into the silly territory and has all the health+fitness hardware to be useful for any type of athlete and regardless of what level of health you are at. LTE is harder to recommend, but if you are a runner who wants to go without their phone they go running then its a great option, but for most people I cannot really recommend paying the $10/month service. Similarly, I have a hard time recommending people buy the stainless steel models simply because of the $200 price hike for the shiny metal + sapphire glass on the main screen. They look fantastic, but unless you have the extra money to burn, a smart watch is not really something you’re going to hand down to future generations so its hard to recommend most people get the stainless steel models. I purchased one myself, but I did sell my previous stainless steel watch for a good bit of change and I do not upgrade my watch every year. For most people, I cannot recommend the Sports models of Apple Watch highly enough. If you think a smartwatch is your thing, they should last years while giving you all the utility and fun of any of the more expensive stainless steel models.
So, which all of that being said, for the first time in years I feel like its a lot easier for me to recommend Apple products for my friends and family than it has been in years past. I feel like with these best value Apple products they all provide excellent value to people and should last them years of good use. I feel like the iPhone XR, new MacBook Air, 9.7” iPad, and Apple Watch Sports are all products that I can recommend to most people. If you need or want more, you can always move up the product line, but these best value Apple products provide the Apple experience at an affordable luxury-level price. Yeah, they do cost more than other alternatives, but I have just found for years that its sometimes better to pay a little more to get a solid and integrated experience. I use Windows machines and Android devices, but at the end of the day I recommend Apple gear to most of my family and friends for the simple reason that most of the time they provide the least amount of fuss to do what my friends and loved ones want to do. Google is quickly approaching Apple with their Pixel line of phones, Google Home products, and Chromebooks, but they still have stuff they need to hash out like updates, WearOS, and the weird Frankenstein OS that is ChromeOS+Android+Linux (A wonderful Frankenstein and I regularly recommend to people looking for a great/simple laptop, but still kinda a Frankenstein for any moderately complex computing tasks). I am excited for the competition though, I feel like Apple would not have produced the Apple Watch Sports without WearOS or the competitively priced 9.7” iPad without ChromeOS or keep pushing the iPhone X-line forward without Android dominating the market. To be perfectly clear, Apple sells “affordable” luxury products (read: attainable luxary products) and while you can get other products for cheaper, I think for a lot of people there is something to be said for having a simple and coherent ecosystem of devices that work today. I’ve just always had a great experiencve with Apple products and still see them as a fantastic value to recommend to friends and family because of how well they tend to work and how long they lasMact. Overall, I’m really glad we have as many choices as we do today. It’s a fantastic time to be into technology.
