>> Mac laptop, Windows tablet, Android phone. My digital ecosystem is confused.

Is it though? I know a lot of pundits like to use the phrase "Post-PC", but I think of it more like "Post-OS". I am in the exact same boat as you, except that I have a Nexus 7 in addition to my Surface Pro.

Contrast that to 2010, when iOS was much more compelling at the tablet and phone level. Android, Windows Phone and Windows have pretty much caught up, and I love how all this competition has created consumer choice. I can pick the device that best suits my use case for computing, tablet and phone.

In 2010, I was all-in on OSX, iPad and iPhone. Today, just like you, I'm using three OSes. Moving data between the devices is painless. In my mind, there's really no need to go all in with a single company's ecosystem any more.

OS matters way way less than it used to (Think of the bad old days, where Macs couldn't read Windows floppies), but it can still be a pain. For example, Google Music integrates best with Android. Microsoft OneDrive is most slick on Windows. iTunes runs like crap on anything other than OSX.

You can get away with any hodgepodge mix these days if you want, but it's still more convenient to match.

>> iTunes runs like crap on anything other than OSX.

I know a lot of Mac users who would beg to differ.

I use Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive across all my devices, and I don't have many complaints at all. YMMV, of course. My use case is probably much simpler than yours.

Every time I try to overlap different sync tools, I get conflicts and wind up either losing all my data or having twenty copies of all my data.

Also, of course iTunes isn't greased lightning & a buttered dream on OSX, it's just "less awful", or so I hear.

It is still quite awful, especially if you have a large media collection.

That said, one benefit to a mostly homogenous ecosystem around apple devices, at least for me, airplay and streaming media across devices with less work (I get lazy about home it issues)

I have a Nexus 7 and a Nexus 10, too. :-P I just don't carry them around all the time. If I keep the Surface Pro, I think that'll take their place - it's not great for reading but I do most of that on my rMBP anyway.

I'm the same way. But I found that the Surface was, compared to the iPad, not as nice for tablet-y things like reading PDFs. And when I wanted to get real work done, the screen was smaller than any 13" or 15" laptop. Using it with a larger display connected was confusing because you couldn't always take advantage of the pen or move seamlessly from one screen to the next. And I missed the Mac's Terminal app -- PowerShell doesn't have tabs.

So don:'t get me wrong, I kept the surface, but my dream tablet is 13-15" with a pen that runs OneNote on Mac ;-)

Oh and for Android dev, turn off Hyper-V and install Intel HAXM to speedily use Intel simulators. That said, for testing on device, it's really fast with Android, no signing issues as with iOS, though they're easily overcome too.

Android emulators are largely junk, even the Intel ones, and they're double-junk for game development to actually take advantage of the platform's features--I need a gesture-capable touch interface to test gesture-capable touch stuff, you know?

I would like a bigger tablet, but I run all my Retina Macs at max resolution so 1920x1080 at 10" isn't really a big deal for me, you know? The biggest complaint I have is the idiotic DPI controls on Windows. They're stupid, and Photoshop is extra-bad at them.

You're boot-curious. It's normal.

I'm going to go take a look at one now and see how I like it. I doubt I'll pick one up today, but who knows. I've impulse bought worse.

I'm convinced they'd have art students lined up around the block if they had ArtRage, Painter, and Photoshop with the WinTab drivers on display. But instead they hock that "Fresh Paint" program, which isn't bad but is no ArtRage or Painter.