It's very much 'horses for courses'.
It depends on the situation and what you are trying to achieve. In some cases a medium format camera (Hasselblad, Bronica etc., 6x4.5) would be a great tool. Henri Cartier-Bresson 'Captured the moment' on Leica rangefinders, which are essentially 'point and shoot' (I know that's an over simplification!).
Phone cameras have their place and produce great photos in many situations.
I like using my DSLR in many situations, but there can be an assumption of 'you've got a good camera, you must be a good photographer', which of course is balderdash. It's not the camera that produces the image, it's the person that pushes the shutter release.
There are advantages to all tools, it just depends on what you're using them for.
I also love using (infrequently these days) my father's 1940s Voigtlander Brilliant 120 roll film twin lens. 12 shots per roll, completely manual and half the shutter speeds are now inaccurate. Does it even compare to my iPhone? Technically, probably not, but the satisfaction of use and the need to know what you're doing as a photographer is valuable.
Use whatever you're comfortable with and what is most appropriate for the situation in which you find yourself.
Don't acquire a camera as a status symbol ;-)

By the way, Pages is a good program, just different from Word. The great thing is Pages will read a word document and can output in a number of formats including Word.

I've never heard of anyone going back to Windows after trying Mac - voluntarily. Except my 80 year old Father in Law, who went from a 15 inch PC screen to a 27 inch iMac and found he was not able to control his mouse/cursor. - he was pushing his mouse off the desk! - he also still uses AOL for everything!

Actually me too. The iMac virtually never gets turned off. I think they prefer that!

I found that the secret to converting to, and subsequently loving the Mac was to stop thinking 'how do I do what I did on Windows on a Mac' and start thinking 'what's the most logical way to do this'!

Think of shutting down the computer - on the Mac, you click on shutdown or restart. On the PC you click 'start'! (Or at least you used to.

Mrmal, you could try exporting a copy of your Aperture library to the cloud or a separate disc to protect the image files. That may be a help if you ever decide to move to LR, given that Apple won't support Aperture going forward.

Quote: 'I also updated my OS and it caused problems with my Scan Snap scanner. Scan Snap won't have a fix until the middle of Oct. Bummer.'

I had the same issue with my Canon CanoScan 8600F. Canon haven't updated their drivers since they introduced the scanner, and apparently have no intention of doing so. Old drivers still work however, but Canon won't supply them. Third parties will though, and so I downloaded one of those and then obtained a third party scanner program - which appears more capable than the Canon program. Canon's only solution was to sell me a new scanner at a slight discount, if I joined their loyalty program. Loyal? Four Canon film SLRs, two DSLRs, numorous EOS lenses, a Canon point and shoot, three Canon photo printers, two scanners....oh, and flash units. Not impressed.

I installed Sierra as a clean install on my 2011 iMac. I did a clean install as I'd just done regular upgrades since new and I thought it may speed things up. It did, the Mac now flies like it was new. Reinstalled CC and that's working better than ever. Having everything in the Cloud makes life very simple. I used to be an LR sceptic, but now really like it (once I'd read the instructions and Victoria Bemoton's FAQs!).

I don't understand the comment about a strange way to start an iPad. Pressing a button or resting a finger on the screen seems perfectly normal and simple to me, but then people do say I'm strange! ;-)

You can also download Victoria's book before the hard copy arrives. It's good to have both.

LR has a good file renaming scheme that also keeps the original file name in the background, so you never loose track!

Joyce, as Chief Rob recommends, the book 'The Missing FAQs' is the way to go. This (Victoria Bampton) is 'The Lightroom Queen'. If you get the book and sign up with her on her website (http://www.lightroomqueen.com) you don't have to register your book and I think the price is slightly cheaper.

Also if you're moving folders and images around on your drives, do it from within LR as then the catalog keeps track of where everything is and you don't have to keep on indexing. Victoria Brampton explains this all very well.

Yes of course, the best camera is the one you have with you. Many folks have a phone camera with them at all times, so that's a great option and phone cameras are getting better all the time - not just iPhones, although I want to get my hands on an iPhone 7 plus!

Digital zoom on any device is unlikely to ever beat an optical zoom (at least in the near future).

I prefer using a 'proper' DSLR, but sometimes it's impractical to lug one around or inappropriate to start using one where a phone camera is available and unobtrusive.

Of course, using a digital medium or large format camera will give even better images but at enormous cost and the amount of equipment neede doesn't bear thinking about.

Given that the new camera phones have higher pixel counts than some DSLRS (not to mention point and shoots) had just a while ago, they are capable of good photos in the right hands. ...and of course post production apps and programs are much better and easier to use than previous systems - remember having to go into a darkroom? ;-)

Yes of course, the best camera is the one you have with you. Many folks have a phone camera with them at all times, so that's a great option and phone cameras are getting better all the time - not just iPhones, although I want to get my hands on an iPhone 7 plus!

Digital zoom on any device is unlikely to ever beat an optical zoom (at least in the near future).

I prefer using a 'proper' DSLR, but sometimes it's impractical to lug one around or inappropriate to start using one where a phone camera is available and unobtrusive.

Of course, using a digital medium or large format camera will give even better images but at enormous cost and the amount of equipment neede doesn't bear thinking about.

Given that the new camera phones have higher pixel counts than some DSLRS (not to mention point and shoots) had just a while ago, they are capable of good photos in the right hands. ...and of course post production apps and programs are much better and easier to use than previous systems - remember having to go into a darkroom? ;-)

'LR program must be on your internal drive. Keep all photos on an external drive so you don t slow down your system and fill up your internal hard drive.'

...I thought that too, but according to Adobe you can put the LR program where you like! Of course you absolutely correct in saying it works better having the images on an external drive (for many reasons, but particularly if your boot drive is limited in space) and the program on your boot drive, as that drive is likely to be faster than an external drive. However you can put the program where you like and, indeed, the images. - according to Adobe.

I've used various iterations of LR on a number of Macs over the years and was frustrated by how images were stored. I eventually moved to Aperture until Apple dropped thatvin favor of Photos, which just didn't work for me. I moved back to LR and got in an even bigger mess. I then signed up with The Lightroom Queen and got her book - 'the missing FAQs'.
All my problems had been of my own making, and largely due to the way I had images scattered all over my drives in no semblance of order. Using LR, I have moved all those images to an external drive and although not perfect my system now works pretty well. Ideally I should have started with a plan and built my image storage in the way that LR was set up, but I've been taking photos for forty odd years, and digital images for more than 16, so that wasn't an option.
I'd recommend the Lightroom Queen's book and website as she gives you a great insight into how LR works and how to make the best use of the program to get yourself in order!
I recently did a clean install of MacOS Sierra on my iMac and, having kept all my images on an external drive, made the transition relatively simply, with only a small amount of (excellent) help from Adobe support (again to solve problems of my own making!).
LR on a Mac does work well, but I'd recommend Lightroom Queen - no connection with me, other than being a satisfied subscriber.