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Amen. I can't think of another brand that fosters so much "I'll spend more money here" compared to "I'll use a different brand."

cpuguy83 5y ago
That's how much we hate Windows and desktop Linux.
- helmholtz 5y ago
  Good thing you can afford the kind of expense that the luxury of that hate is costing you then, I guess.
  - coliveira 5y ago
    For a professional developer the difference in cost is not that much bigger.
  - nickpp 5y ago
    Well, generally speaking Windows and Mac developers are in such demand that hardware is quite a small expense compared to how much they make. Is the experience very different for Linux developers?
    - KptMarchewa 5y ago
      It's very weird to be talking about "windows, mac or linux" developers. Desktop application development today is maybe about 1-5% of all development, while overwhelming majority of backend development - the largest category - targets Linux.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Percentage of the way to being as good as all desktop operating systems ought, at a minimum, to be: Windows: 70% Linux: 20-80% depending on your hardware, what you're doing with it, and how lucky you got with the current kernel & libraries your distro is running. MacOS: 90% So when Apple fucks up really bad and MacOS temporarily drops to 70%, no, I still don't switch. Every desktop operating system is shitty, but there are degrees of shitty. And yes, I use all three pretty regularly.
    - diffeomorphism 5y ago
      Crashing while doing your work is not "drops to 70%". That is the problem we were discussing and that is not a minor inconvenience.
- nix23 5y ago
  Oh look the main speaker for the Mac folk!
least 5y ago
Probably because other brands don’t do anything novel to warrant such loyalty. Apples hardware and software stack is undeniably unique which in turn makes it a brand that people will put up with issues because well, it has things other systems don’t.
radicaldreamer 5y ago
These issues notwithstanding, the total user experience of owning a Mac laptop is far superior to any Linux or Windows machine I've tried, at least in the past 3 years or so. Two concrete examples: trackpad feels like shit on both Windows and Linux, installing or updating drivers and some apps on Windows constantly switches back to legacy modes to display the installers (with different fonts, no subpixel smoothing etc.). If it's not a deal breaker, it is annoying as hell and something that almost never happens on my Mac.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  libinput with Wayland on a MacBook Pro puts its trackpad handling on par with macOS.
  - doublepg23 5y ago
    I'm dailying Wayland on Ubuntu, but it feels like there's always a "it'll be really good soon" promise to Wayland.
  - emkoemko 5y ago
    yea it takes time but eventually open software will be better, just look at how well Blender is doing and even Darktable is way way better then Adobe Lightroom can't understand why anyone uses that anymore while a free alternative that is better is out there.
- wingworks 5y ago
  ^ This. It's not that I don't want to switch to a different company, it's just everything else is a worse, overall experience. I'm on Windows every week or so, and while it feels much faster than Mac, on the same hardware, there are just too many little things that annoy me. (have tried a few Linux flavours too, not really a contender for my use case)
- ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
  OP was describing very high-spec hardware which locks up and becomes unresponsive under their normal workload, potentially losing work or wasting their time. That seems like a much more significant issue than inconsistent font display or the feel of the input device. Your experience must differ, but if I spent $2000+ on a device only to find that was locking up (due to poor memory management in a standard component!) under my standard workload, I would be livid. I would probably return it, and then tell the next 10 people I meet about my poor experience. That said, I have run across a Windows 7 bug where the font manager would repeatedly fail and leave its cache/log on disk, only to restart and repeat until the hard disk was just about full. Complaints about the poor state of software engineering as a discipline go back to the beginning.
coliveira 5y ago
Because Windows is so much worse. I'm now required to use Windows for a project, and it is a pain to use that system every extra minute.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  You might get a better experience running Windows in a VM. Reports are that it is faster that way.
brokenmachine 5y ago
It's because they do so many anti-consumer things to lock their victims in. Changing brands becomes more of an ordeal than staying.
thedrbrian 5y ago
Tesla. So many people seem to have problems with the cars/lack of quality only to say “still love the car” or “it’s my xxx number Tesla and they’re still doing [problem]”

cpuguy83 5y ago

That's how much we hate Windows and desktop Linux.

helmholtz 5y ago
Good thing you can afford the kind of expense that the luxury of that hate is costing you then, I guess.
- coliveira 5y ago
  For a professional developer the difference in cost is not that much bigger.
- nickpp 5y ago
  Well, generally speaking Windows and Mac developers are in such demand that hardware is quite a small expense compared to how much they make. Is the experience very different for Linux developers?
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    It's very weird to be talking about "windows, mac or linux" developers. Desktop application development today is maybe about 1-5% of all development, while overwhelming majority of backend development - the largest category - targets Linux.
- handrous 5y ago
  Percentage of the way to being as good as all desktop operating systems ought, at a minimum, to be: Windows: 70% Linux: 20-80% depending on your hardware, what you're doing with it, and how lucky you got with the current kernel & libraries your distro is running. MacOS: 90% So when Apple fucks up really bad and MacOS temporarily drops to 70%, no, I still don't switch. Every desktop operating system is shitty, but there are degrees of shitty. And yes, I use all three pretty regularly.
  - diffeomorphism 5y ago
    Crashing while doing your work is not "drops to 70%". That is the problem we were discussing and that is not a minor inconvenience.
nix23 5y ago
Oh look the main speaker for the Mac folk!

least 5y ago

Probably because other brands don’t do anything novel to warrant such loyalty. Apples hardware and software stack is undeniably unique which in turn makes it a brand that people will put up with issues because well, it has things other systems don’t.

radicaldreamer 5y ago

These issues notwithstanding, the total user experience of owning a Mac laptop is far superior to any Linux or Windows machine I've tried, at least in the past 3 years or so. Two concrete examples: trackpad feels like shit on both Windows and Linux, installing or updating drivers and some apps on Windows constantly switches back to legacy modes to display the installers (with different fonts, no subpixel smoothing etc.). If it's not a deal breaker, it is annoying as hell and something that almost never happens on my Mac.

heavyset_go 5y ago
libinput with Wayland on a MacBook Pro puts its trackpad handling on par with macOS.
- doublepg23 5y ago
  I'm dailying Wayland on Ubuntu, but it feels like there's always a "it'll be really good soon" promise to Wayland.
- emkoemko 5y ago
  yea it takes time but eventually open software will be better, just look at how well Blender is doing and even Darktable is way way better then Adobe Lightroom can't understand why anyone uses that anymore while a free alternative that is better is out there.
wingworks 5y ago
^ This. It's not that I don't want to switch to a different company, it's just everything else is a worse, overall experience. I'm on Windows every week or so, and while it feels much faster than Mac, on the same hardware, there are just too many little things that annoy me. (have tried a few Linux flavours too, not really a contender for my use case)
ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
OP was describing very high-spec hardware which locks up and becomes unresponsive under their normal workload, potentially losing work or wasting their time. That seems like a much more significant issue than inconsistent font display or the feel of the input device. Your experience must differ, but if I spent $2000+ on a device only to find that was locking up (due to poor memory management in a standard component!) under my standard workload, I would be livid. I would probably return it, and then tell the next 10 people I meet about my poor experience. That said, I have run across a Windows 7 bug where the font manager would repeatedly fail and leave its cache/log on disk, only to restart and repeat until the hard disk was just about full. Complaints about the poor state of software engineering as a discipline go back to the beginning.

coliveira 5y ago

Because Windows is so much worse. I'm now required to use Windows for a project, and it is a pain to use that system every extra minute.

ncmncm 5y ago
You might get a better experience running Windows in a VM. Reports are that it is faster that way.

brokenmachine 5y ago

It's because they do so many anti-consumer things to lock their victims in. Changing brands becomes more of an ordeal than staying.

thedrbrian 5y ago

Tesla. So many people seem to have problems with the cars/lack of quality only to say “still love the car” or “it’s my xxx number Tesla and they’re still doing [problem]”