How can I become more familiar with Macs without buying one?

[CloudWatcher]

19. Find a friend with one!

First ... get a friend to demo one to you and answer some basic questions. And in this time of corona, preferably one you're already sharing living space with

Second ... get yourself one to use. Good luck deciding on a model at this point. Basic choices are big or small, old or new. The prices will vary a lot.

Then ... try and focus on one area at a time. Of course you need to learn how to make & receive phone calls and set up a voice mailbox. But then .. sending and receiving texts? Direct access to your email? Browsing the web? Taking and sharing pictures? Chatting? Video chat? Running budgets and keeping track of spending?

There are 1001 useful things the little buggers can do. You can always do a drunkard's-walk and randomly explore. But nothing beats having a friend that can show you how stuff is done.

And don't forget you'll lose or break your phone at some point. So if there is anything on there you don't want to lose, back it up routinely! Either to a Mac (or PC) or to the cloud. I can't count the number of people I know that have lost priceless pictures when they've lost their phone.

Oh, and don't click on links in email unless you know exactly what it is (i.e. learn about phishing attacks before you get bitten by one).