It's not about price-performance value at all. Mac is still the most expensive performance. And Apple is only particularly popular in the US. Android phones dominate most other markets, particularly poor markets.
Apple is popular in the US because a) luxury brands hold sway b) they goad customers into bullying non-customers (blue/green chats) and c) they limit features and customizability in favor of simpler interfaces.
It's popular with developers because a) performance is valuable even at Apples steep cost b) it's Unix-based unlike Windows so shares more with the Linux systems most engineers are targeting.
I have never been an apple fanboy. Till 2022, I was on android phones. Work issued either Thinkpad or XPS variants. However, I have owned apple books since 2004 starting from panther era. I sincerely believe that apple provides best features and performance combination in the given price for laptops.
Here I feel that I-hate-apple crowd is just stuck with this notion of luxury overpriced brand when it is clearly not the case. Apple has superior hardware at better price points. Last time I was doing shopping for a laptop, I could get similar features only at a 30% - 40% price premium in other brands.
I am typing this on an apple M2 air and try finding similar performance under 2000 USD in other brands. The responsiveness, the (mostly) sane defaults and superior rendering and fonts make it worth it. The OS does not matter so much as it used to do in 2004 and the fact that I have a unix terminal in 2024 is just incidental. I have turned off auto updates and I do not use much of phone integration apart from taking backups and photo copying.
I switched to an iPhone in 2022 from a 200 US$ Samsung handset. Here, I would say that not everyone needs an iPhone. My old phone used to do all the tricks I need on this one. However, the camera is really and photos are really great. If I buy an iPhone next time, it would be just for the photos it takes.
Apple is popular in the US because a) luxury brands hold sway b) they goad customers into bullying non-customers (blue/green chats) and c) they limit features and customizability in favor of simpler interfaces.
It's popular with developers because a) performance is valuable even at Apples steep cost b) it's Unix-based unlike Windows so shares more with the Linux systems most engineers are targeting.