4 ms·

Yeah but 99% of Apple hardware sales are dependent on Mac developers.

by AJ007 7y ago

carlosdp 7y ago
Yea this is one of Apple's largest advantages as a platform, they really don't want the Macbook to fall out of favor as the developer's machine of choice.
- basch 7y ago
  People dont use osx/ios because developers like the hardware. Developers develop for osx/ios because apple provides them a toolkit and lots of potential customers, and exposure through the appstore.
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    I've been working in Silicon Valley at tech companies for the past 15 years, and MacBook Pros have been massively dominant for the web developers, server-side developers, database developers, technical developers, and mobile developers on not only iOS but Android. None of this can be explained by "Apple provides them a toolkit and exposure." I am pretty confident that developers use OS X because, yes, they like the hardware. (Which makes developers by and large not liking the last few years of MacBook hardware a danger Apple's been too slow to recognize.)
    - lbotos 7y ago
      Yes, but also, it was basically linux, which meant that it was close enough to the hosts that you were connecting to. It was a nightmare to admin Linux from Windows in the past. I have a college aged brother, and Microsoft currently owns GitHub, and is providing the linux subsystem, which is a huge signal that "developers are welcome." His whole generation is developing on $300 Dell laptops and it's easy. Mac used to provide that, but you paid for it.
      - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        Microsoft's moves to become more developer (and Linux) friendly are undoubtedly paying off. It's my understanding from recent data -- although I can't find a linkable reference at the moment -- that Apple laptops are still the #1 choice on college campuses by a substantial margin, but this could certainly be changing. (K-12 schools are full of Chromebooks, but anecdotally, that doesn't seem to be translating into a preference for sticking with them after high school.)
  - tempsolution 7y ago
    True, but there is a big difference in the quality of produced software between: * I need to develop for this shitty platform, which I hate, because my customers are on it * I want to develop for this awesome platform, because I just love it and my customers are also on it If Apple loses touch & favor with developers, their platform will slowly but surely die out over a decade or two. Apple is expensive, the only reason for Apple to even exist is because they deliver quality products. If they ever go down the road of consistently failing this core value, they will die more quickly than reindeer thrown down a cliff.
  - ilikehurdles 7y ago
    That’s quite an assertion. I love (loved?) OS X and the hardware behind it. It’s the most polished unixy system money can buy. I don’t like the current generation of hardware, though.
scarface74 7y ago
Developer go where their users are. If that weren’t the case, no one would develop for consoles.
- akvadrako 7y ago
  Right; that's why there are so many tools for Linux.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Which doesn’t help if you need to develop for the platform where the most money is - iOS
derefr 7y ago
And Mac developers don't have to use MBPs to develop Mac applications. Use an iMac( Pro) or Mac Mini at your desk. Use a Macbook Air as a portable. Neither has a touchbar. (Heck, technically, Mac developers don't even have to use Apple products to develop Mac applications. I've done native macOS app-dev and the only thing I have that runs macOS is a Hackintosh.) Consider also this analogy: you don't develop console games on the console itself. You develop and build them on a computer using a cross-compiler, and then push them to a dev-kit unit to test them. Same thing applies here: just because you're writing macOS software, doesn't mean you need to be using macOS. You could stand up an office EXSi server running macOS VMs to serve as a CI server and test environment, and then actually write your macOS software in VSCode on Linux, pushing it over to the server to test it. People have done this. It's no harder than, say, developing for Android.

Yeah but 99% of Apple hardware sales are dependent on Mac developers.

by AJ007 7y ago

Yeah but 99% of Apple hardware sales are dependent on Mac developers.

Yea this is one of Apple's largest advantages as a platform, they really don't want the Macbook to fall out of favor as the developer's machine of choice.

basch 7y ago
People dont use osx/ios because developers like the hardware. Developers develop for osx/ios because apple provides them a toolkit and lots of potential customers, and exposure through the appstore.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  I've been working in Silicon Valley at tech companies for the past 15 years, and MacBook Pros have been massively dominant for the web developers, server-side developers, database developers, technical developers, and mobile developers on not only iOS but Android. None of this can be explained by "Apple provides them a toolkit and exposure." I am pretty confident that developers use OS X because, yes, they like the hardware. (Which makes developers by and large not liking the last few years of MacBook hardware a danger Apple's been too slow to recognize.)
  - lbotos 7y ago
    Yes, but also, it was basically linux, which meant that it was close enough to the hosts that you were connecting to. It was a nightmare to admin Linux from Windows in the past. I have a college aged brother, and Microsoft currently owns GitHub, and is providing the linux subsystem, which is a huge signal that "developers are welcome." His whole generation is developing on $300 Dell laptops and it's easy. Mac used to provide that, but you paid for it.
    - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
      Microsoft's moves to become more developer (and Linux) friendly are undoubtedly paying off. It's my understanding from recent data -- although I can't find a linkable reference at the moment -- that Apple laptops are still the #1 choice on college campuses by a substantial margin, but this could certainly be changing. (K-12 schools are full of Chromebooks, but anecdotally, that doesn't seem to be translating into a preference for sticking with them after high school.)
- tempsolution 7y ago
  True, but there is a big difference in the quality of produced software between: * I need to develop for this shitty platform, which I hate, because my customers are on it * I want to develop for this awesome platform, because I just love it and my customers are also on it If Apple loses touch & favor with developers, their platform will slowly but surely die out over a decade or two. Apple is expensive, the only reason for Apple to even exist is because they deliver quality products. If they ever go down the road of consistently failing this core value, they will die more quickly than reindeer thrown down a cliff.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  That’s quite an assertion. I love (loved?) OS X and the hardware behind it. It’s the most polished unixy system money can buy. I don’t like the current generation of hardware, though.

scarface74 7y ago

Developer go where their users are. If that weren’t the case, no one would develop for consoles.

akvadrako 7y ago
Right; that's why there are so many tools for Linux.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Which doesn’t help if you need to develop for the platform where the most money is - iOS

derefr 7y ago

And Mac developers don't have to use MBPs to develop Mac applications. Use an iMac( Pro) or Mac Mini at your desk. Use a Macbook Air as a portable. Neither has a touchbar. (Heck, technically, Mac developers don't even have to use Apple products to develop Mac applications. I've done native macOS app-dev and the only thing I have that runs macOS is a Hackintosh.) Consider also this analogy: you don't develop console games on the console itself. You develop and build them on a computer using a cross-compiler, and then push them to a dev-kit unit to test them. Same thing applies here: just because you're writing macOS software, doesn't mean you need to be using macOS. You could stand up an office EXSi server running macOS VMs to serve as a CI server and test environment, and then actually write your macOS software in VSCode on Linux, pushing it over to the server to test it. People have done this. It's no harder than, say, developing for Android.