I am a user of Apple Eco System and I pay (willingly) for some “Cloud Storage” services. I also pay for the following devices:

• Phone
• Computing Devices (Laptop / Desktop)
• Streaming Media (Apple TV)
• Watch

When I say I “pay” for the things above I mean both in terms of money (one time for the devices and recurring for the service(s)) and also time & effort. The time & effort in mind is the more “expensive” part of this whole deal. But the value I get from this is worth it to me.

My digital library consists of:

• A little over 4K songs (there ar esome duplicates that I need to sort at some point) – stored locally on external drives and in iTunes
• About 50 movies – in iTunes and, most of them, also in physical DVDs / Blu-Rays
• “Some” pix – stored on 2 different flickr accounts, iCloud and locally

I do believe I cloud have gone to another camp (Android / Google) had I access to a different Smart Phone when I got my first Smart Phone. I got the iPhone as my first Smart Phone back in 2007. Which was a bit weird because I was one of the last person to get a Cell / Mobile phone that I personally knew. The reason I claim I could have gone to a different camp is that that iPhone was the very first Apple Device I ever owned. Never before that time had I ever personally bought or owned a Apple Product. I did use iTunes (on my PC) to organize & play music.

Since getting my first iPhone I have now switched to MacBook for my laptop (which is also my primary computing device – both personal and for work), iMac for my family Computing Device (which I only get on to keep updated and “clean”) and a Mac Mini for my multi-monitor desktop.

I do consider myself to be an early adopter of “technology” but I do the adoption with the least amount of monetary / financial investment as possible. While I was the first of my friends to get a Smart Phone, I have gotten the fewer actual Phones than most of my friends. Once I get a device I tend to keep it for a while.

– manzoor