6 ms·

I switched to a Thinkpad after I had the horror of using a new Macbook. Running Ubuntu is lovely, so much so that for a developer there is little reason to be u

I switched to a Thinkpad after I had the horror of using a new Macbook. Running Ubuntu is lovely, so much so that for a developer there is little reason to be using a Macbook anymore. You can get a lot more bang for the buck using a Thinkpad AND have a functional keyboard. Apple should be very worried. Once they loose the developers, users won't be long to follow.

gilbetron 7y ago
Mac to Dell/Ubuntu here and completely agree. I can understand if you need some media creation applications sticking with Mac (although I'd switch to Win10), but as a fellow developer it has been awesome. I mean I'm completely shocked how I don't even remotely miss anything from Mac. Well, ok, not quite true - Macs have a slightly smoother UI which I like and a bit better fonts, and I miss 1 or 2 trackpad gestures. But everything else is equal on Ubuntu or better. I ran into 2-3 problems that needed some non-trivial linux admin, so I'm not advocating it for non-tech person usage. The only irritation about the experience is when you switch windows and touch the touchpad, it forces a quick scroll down the page. It used to be maddening, but I found one "fix" that made it happen less frequently. Otherwise, it's by far my favorite dev environment I've had in my 30+ year career! Well, except for maybe my first job using a Wang terminal, if only because I enjoyed telling coworkers I needed to get back to my Wang. Lots of Wang jokes.
- anthony_doan 7y ago
  > I can understand if you need some media creation applications sticking with Mac (although I'd switch to Win10), but as a fellow developer it has been awesome I believe you also need it for ios/iphone development not sure about osx dev though.
johnbrodie 7y ago
Why do you say that? Honest question - nowadays it seems like most users are just using web apps, so less need for native apps anyway. Plus the users are still there, so I'd think market forces would keep highly-used native apps going anyway.
- iamleppert 7y ago
  Users will soon learn you can get the same (or better) experience with cheaper hardware. Developers are generally the first to notice such things.
- ubermonkey 7y ago
  People who are serious about their tools tend not to use web apps as much.
hunta2097 7y ago
Dell XPS15 with Ubuntu has literally been my best developer environment ever. Unfortunately my current gig is all MBP and I feel completely handicapped, even after many months - to the point I have resorted to a "proper" mechanical keyboard.
- jammygit 7y ago
  I find the XPS has a disappointing keyboard actually.
  - _coveredInBees 7y ago
    Yup, I've had my XPS15 for over 3 years and the keyboard (and webcam) are the weakest elements. The keyboard still feels terrible...somehow it has the worst of both worlds, poor key travel and too large a spacing between keys. Typing has always felt very awkward. In comparison, I absolutely love the Surface Pro 4 keyboard which has wonderful key travel and spacing.
    - Kipters 7y ago
      I absolutely agree about the Surface Pro 4 keyboard: I've been using one as my personal laptop for the last 3,5 years and I absolutely love it. Although I must say the keyboard on my girlfriend's Surface Laptop feels slightly better though.
- wyclif 7y ago
  Another way around this for power users and devs that a lot of people seem to overlook is to get a 6-core Mac Mini and a mechanical keyboard. With a retina monitor, it's a great combination. As a touch typist and massive terminal keybindings user, I won't compromise on the keyboard. Apple needs to wake up and realise which slice of their market they are alienating. I'd say it's the most important one—the developers and creators. There's a sense that at Apple HQ right now, the "Pro" in "MacBook Pro" no longer means "professional" but rather "prosumer." That is wrong, so a major course correction is in order before creative types start fleeing the brand in earnest (judging by this thread and others, they may have already).
mudlus 7y ago
I feel like I've been seeing this trend as well. I've got an DELL XPS15 and I love it (4-5 years old now)ーgreat keyboard. But, for anything that needs good GPU performance, they still hold the upper hand in hardware-software working in tandem, it's hard to get the same performance out of anything else.
Litmus2336 7y ago
I wish I could get issued a Linux Thinkpad, but still no support from the IT org :(
- panpanna 7y ago
  BYOD it! My company laptop is just used for Skype meetings. The real work happens on my ThinkPad. Although now that enough people have copied my approach it has now been grudgingly approved by IT.
SkyPuncher 7y ago
How's the touchpad? That's literally my biggest hold up. I haven't seen anything that holds a candle to Mac's touchpads yet.
- ak217 7y ago
  Not OP but the trackpad on the Thinkpad X1/P1 is still not good compared to the MBP. It's small (much smaller than the 2015 MBP). Because it has a hinge, you have to either turn on tap-to-click (which has poor palm rejection) or further cut the area where you can click to the bottom half (and deal with variable click strain/travel). I've heard that Dell makes better trackpads nowadays, but I haven't tried one to verify yet. Regardless, I believe it still has a hinge, so hardware wise I do think the force touch trackpad (and its driver) is still MBP's biggest moat.
- whywhywhywhy 7y ago
  The Surface line touchpads are the closest I've seen so far.
__MatrixMan__ 7y ago
There are four of us at work that use Linux--the other 30 or so all have MacBooks. There are no converts, either you started a Linux person, or you started a Mac person. My little Linux enclave has some theories about the cognitive effect of all the polish that you find on Apple products, but we can't separate our biasses from good science, especially because there's nobody to ask that knows both worlds. So I have a question for all of the converts out there: Does switching between MacOS and Linux have any effect on how you think?
- IggleSniggle 7y ago
  I’d like to hear your thoughts on this, real evidence be damned.
- ssijak 7y ago
  I switched to apple ecosystem because I wanted the UX that just works reliably. MacOS is for me linux with ultrapolished DE. Bonus is that I can work on iOS apps and use Apple Photos which is way better for me than Google Photos. I used Arch Linux for many years before MacOS. I also switched to iPhone from Android. Wanted a phone that works in the same ecosystem (photos...) and is fast, reliable and does not change ux very much with new releases. On android I tinkered with the phone too much, various companies have different ux, and I started to dislike Google very much after they started randomly shutting down services as they like and one year after introducing them.
  - nottorp 7y ago
    I switched from Linux to Mac OS as well. First someone paid me to do a low level Mac app, so I bought a macbook white and found out how Mac OS works. Then one day I was working on my main Linux desktop and something was distracting me. After a while I realized that the "system tray" (or whatever KDE calls it) icons were all removed and readded one by one regularly, instead of just being updated in place. The on screen movement was significant enough to steal my attention from the IDE. I looked up how to build a hackintosh desktop and sadly I've never looked back. I might even replace the hackintosh with a Mac Pro in the next 1-2 years, now that they actually have a Mac Pro again. UX wise, Mac OS is the least annoying operating system available now. Same goes for iOS on phones. It's bad because there's no competition, but that's it.

gilbetron 7y ago

Mac to Dell/Ubuntu here and completely agree. I can understand if you need some media creation applications sticking with Mac (although I'd switch to Win10), but as a fellow developer it has been awesome. I mean I'm completely shocked how I don't even remotely miss anything from Mac. Well, ok, not quite true - Macs have a slightly smoother UI which I like and a bit better fonts, and I miss 1 or 2 trackpad gestures. But everything else is equal on Ubuntu or better. I ran into 2-3 problems that needed some non-trivial linux admin, so I'm not advocating it for non-tech person usage. The only irritation about the experience is when you switch windows and touch the touchpad, it forces a quick scroll down the page. It used to be maddening, but I found one "fix" that made it happen less frequently. Otherwise, it's by far my favorite dev environment I've had in my 30+ year career! Well, except for maybe my first job using a Wang terminal, if only because I enjoyed telling coworkers I needed to get back to my Wang. Lots of Wang jokes.

anthony_doan 7y ago
> I can understand if you need some media creation applications sticking with Mac (although I'd switch to Win10), but as a fellow developer it has been awesome I believe you also need it for ios/iphone development not sure about osx dev though.

johnbrodie 7y ago

Why do you say that? Honest question - nowadays it seems like most users are just using web apps, so less need for native apps anyway. Plus the users are still there, so I'd think market forces would keep highly-used native apps going anyway.

iamleppert 7y ago
Users will soon learn you can get the same (or better) experience with cheaper hardware. Developers are generally the first to notice such things.
ubermonkey 7y ago
People who are serious about their tools tend not to use web apps as much.

hunta2097 7y ago

Dell XPS15 with Ubuntu has literally been my best developer environment ever. Unfortunately my current gig is all MBP and I feel completely handicapped, even after many months - to the point I have resorted to a "proper" mechanical keyboard.

jammygit 7y ago
I find the XPS has a disappointing keyboard actually.
- _coveredInBees 7y ago
  Yup, I've had my XPS15 for over 3 years and the keyboard (and webcam) are the weakest elements. The keyboard still feels terrible...somehow it has the worst of both worlds, poor key travel and too large a spacing between keys. Typing has always felt very awkward. In comparison, I absolutely love the Surface Pro 4 keyboard which has wonderful key travel and spacing.
  - Kipters 7y ago
    I absolutely agree about the Surface Pro 4 keyboard: I've been using one as my personal laptop for the last 3,5 years and I absolutely love it. Although I must say the keyboard on my girlfriend's Surface Laptop feels slightly better though.
wyclif 7y ago
Another way around this for power users and devs that a lot of people seem to overlook is to get a 6-core Mac Mini and a mechanical keyboard. With a retina monitor, it's a great combination. As a touch typist and massive terminal keybindings user, I won't compromise on the keyboard. Apple needs to wake up and realise which slice of their market they are alienating. I'd say it's the most important one—the developers and creators. There's a sense that at Apple HQ right now, the "Pro" in "MacBook Pro" no longer means "professional" but rather "prosumer." That is wrong, so a major course correction is in order before creative types start fleeing the brand in earnest (judging by this thread and others, they may have already).

mudlus 7y ago

I feel like I've been seeing this trend as well. I've got an DELL XPS15 and I love it (4-5 years old now)ーgreat keyboard. But, for anything that needs good GPU performance, they still hold the upper hand in hardware-software working in tandem, it's hard to get the same performance out of anything else.

Litmus2336 7y ago

I wish I could get issued a Linux Thinkpad, but still no support from the IT org :(

panpanna 7y ago
BYOD it! My company laptop is just used for Skype meetings. The real work happens on my ThinkPad. Although now that enough people have copied my approach it has now been grudgingly approved by IT.

SkyPuncher 7y ago

How's the touchpad? That's literally my biggest hold up. I haven't seen anything that holds a candle to Mac's touchpads yet.

ak217 7y ago
Not OP but the trackpad on the Thinkpad X1/P1 is still not good compared to the MBP. It's small (much smaller than the 2015 MBP). Because it has a hinge, you have to either turn on tap-to-click (which has poor palm rejection) or further cut the area where you can click to the bottom half (and deal with variable click strain/travel). I've heard that Dell makes better trackpads nowadays, but I haven't tried one to verify yet. Regardless, I believe it still has a hinge, so hardware wise I do think the force touch trackpad (and its driver) is still MBP's biggest moat.
whywhywhywhy 7y ago
The Surface line touchpads are the closest I've seen so far.

__MatrixMan__ 7y ago

There are four of us at work that use Linux--the other 30 or so all have MacBooks. There are no converts, either you started a Linux person, or you started a Mac person. My little Linux enclave has some theories about the cognitive effect of all the polish that you find on Apple products, but we can't separate our biasses from good science, especially because there's nobody to ask that knows both worlds. So I have a question for all of the converts out there: Does switching between MacOS and Linux have any effect on how you think?

IggleSniggle 7y ago
I’d like to hear your thoughts on this, real evidence be damned.
ssijak 7y ago
I switched to apple ecosystem because I wanted the UX that just works reliably. MacOS is for me linux with ultrapolished DE. Bonus is that I can work on iOS apps and use Apple Photos which is way better for me than Google Photos. I used Arch Linux for many years before MacOS. I also switched to iPhone from Android. Wanted a phone that works in the same ecosystem (photos...) and is fast, reliable and does not change ux very much with new releases. On android I tinkered with the phone too much, various companies have different ux, and I started to dislike Google very much after they started randomly shutting down services as they like and one year after introducing them.
- nottorp 7y ago
  I switched from Linux to Mac OS as well. First someone paid me to do a low level Mac app, so I bought a macbook white and found out how Mac OS works. Then one day I was working on my main Linux desktop and something was distracting me. After a while I realized that the "system tray" (or whatever KDE calls it) icons were all removed and readded one by one regularly, instead of just being updated in place. The on screen movement was significant enough to steal my attention from the IDE. I looked up how to build a hackintosh desktop and sadly I've never looked back. I might even replace the hackintosh with a Mac Pro in the next 1-2 years, now that they actually have a Mac Pro again. UX wise, Mac OS is the least annoying operating system available now. Same goes for iOS on phones. It's bad because there's no competition, but that's it.