I’m sitting here typing on, what is no question, a very beautifully designed piece of hardware that I just paid $2799 (+ tax) for. But the question in my mind: is it really worth it?

The answer: I really wish it was, but for me, it’s simply not.

There are good things about it, but at the end of the day, and maybe it’s partially because of all of the gloom in the political climate as well that has me melancholy as well, but I just don’t see myself having a long-term future in the Apple ecosystem, if the current trend continues.

This is what I’m looking to upgrade at home in the near future as I’m moving out of our temporary rental into our new home:

1. Workstation
2. Wireless router setup
3. Home entertainment center
4. Home Picture Management
5. Secondary gaming machine

A few of years ago, I was under the impression that we’d be getting some better Mac Pro options that weren’t just tailored to heavy graphic workstations.

A few of years ago, I was under the impression that we were on the brink of getting better HomeKit wireless networking.

A few of years ago, I was under the impression that Apple was going to be really stepping it up with TV.

A few of years ago, I thought Apple was finally on the course to make managing my digital picture and movie life better.

It’s now been a few years. As I sit here in the present, this is the only thing I see coming out of Apple: thinner and lighter. Sure, there is some interesting stuff in the periphery, like ARM-based Macs. But honestly, what else is there? I don’t know.

The latest “Mac” event, and I use that term extremely lightly, hinted at what I truly believe Apple thinks (or at least thought at the time, maybe they’ve started to revisit that notion), that this is the future of the Mac ecosystem:

A silly image of Mac’s connected to ugly crap – or, what Phil Schiller actually presented.

That’s just not Apple to me.

When I was picking up this MacBook Pro at the Apple Store, there was an old Apple Cinema Display.

I had forgotten just how beautifully clean those monitors were. It made me sad. What also made me sad as I looked around the store: the shear dominance of everything but Macs.

It seems clear that the future Apple wants is not the future that I want for it. That’s ok. But maybe that just means it’s time for me to move on too. If four of the five solutions above I need to satisfy in the near future simply cannot be an Apple product, it might finally make sense to go back to having my workstation not be one anymore too. After all, a Mac is really only needed for the code signing and App Store submission process these days anyway.