Hmm, where to start...

Okay, similar boat to you - used PCs for years and never could justify the price of an Apple product. Until I bought an iPhone 3. Way ahead of everyone, and the latest 6s is faster and more useful by far to me. And yes, I use about 10-15 apps regularly, almost daily.

PC laptops were cheaper to me until I started to worry about weight and size, then suddenly a MacBook Air was practically the same price of my Dell XPS 13. I tried an Air and was hooked. Like you said, preinstalled drivers, not having to constantly fiddle with stuff, etc, is great.

But, I also use Windows desktops frequently, and I must say that for much of what I do, I am by far more productive on my MacBook Air than I am on a decent Dell desktop with 2 or 3 monitors.

I've had a few iPads, including my latest, a 9.7 iPad Pro. All have been great, but I could see why the latest greatest doesn't seem to have the best bang for the buck over and older iPad, other than lightness.

But here is the difference: using the entire ecosystem just makes life easier. I frequently text with my MacBook, and I use my iPhone to secure my laptop. I pick up webpages from one device to the other, and for some crazy reason, almost every website works on Safari (rarely have to startup Chrome or Firefox on my Mac - on my PC, I never knew what website would crash with what browser, and of course, some forced me to use IE. (Don't think you will get the same results with Safari on PC, though)

So if you look at individual price/performance points only, then I agree. But Apple products, including iCloud, are worth much more than the sum of their parts.

In My Humble Opinion