Interesting thread!
I don't have a particular history of using Apple except getting a Unibody 2010 macbook in my IT high school. I remember using it for various tasks, both programming and 3D art, but I scoffed at the interface thinking it was too childish/dumbed down and ran Bootcamp most of the time. I later cashed it out for 1000 SEK (about 100 USD/EUR) and have kept it to this day. So yeah, that was back in 2010, and I didn't think, cared, or even knew much of Apple back then.
Fast forward a few years until 2019, I had started college and moved in to the school dormitories. I noticed that there were storage rooms at the end of every floor hallway, and my floor had a beige CRT. Cool. I waited about a year, seeing if anyone would actually pick it up; no one did, so I took it... and I lurked around the other floors. I distinctly remember finding an Apple Studio Display 17" and feeling bewildered that such well-designed and translucent plastic even existed and that I had somehow completely ignored in my life. And that's when the collection started, iMacs, iBooks, 21" CRT, moving to Powermacs, and so on.
I suppose my goals in collecting is motivated by two points: 1) to personally enjoy the computer designs of the time and (roughly) experience, hands on, how it felt to use them, and 2) to learn about repairing, fixing, optimizing, and understanding how the machines were made and what problems they were trying to solve. There's something about the openness and approachability in the 2000s design, the see-throughness and demystifying design philosophy that really fascinates me. I never even knew this was a thing, and I instantly missed it.
For about 1,5 years I intensely focused on collecting the translucent era. I set out some ground rules in order not to overcollect: only local deals (close by, keyboard in my local language, etc), only limit to "pure" translucent items (for example, excluding the milky clamshells, etc), and all-in-all, just keeping it G3. I eventually realized that the G3 era wasn't my interest, because the technology wasn't capable of doing things that I wanted fast enough; like playing games with more familiar graphical fidelity or a faster interface that I remember from my teenage years. It's not that I don't enjoy simpler games, I've played my fair share of isometric older games, but pushing this old hardware is just really interesting.
I eventually caved and went G4. My Powermac G3 was upgraded to keep a G4 capable motherboard, and I scored some fantastic upgrades the past two years, including a 1.8 Ghz CPU and a Mac ATI Radeon 9600. I also started trading lots of hardware with a friend who's also a Mac collector, and have since a while ago completed my translucent Apple collection and moved on to third-party translucent accessories and many other various Apple hardware with eye-catching designs, like the Cube, Antimony Tibook, and various Powerbooks that is starting to creep in to early Intel. And since space has always been an issue, a new rule was added; to only collect laptops from now on. I have to say, the Tibook is just gorgeous, it's quite the impression in person, and especially when it's in such pristine condition as it is.
So as for mixing the aesthetic style and technical capabilities, I feel set. I don't feel the need to get anything specific, instead, I lurk local ads and pick up what's cheap to repair and fix up the broken ones. I don't really tinker so much with PowerPC software anymore, it's quite time consuming and mystical, but I enjoy spinning the computers up sometimes and trying out different games and applications. And, enjoying the skeumorphic, lickable Aqua interface... there's something special about it.
