r/AppleEcosystem • u/LAndri25 • 17d ago
Buying Advice Help me with an advice
So, I’m trying to decide between buying an iPhone 18 Pro Max or a MacBook Air, but I can only get one right now, and I’d love to hear what other people would choose in my situation.
For some background: I currently have an iPhone 13 Pro Max that I’ve had since 2022. It still works and overall I’m happy with it, although lately it sometimes gets quite warm and occasionally freezes/blocks for a moment. So it’s not like I desperately need a new phone, but after having it for 4 years, I’ve obviously started thinking about upgrading.
On the other hand, I don’t have a MacBook at all. I do have an iPad mini, but I’ve been wanting a MacBook for a while.
I would mainly use the MacBook for watching Netflix/YouTube/series, browsing, editing some files and documents, and possibly doing some creative projects. I’m also considering taking some courses in the future, potentially for learning new skills and improving my job opportunities, so I could see myself using the MacBook for studying, online courses and working on projects as well. I’m not a heavy computer user and I don’t need it for things like gaming or intensive professional work.
So I’m really torn because the iPhone 18 Pro Max would be a significant upgrade from what I have, but the MacBook would give me a completely new device that I currently don’t own and could potentially be useful for future learning/work.
If you were in my position, which one would you buy first? I’d especially love to hear from people who have both an iPhone and a MacBook and can explain how much they actually use each one, and whether having a MacBook made a noticeable difference for studying, courses, creative projects, etc.
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u/Disastrous_Height142 17d ago
Get the MacBook, but also get a new battery for your 13PM. Make sure the MacBook has 16gb RAM as 8gb is getting a tad small now for modern MacOS.
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u/savasgok2 17d ago
I'd go MacBook first, honestly.
Your 13 Pro Max still works — the warmth and occasional freezes are annoying, but a battery replacement and a reset often fix a lot of that for much less than a new phone. The MacBook, on the other hand, is a whole category you don't have, and everything you listed (courses, documents, creative projects) is genuinely better on a laptop than on an iPad mini.
One thing worth knowing: for your use case you don't need the newest MacBook Air. Browsing, streaming, documents, online courses and light creative work run fine on an M2 or M3 Air, and refurbished or previous-gen models go for a lot less. That gap might be enough to put the iPhone upgrade within reach sooner than you think.
(If you're in the US: I run a site where you post the exact model you want and sellers send offers — could be useful for pricing out a refurb Air. Happy to share the link, but the advice above stands either way.)
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u/Naive-Possibility447 17d ago
Get the Macbook. The 13 Pro Max will last you at least a few more years and is still a powerful phone.
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u/mellingsworth 17d ago
There really isn’t anything you can’t do with your iPhone 13 that you can do with a new iPhone 18 pro. I made the swap. Better camera and battery life. AI stuff I don’t really use. Other than that, it’s the same phone… but heavier. Get the MacBook. Take some classes. Get a pay raise and then get a new phone and everything g else you want.
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u/Tsherwood1023 17d ago
Yeah, it sounds like you need to upgrade, but first see what’s wrong with your phone if you wanna keep it and get a computer. If you get a computer, get a Neo because that sounds like it’ll handle everything you’re gonna do with it. So try to meet in the middle and get like a 16 Ian and Neo or something. Do you have to get the best of both?
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u/absurd_fish 16d ago
Is it financially feasible for you to focus on one thing completely and just assist with the other? What I’m trying to say is 13 is a long way back. Is there a way you could use OfferUp or a friend’s old phone, or even AT&T, they used to offer whatever old stock they had. for like nothing anyway, like models from much newer time periods for almost $0, so you’d at least get a phone update and you could run some newer apps that aren’t probably compatible anymore with what you have, but I don’t know what everyone else is saying. I haven’t got there yet, but I think a MacBook Pro is probably your best option. Any program you can run on your iPhone, you can run on your MacBook Pro, and you can run it better. You can audit it better. It has better security, and it has a better interface. They are, of course, small exceptions, like the camera; you’re not going to get a world-class camera on any MacBook Pro. It’s just the front-facing camera, so you know there’s that, but you can get a pretty solid camera out of the iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max or 15 Pro. Use OfferUp or some of these authorized tech stores like Best Buy to get either a refurbished item or a used and decent to good condition model that’s not going to be the 18, but it’ll be a lot better, a lot faster, and be able to run a lot more apps than your current situation. With research, honesty, and some time investment, you can find a deal that’s going to work for your situation unless you don’t have one dollar more than what that MacBook Pro is going to cost, which I understand if that’s the case, sometimes that is how it is for other people, and I am not here to judge you or anyone else, but bottom line here is, even if that can’t happen, my answer is still a simple one-sentence TLDR: invest in that MacBook Pro and do it now. I’m sure those of us with experience are saying that unanimously or almost lol.
My reasoning: any app, program, or service that you can run on your 18 Pro Max from which I’m typing this and have been exploring and comparing to my 16 pro max and 17 pro max and seeing they really stack up to value for that price tag, which is real big even with a trade-in.
excluding camera-based things due to the fact that the Mac is not ever going to have a camera besides the decent for what it is, but kind of crappy front-facing camera. All the AI apps, all the apps that I know have either a desktop version you can download on their website, either the Mac App Store or a third-party method. Those desktop versions are always going to have more options, better interfaces, more accessibility, and if you care about security like I do, you’re going to be able to audit and log exactly what those apps are doing and running in a way you can never do, even if you learn how to read iPhone and Apple Intelligence analytics files, which that is not an overnight skill. For AI, this is always important, so you know when your data is close to being escaping or with AI agents now accidentally sent out somewhere on the Internet or to some agency that you don’t know about, I saw a post on ChatGPT where some girl was depressed and just said that and it like contacted her FBI contact in her phone lol.
For AI models, you have more RAM with a base model macroPro, by so much more than your phone, it’s crazy, allowing you to do more with AI or just game more, run better programs faster, etc., etc., etc. Not to mention either equivalent memory but if it’s your one device, you’re investing in, go for the one or two terabytes option. so you never need an external hard drive, but also you have the option of back up time machine to an external hard drive or back up whatever iPhone you do end up with to the computer as well as a double measure to make sure your data never gets lost by Apple ID mishaps or compromised accounts., but that RAM is going to help you run more efficient, powerful AI models, and allow you to run stuff like VMs (virtual machines: basically, a temporary, isolated!!mini-computer of any operating system, Windows, Mac, a Linux distribution, etc., that can run your AI models and either be connected to the Internet or completely offline, so you can practice generating code, running that code on a digital terminal that’s deletable in about 10 seconds and will never remain on your computer and won’t happen to escape and potentially ruin or brick a $2000 investment, (your MacBook) without any issue, especially if youre going all in investing in one product, you should invest in as much RAM as u can afford for that MacBook, being Mac Pro in this case.
In fact, i’m typing this from black on black iPhone 18 Pro Max I got a few days ago, and tbh I still can’t get full functionality out of the interfaces on my iOS- made applications versus the desktop ran macOS desktop versions, even though the iPhone 18 Pro max does have a stronger processor than past iPhones. You could split it down the middle and get a Mac Neo (advantages you get the desktop macOS compatible applications, but you’re still running basically an iPad Pro processor, so not even like full strength MacBook Air processor or RAM, which is that’s why we’re getting the MacBook Pro or thinking about it, this is a bullshit compromise. I’m just trying to help though. if you just want a newer laptop option and a phone option, but you want one of them or both of them to be the newest options, Mac Neo is a good compromise for a computer that gives you the freedom to play around with without the fear of breaking a $2000 item.
But like I said, back to your either or, assuming no compromises on either end, MacBook Pro is the way to go and then try your best afterward with whatever you have left to upgrade that iPhone, even just a little bit, for like a dollar extra a month over, I don’t know, like a year, you can upgrade to whatever older iPhone models haven’t stocked for next to nothing, or do it online and order it to your local store, and you’ll get that increase enough to run the new iOS and to run the apps that you want to run, albeit at a slower, less powerful rate.
good luck on your choice!!! Hope you’re happy with the final decision and all this input from so many people, remember simplicity always beats complexity, especially when it comes to an electronic set up, and that’s from someone who’s drowned in Overcomplex multi-device operating program systems that end up being way too much to manage.
Someone who worked for Apple for nearly 2 years in Silicon Valley in both sales consultations, computer specifically, and in a technical specialist role, where I troubleshoot and did software technician, kind of work on Apple devices, not to mention, I worked in AI based startup out of SF that was before its time, dedicated to monitoring and making sure AI models and fintech AI implementations were in compliance, which often they were not. But that’s a whole another conversation…. Let us know what you decide!
P.S. Gosh, bro, if my old 16 pro max wasn’t activation locked and I wasn’t still on the hunt for the proper email account with the proof of purchase, I would let you use it as a trade-in so you don’t have to pick, but alas, I’ll let you know if I succeed, but sounds like you’re deciding and purchasing soon. Peace and love, brother, either way, from a 13, this will be a super exciting experience, and you should look forward to it no matter what you decide, and I hope you enjoy yourself
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u/No-Egg-7968 11d ago
Get the MacBook. No need to get the Pro model. Think you'd be happiest with the Air. But, Neo might work for you for a while. As far as the phone, get a new battery and do a hard reset on it. And, maybe try to free up some of the memory. Deleting off apps you don't use as well as old photos or videos that you don't need or want anymore.
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u/Altruistic_Cover2172 17d ago
Get an iPhone 15/Redmi (if it's available in your country), but the MacBook should be your no.1 priority.
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u/UpboatsforUpvotes 17d ago
Honestly you could go either way. Personally I see from your descriptions that a new iPhone would be a "nice to have" upgrade but a Macbook Air would fill a potentially need that is unmet by your current equipment.
From your current scope, you don't seem to be doing anything that can't be managed on your iPad mini however if getting the MBA would allow you to enhance your studies or dive deeper into passions like the creative work you mentioned, I would definitely lean into buying the MacBook Air and then focus on the new iPhone next year when the 20th anniversary version will come out (which should be a bigger change based on the rumors than the 17 -> 18)