8 ms·

Or you know, they won't not buy one. I really don't get the appeal of Macbooks for developers, the price tag is quite heavy compared to the specs one gets.

ghotli 10y ago
unix and build quality / stability
- curiousgal 10y ago
  I get the build quality argument but the lack stability made sense years ago, Linux runs almost perfectly on many cheap laptops these days.
  - awinder 10y ago
    I can't find a great windowing environment still, mind sharing your setup? For me, quartz is still light years ahead in the quality department over things like gnome and kde, though some of the new work on wayland wms looks promising
  - alexanderchr 10y ago
    My experience the last few years has been that Linux works good enough on most laptops but that there are some rough edges. Everything works, but the laptop will only go to sleep 50% of the times you close the lid or the display brightness will automatically drop to 10% when you leave the laptop for 2 minutes and not go back when you start using it again or the wifi will drop for half a minute every 30 minutes. Nothing dealbreaking really, just annoying. But I don't experience these kind of things when using the OS the laptops was shipped with (OSX/Windows) and would love to see more Linux certified hardware like Dell's XPS.
    - eth0up 10y ago
      Running Debian Unstable on a 2008 Macbook 4,1 and it's working quite well. The GPT partition was a bit tricky, but after that all has gone well but the camera, which doesn't work without proprietary firmware from yonder the repos. It's pretty cool to see an 8-9 year-old laptop with good battery life and reasonable performance. First time I ever fussed with a Mac and I'm glad I did. Also, I totally nixed the Mac OS partitions, for single boot.
umanwizard 10y ago
Decent tradeoff of ease-of-use and "just works" factor with unixy tools. Not as good as Linux for the latter (which in turn may not be as good as BSD, depending on who you ask) but way better for the former.
nikanj 10y ago
One gets a hardware-compatibility-guaranteed unix workstation. There really aren't many cheap options for that. If you want to suggest an unsupported linux laptop, I can suggest a hackintosh.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  If you want to suggest a hackintosh, I can suggest a Windows machine with Bash on Ubuntu on Windows. ;)
hellofunk 10y ago
Because macs offer UNIX environment which is great for Devs, but also a full-featured UI with lots of high-end commercial apps (and good audio engineering) which is not as easy to get in a Linux laptop. And, the support and ease of using the system is appealing compared to the more hands-on approach of maintaining a Linux distribution. Plus they are quite dependable hardware overall, and lots of easy OS updates.
- pcwalton 10y ago
  Bash on Windows has made that no longer a Mac-only thing. Its presence really is a game changer for me when I use Windows.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    Nowhere near the same. Last I checked, Microsoft kinda put it over in the corner, where it can be it's own little thing, but not a first class citizen of the system like UNIX is on macOS.
    - binarycrusader 10y ago
      First class citizen? Have you seen how old most of the versions are of GNU utilities they ship? I'm sure it because of licensing, but then it's up to them to either improve them or provide modern replacements.
      - st3v3r 10y ago
        I can easily install newer versions of those if I so desire.
        binarycrusader 10y ago
        That isn't what the parent's claim was about though -- the claim was "first-class" citizen. I'm well aware of homebrew and the like having used it myself; I still think the current situation is now better on Windows than macOS, which is bizarre.
ashark 10y ago
Great battery life, largely due to MacOS. Not actually much more expensive than other comparably-high-quality laptops. That glowing Apple on the back means you won't be personally blamed if something on it fails to work—say, if your wifi decides to cut out every five minutes due to a quirk in a particular hardware pairing, or it doesn't like a certain projector and refuses to work with it, and the meeting at your client's site ends up being more about your broken shit than the client's needs. If your $500 Dell running Arch and covered in penguin stickers does that, you might be personally blamed for it, and/or the quality of your judgment and competence might suddenly be on everyone's mind.
WhitneyLand 10y ago
- high quality hardware - nice extra features if you have an iphone like iMessage - can develop apps for android and iOS without janketyness - can develop for Linux/Windows/Mac - some don't play many games anyway on a dev laptop I think it's nice to have the development flexibility. i like being able to start coding anything possible because you never know when an idea may need a quick prototype. If I do need macOS, don't want to jerk around with hackintosh in a VM.
disposition2 10y ago
When I bought my first one, 2011, I bought it for: - clean UI w/ UNIX cli (it just works) - it allows you to run anything (osx, Windows, nix in VM) - iOS development - support for non-Windows apps (Garage Band, Logic [which I never ended up trying], etc) - easily up-gradable hardware (hard drive(s), ram) - many ports so you can utilize the pro-ness of it w/o a dock or another extension (my micro-sd card is about as large as my ssd) So half of the reasons I bought are no longer present or not really applicable because equal or better apps are now on Windows. I get it, they want to add all these cool features, but based on the rumors I have heard (and their 'updates' since 2011) the 'Pro' Macook is getting less Pro with each release. Thankfully, my laptop has held up quite well and I primarily use it for dev, so I'm hoping it will hold up for sometime so I can continue working on it...but I don't see the advantage of paying $1000s for what amounts to a more powerful 12-in Macbook. Better to buy a mini (specifically for iOS dev) and a laptop that isn't a beefed up consumption device.
WildUtah 10y ago
Actually, the Apple hardware and specs are usually better than you can get in a comparable Windows laptop for the same price. The Windows machines are cheaper right now only because Apple has gone two and a half years without updating the Macbooks Pro without lowering the prices. Apple does awful things like that sometimes so you have to be careful about what you buy, but you have to be careful with Dell and HP and Lenovo also, so that's not really different. But try finding an equivalent 3lb, silent, big glass reliable touchpad, extra long battery life, solid reliable build, color corrected retina screen laptop with similar specs to the new Macs next week and you'll find Apple has the best prices in the market as usual. --- Plus, as others have mentioned, UNIX is like a smooth creamy dream compared to the droning misery and shocking horrors of Windows.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  Even as the owner of a 2015 MBP, hmmm. Dell 13" XPS, i7-7500U, 16GB, 512GB SSD, 3200x1800 display, Thunderbolt 3, glass trackpad, 2.9lb, $1799. MBP 13", i7-5557, 16GB, 512GB SSD, 2560x1600 display, Thunderbolt 2, glass trackpad 3.5lb, $2199. Nearly half the power consumption on the CPU, lighter, $400 cheaper does not make for "Apple has the best prices in the market as usual".
  - WildUtah 10y ago
    That MBP is a spring 2014 model that you are comparing against a fall 2016 Dell. It's amazing that the Dell doesn't cost US$1000 less.
    - FireBeyond 10y ago
      You might want to tell Apple, they think they released it in April 2015. Meanwhile as best I can tell, the Dell was out in August of 2016. I have no horse in the race. I'll be upgrading my Mac with another Mac. But it's not Dell's fault Apple has been neglecting its entire computer range: over a year since the last iMac bump, 18 months for the MBA, 2 years for the Mini and nearly 3 years for the Mac Pro (I love how they're still charging full retail for the Pro components, or worse, $280 for 64GB ECC, but $1200 from Apple).
hn_user2 10y ago
Just for myself. Computers are my trade. I want the best tools I can get. For me, price isn't really the deciding factor at all.
whytaka 10y ago
With how long these machines last compared to their rivals, I'm saving money.

ghotli 10y ago

unix and build quality / stability

curiousgal 10y ago
I get the build quality argument but the lack stability made sense years ago, Linux runs almost perfectly on many cheap laptops these days.
- awinder 10y ago
  I can't find a great windowing environment still, mind sharing your setup? For me, quartz is still light years ahead in the quality department over things like gnome and kde, though some of the new work on wayland wms looks promising
- alexanderchr 10y ago
  My experience the last few years has been that Linux works good enough on most laptops but that there are some rough edges. Everything works, but the laptop will only go to sleep 50% of the times you close the lid or the display brightness will automatically drop to 10% when you leave the laptop for 2 minutes and not go back when you start using it again or the wifi will drop for half a minute every 30 minutes. Nothing dealbreaking really, just annoying. But I don't experience these kind of things when using the OS the laptops was shipped with (OSX/Windows) and would love to see more Linux certified hardware like Dell's XPS.
  - eth0up 10y ago
    Running Debian Unstable on a 2008 Macbook 4,1 and it's working quite well. The GPT partition was a bit tricky, but after that all has gone well but the camera, which doesn't work without proprietary firmware from yonder the repos. It's pretty cool to see an 8-9 year-old laptop with good battery life and reasonable performance. First time I ever fussed with a Mac and I'm glad I did. Also, I totally nixed the Mac OS partitions, for single boot.

umanwizard 10y ago

Decent tradeoff of ease-of-use and "just works" factor with unixy tools. Not as good as Linux for the latter (which in turn may not be as good as BSD, depending on who you ask) but way better for the former.

nikanj 10y ago

One gets a hardware-compatibility-guaranteed unix workstation. There really aren't many cheap options for that. If you want to suggest an unsupported linux laptop, I can suggest a hackintosh.

WorldMaker 10y ago
If you want to suggest a hackintosh, I can suggest a Windows machine with Bash on Ubuntu on Windows. ;)

hellofunk 10y ago

Because macs offer UNIX environment which is great for Devs, but also a full-featured UI with lots of high-end commercial apps (and good audio engineering) which is not as easy to get in a Linux laptop. And, the support and ease of using the system is appealing compared to the more hands-on approach of maintaining a Linux distribution. Plus they are quite dependable hardware overall, and lots of easy OS updates.

pcwalton 10y ago
Bash on Windows has made that no longer a Mac-only thing. Its presence really is a game changer for me when I use Windows.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  Nowhere near the same. Last I checked, Microsoft kinda put it over in the corner, where it can be it's own little thing, but not a first class citizen of the system like UNIX is on macOS.
  - binarycrusader 10y ago
    First class citizen? Have you seen how old most of the versions are of GNU utilities they ship? I'm sure it because of licensing, but then it's up to them to either improve them or provide modern replacements.
    - st3v3r 10y ago
      I can easily install newer versions of those if I so desire.
      - binarycrusader 10y ago
        That isn't what the parent's claim was about though -- the claim was "first-class" citizen. I'm well aware of homebrew and the like having used it myself; I still think the current situation is now better on Windows than macOS, which is bizarre.

ashark 10y ago

Great battery life, largely due to MacOS. Not actually much more expensive than other comparably-high-quality laptops. That glowing Apple on the back means you won't be personally blamed if something on it fails to work—say, if your wifi decides to cut out every five minutes due to a quirk in a particular hardware pairing, or it doesn't like a certain projector and refuses to work with it, and the meeting at your client's site ends up being more about your broken shit than the client's needs. If your $500 Dell running Arch and covered in penguin stickers does that, you might be personally blamed for it, and/or the quality of your judgment and competence might suddenly be on everyone's mind.

WhitneyLand 10y ago

- high quality hardware - nice extra features if you have an iphone like iMessage - can develop apps for android and iOS without janketyness - can develop for Linux/Windows/Mac - some don't play many games anyway on a dev laptop I think it's nice to have the development flexibility. i like being able to start coding anything possible because you never know when an idea may need a quick prototype. If I do need macOS, don't want to jerk around with hackintosh in a VM.

disposition2 10y ago

When I bought my first one, 2011, I bought it for: - clean UI w/ UNIX cli (it just works) - it allows you to run anything (osx, Windows, nix in VM) - iOS development - support for non-Windows apps (Garage Band, Logic [which I never ended up trying], etc) - easily up-gradable hardware (hard drive(s), ram) - many ports so you can utilize the pro-ness of it w/o a dock or another extension (my micro-sd card is about as large as my ssd) So half of the reasons I bought are no longer present or not really applicable because equal or better apps are now on Windows. I get it, they want to add all these cool features, but based on the rumors I have heard (and their 'updates' since 2011) the 'Pro' Macook is getting less Pro with each release. Thankfully, my laptop has held up quite well and I primarily use it for dev, so I'm hoping it will hold up for sometime so I can continue working on it...but I don't see the advantage of paying $1000s for what amounts to a more powerful 12-in Macbook. Better to buy a mini (specifically for iOS dev) and a laptop that isn't a beefed up consumption device.

WildUtah 10y ago

Actually, the Apple hardware and specs are usually better than you can get in a comparable Windows laptop for the same price. The Windows machines are cheaper right now only because Apple has gone two and a half years without updating the Macbooks Pro without lowering the prices. Apple does awful things like that sometimes so you have to be careful about what you buy, but you have to be careful with Dell and HP and Lenovo also, so that's not really different. But try finding an equivalent 3lb, silent, big glass reliable touchpad, extra long battery life, solid reliable build, color corrected retina screen laptop with similar specs to the new Macs next week and you'll find Apple has the best prices in the market as usual. --- Plus, as others have mentioned, UNIX is like a smooth creamy dream compared to the droning misery and shocking horrors of Windows.

FireBeyond 10y ago
Even as the owner of a 2015 MBP, hmmm. Dell 13" XPS, i7-7500U, 16GB, 512GB SSD, 3200x1800 display, Thunderbolt 3, glass trackpad, 2.9lb, $1799. MBP 13", i7-5557, 16GB, 512GB SSD, 2560x1600 display, Thunderbolt 2, glass trackpad 3.5lb, $2199. Nearly half the power consumption on the CPU, lighter, $400 cheaper does not make for "Apple has the best prices in the market as usual".
- WildUtah 10y ago
  That MBP is a spring 2014 model that you are comparing against a fall 2016 Dell. It's amazing that the Dell doesn't cost US$1000 less.
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    You might want to tell Apple, they think they released it in April 2015. Meanwhile as best I can tell, the Dell was out in August of 2016. I have no horse in the race. I'll be upgrading my Mac with another Mac. But it's not Dell's fault Apple has been neglecting its entire computer range: over a year since the last iMac bump, 18 months for the MBA, 2 years for the Mini and nearly 3 years for the Mac Pro (I love how they're still charging full retail for the Pro components, or worse, $280 for 64GB ECC, but $1200 from Apple).

hn_user2 10y ago

Just for myself. Computers are my trade. I want the best tools I can get. For me, price isn't really the deciding factor at all.

whytaka 10y ago

With how long these machines last compared to their rivals, I'm saving money.