resented their attempts to achieve vendor lock in and I thought open source would be better for privacy and security (this was 12 years ago and I had iPhone, Macbook, various iPods and accessories, etc.).

Anyway, since then I have come to believe that Apple is actually maybe the best at security (see, e.g. that terrorist whose phone they wouldn't crack). Maybe I should go back like you say. Also, I heard their custom silicon is nice and performant.

(Of course, Linux is very good and easy for getting certain SW toolchains up and running. Probably MacOS is pretty good for this based on how popular it is.)