After weeks of deliberation, I ordered my first-ever Apple product today: a 2022 MacBook Air in the "midnight" color, with the nicer chip, and 24 gig of RAM. It should arrive in the first or second week of September. After I sat down and made a concrete list of use cases, the decision to place the order became more clear.

First, as a development machine it gives me full-fledged Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA with the Android plugin, Godot Engine, and xCode all in one spot. Heretofore, I've had to very annoyingly jump between my GNU/Linux machine and my Windows 10 work laptop, exchanging files via GitHub pushes and Google Drive. That gets old, quick. And even with that hassle, I still didn't have access to the Apple ecosystem! Now I have absolutely everything, all in one spot. There is a reason why I see ninety percent MacBooks at developer conferences.

Second, I've been wanting a superlight-class laptop with long battery life, to have with me on the sofa or bed while playing games. I look things up frequently, and take lots of notes. Walking to my GNU/Linux box every time was really starting to grate on my nerves. This new machine will satisfy that long-standing itch. Also from a gaming standpoint, this will make a wonderful portable RetroArch setup with its bright, rich-colored screen. And I will also subscribe to Apple Arcade: I went through lots of games yesterday, and there are a good dozen or so which look really enticing, with their ads and gacha balancing removed.

Third, the bundled software looks so phenomenal that it will lead me to self-improvement and fun side-projects. I've been wanting to learn piano for probably twenty five years, but could never find the right software: this machine will have access to Apple's "GarageBand", which will support the MIDI keyboard I bought some years ago. Additionally, their "Movie Maker" software will be an enormous upgrade from the flaky and janky "OpenShot" I have been using.

Fourth, I adore Augmented Reality as a concept, and it's a worst-kept-secret that Apple is going to release prescription AR glasses. I wouldn't wear them full-time for privacy reasons, but for career and personal interest purposes, I want to be first in the door on the development side when those hit. I also want to teach myself native iPhone development. Now both of those doors are open to me. I can even start with their AR framework on the iPhone 14 Pro I will buy once they are available. I will keep my 2017 Samsung Galaxy S8+ as a Wifi computer to continue my development exposure to Android.