When I woke up yesterday morning, I immediately typed this up into my Mac's Stickies app for To-Do list:

1. Restore Google Account; Migrate content back to Google drive and turn off iCloud Drive.
2. Return to Bitwarden; Consider using Gmail logins for everything; Delete passwords from Apple keychain
3. Reinstall Chrome; Shelve Safari
4. Delete Tutanota—remove complexity
5. Optimize and reduce complexity: Leave the text editor and terminal life. Establish WordPress.

What a doozy of a list! See, with my new MacBook, I thought I'd dive fully into the ecosphere, make it my one-stop shop for everything. And as I had an old @me.com address that was created in May 2012 from an iPad 3 purchase for the Czech Republic. While they stopped handing those things out back then, I've long since forgotten the greater/scarcer vanity, my @mac.com address. Meh. So, I was set to dive in...I figured Apple had things figured out! Boy howdy was I wrong!

Let's start with the thing I liked most with using Apple: the thumbprint login for sites. However, where does my mind immediately go? Laptops friggin' break ALL the time! What am I gonna do when that tipsy gnome (Norm) breaks out his better Matt Foley impression and crashes squarely on that thumb input? I know Apple is going full-on multi-factor authentication and I guess I like that? But what happens if—WHEN that second device is no longer available? Or worse, when that SIM card is duplicated. That's old stuff, what do you think is going on in that scene in Italy from Bourne Supremacy?

And while I'm happy that I found out how to turn off smart quotes system-wide and flip off the autocorrect spelling that would jack up my posts, or if I hit space twice, which made my Markdown break lines a booger bear, shouldn't have that been an opt-in thing on first startup?

As far as nuisances go, I noticed after I signed up for 200 GB of cloud space that the iCloud location was an oddity to me. I am coming from the perspective of my approach to syncing a Google Drive directory right under Home, so it was easy for me to shell over there. I did not fool enough with it to get a good fix on that game of hide n' seek. Sharing folders is a headache in iCloud; Google is far more organic. If I alone designed that, I'd think, "Welp, I better rework that." And then there was that annoying thing where apps kept popping their own empty folders onto iCloud (BBEdit and Pages were a couple I remember). And I don't like that they hide the keychain way down into settings. I care more about my passwords than wallpaper and screensavers—am I alone on that? They TOTALLY need to change their "U.S. Holidays" to world holidays. Just because we're a melting pot or stew pot—whatever which way makes people proudly prance about—doesn't mean we celebrate Middle Eastern holidays. C'mon man! Stop virtue signaling. Be American. I'm not asking for NASCAR day (third Friday of May), but just when I can expect the bank to slack off from taking my money.

None of those elements would identify as something I can't live with...they're just..."idiosyncrasies."

Well then, what are the showstoppers?

Abhorrent ad blockers for Safari. Hey, 2004 called and Firefox wants to drop off an extension. I SO was ready to buy into the whole Safari experience and thrust it into a starter role! And yet...every free ad blocker I tried, opened the door to YouTube and said, "Y'all come on right in. There's all kinds of room. Got a party going on." And WHO PAYS a subscription for an ad blocker! Am I in bizarro world?! In my instant revulsion, I immediately downloaded Brave—everything was clean as a whistle. But, I need more than bookmark synchronization (Brave remains my go-to on Linux Mint). I mean, Steve Jobs dies and they are literally shoving customers Google's way. And Google's main identity is an ad company! Give the user a decent way to wreck your competition, Apple!

Interoperability issues. Apple does not play well with others. Oh, there was a time when they moved to Intel in 2006 when they seemed to be friendly, but now on my M1, lemme conjure the late Dennis Green: "They are who we thought they were!" Since I don't have an iPhone and I'm on Android like the other 70% of the market, I just throw up my hands and say, "SERIOUSLY, I gotta use a web browser to access iCloud on my phone? Shazbot, man...shazbot. Apple literally sells thousands of apps from developers across the world and they couldn't find just a couple dudes from India to whip up something for Android? That's just a face full of snoot on Apple there. And snot.

The mail server. Who knew that the Pony Express was still in operation in Cupertino? I gotta admit, it has been a LONG time since I've cussed at a mail server. I seriously SHOULD NOT have verification emails from Steam expire before I receive them! Egad! I slowly ping ponged emails back and forth between Gmail and Apple. Six minutes later..."Oh, look, I got my email. Fantastic." They must relay their traffic through the Mars rover.

Lastly, and this has ALWAYS bugged me about Apple: NEVER in my life have I EVER cared about what time or weather in Cupertino. I mean, with all that location sharing going on, I'd have to think it's unremarkably trivial to give the update over my specific house. Or even run me up against an actuarial life table and pop up a countdown widget—you know, for kicks.

Am I missing something? Did someone forget to leave out the Kool-Aid for me?