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Based on what? I would never buy an Apple laptop and no one I know has one either. The Windows "gaming laptop" I got a few years ago for game dev is perfectly a

Based on what? I would never buy an Apple laptop and no one I know has one either. The Windows "gaming laptop" I got a few years ago for game dev is perfectly adequate and has features missing from Macbooks: - ethernet port - hdmi port - multiple usb A and C ports - solid keyboard Same for my work laptop, again Windows/x86 and no one I know with a work laptop is supplied a Mac either.

ezfe 3y ago
MacBook Pros have HDMI ports and many USB-C ports. I also don't know any issue with MacBook keyboards except the 2016-2019 model years. I work for a large financial services company and receive a MacBook Pro for my work. My work laptop battery can handle all-day IntelliJ & web browsing without charging, I've never heard the fan and the laptop stays cool. It has a Geekbench multicore score of 13,649. My personal laptop also lasts that long and stays cool, and doesn't even have a fan.
edgyquant 3y ago
We live in different worlds. All engineers I know have Macs and the ones that don’t have Linux. The one guy on my team who uses windows is a constant problem as he has to find work arounds for every process we have/service we build.
- redwall_hp 3y ago
  Yep. I work in an entire office of engineers with only Macs (mostly ARM ones now) and I only have a Mac at home, besides a very old ThinkPad running Ubuntu. (Aside from FFXIV on MacOS, I've moved any gaming to PS5 and Switch.) I haven't actively used Windows since 2008. It's such an obnoxious OS to use, and I have never seen a Windows laptop with quality in the same zip code as a Mac. There's always a terrible touch pad, keyboard flex, plasticky trash fit and finish, mediocre display or something that just ruins the whole thing.
  - selectodude 3y ago
    I just received a brand new Thinkpad from work. I don't even mind Windows but holy crap is that thing an absolute chore to use. I don't understand how this is still an issue while Apple has been putting out what amounts to the perfect laptop for like 10+ years now.
    - innocenat 3y ago
      On the other hand, I moved from MacBook to ThinkPad and holy crap it's just so much easier to use.
    - rejectfinite 3y ago
      >I don't even mind Windows but holy crap is that thing an absolute chore to use. What are your issues? I have a T490 that is a few years old and its great for my use. But I keep it docked in to a monitor and external mouse and keyboard 90% of the time.
  - shortrounddev2 3y ago
    I like the aluminum bodies of macs, but I hate the flat keyboards. In my view, no laptop brand has had a good keyboard since the Thinkpad T420. In terms of build quality, apple laptops are pretty good, but I can't stand macOS and apple keeps fucking with their ports. My Inspiron 16 has a good glass screen and a pretty solid aluminum body. It's got all the ports I want (HDMI, USB-A 3.0, SD card reader, USB-C, and a 3.5mm headphone jack). Personally, the macbook pro my company issued me is one of my least favorite laptops I've ever used. I also had compatibility or performance problems with x86 based software when I got my first M1 macbook, I don't know if they're improved anything since then
  - hota_mazi 3y ago
    > I haven't actively used Windows since 2008. It's such an obnoxious OS to use You might want to modernize your perception of it, holding on to 15 year old views is not a very smart move in the tech industry. Windows 10 and 11 are a joy to use, and to develop. I used a Mac for 15 years and switched to Windows to develop 5 years ago, and now macOS looks extremely antiquated and creaky for development.
- shortrounddev2 3y ago
  Every company I've worked for provided a macbook to us, and all my coworkers use a macbook. When I have the option, I pick PC. My last company gave me a choice between mac or PC, and I picked the thinkpad. My current company gave me a macbook pro, but I opted to use my personal Windows machines instead. I'm the guy who has to come up with a workaround, but it's never a problem for others. Usually I'm translating some bash command into powershell, which takes maybe 2 minutes. Everything else runs just fine, and I don't even need to use WSL. Windows is a perfectly viable development platform, if you give a shit about learning the differences between a unix-like environment and windows instead of just copping out and using WSL
- oblak 3y ago
  1. Build a pipeline with macOS in mind (because "All engineers I know have Macs") 2. Complain when the macOS-oriented process doesn't work for everyone.
  - WeylandYutani 3y ago
    Apple is doing what people hated Microsoft for. It's amazing that a closed ecosystem is so welcomed by Apple fans. But I suppose man has always been tribal.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Any closed ecosystem is annoying but I'm not going to complain very hard while their desktop market share is below 20-25%.
      - WeylandYutani 3y ago
        Desktop is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Most people don't even own one anymore. Apple is as close to WeChat as you can get in Western countries.
  - ezfe 3y ago
    I work on a split team, Windows and macOS. We do straightforward Java work and most of the problems that we have are related to installing command-line software on Windows. Installing Postgres, Redis, etc. on Windows is wildly complicated compared to on macOS or Linux.
    - jimmaswell 3y ago
      Tried WSL?
      - edgyquant 3y ago
        Yes it’s a constant source of problems. Trying to live share and get any actual work done leads to constant crashes, simply git cloning and trying to docker-compose and yarn install is a convoluted mess etc. windows is just not friendly to the kind of development common these days.
- parineum 3y ago
  If your dev environment is meant to be multiplatform, it's sounds a lot more like the other developers are checking in things that don't work on anything but macs. Your Linux devs are just used to dealing with it.
  - senttoschool 3y ago
    >If your dev environment is meant to be multiplatform Why would this be the case? Dev environments should concentrate on a single platform as much as possible.
- hota_mazi 3y ago
  You probably live in the US and parent lives... anywhere else in the world really.
scarface_74 3y ago
> Based on what? I would never buy an Apple laptop and no one I know has one either Yes because no one that you know buys an Apple laptop that must mean that Apple isn’t selling any… > Same for my work laptop, again Windows/x86 and no one I know with a work laptop is supplied a Mac either. I find the lack of self awareness…amusing. Because no one you know uses a Mac laptop, that must mean no one uses one. Well my anecdote from working at the second largest employer in the US that the vast majority of technical people prefer Macs even though they can choose Macs or Windows.
- arp242 3y ago
  "Apple isn't selling any laptops" wasn't what was said. The original claim was x86 has "thrown in the white flag" and that Apple dominates the laptop market, which is a pretty ridiculous claim since x86 is still the vast majority of laptop sales and Windows is still the dominant laptop OS.
  - havblue 3y ago
    I don't personally see MacBooks as a viable platform either right now, but I would say that this looks like a steady decline for windows x86 laptops until Chrome laptops take over or an arm-based windows replacement takes hold. "Hey this isn't a surrender, it's a war of attrition for the next five years!!!"
    - arp242 3y ago
      Given that 15-20 years ago almost all laptops were x86/Windows, "decline" is pretty much the only direction the platform could go in. I don't expect either x86 or Windows to go away any time soon – in general I think x86 has been somewhat unfairly maligned, and for most applications (including laptops) it works pretty well and is even the best available choice. I would prefer to say "diversification" or "the existence of actual competition" rather than "decline", as that doesn't imply it's going away.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      > I don't personally see MacBooks as a viable platform either right now But yet Apple is selling millions. Someone must see it as a viable experience.
glimshe 3y ago
I would never buy an Apple laptop. I have one for work and I hate it. Linux and Windows are by far more productive for me, so all I need to do is keep getting better PC laptops. While Mac hardware does have a slight edge on cost/benefit at that price point, macOS is just too cumbersome for my needs. EDIT: It's funny to see this downvoted. I'm literally speaking of my particular use case and needs! Are there people who believe Apples are better in all scenarios?
- adamc 3y ago
  The whole "click once on the app for it to wake up, click again for it to know which window you wanted" makes using Mac OS highly unpleasant on a daily basis. Yes, I'm on Mac OS, and no, I don't like it.
  - TillE 3y ago
    Use Mission Control for everything, it's great.
    - zdragnar 3y ago
      Except for how there's no stable sort order for windows, even if you turn off the setting that's supposed to not rearrange it all the time. Mission control was probably one of the things I liked least about the Mac when I used one for work... To the point that I ended up using hammerspoon to create shortcuts to switch between my applications directly rather than deal with it.
  - cthalupa 3y ago
    As a daily Mac user for about 13 years now I have no idea what phenomenon you're talking about. For any program that is open, even if it hasn't been in use for a while, I click it once, and it comes to the forefront immediately. For programs that are not open, I click it once, and then if I wait for it to launch, it appears in the forefront. If I immediately click back over to my web browser and begin using it before the program launches, it does not appear in the forefront... because I interacted with another program after starting the launch.
katbyte 3y ago
MacBooks now post 2019 have a great keyboard, hdmi and multiple usb c ports, as well sd card and headphone jack. The only thing it is actually missing from your list is Ethernet and usb a
cthalupa 3y ago
MBP once again have HDMI ports and good keyboards. I wouldn't mind a single USB-A port but I don't particularly miss it, and 3 USB-Cs is plenty for my uses. I haven't needed an ethernet port on a laptop since the mid 2000s troubleshooting why my newly installed stack of Cisco switches weren't working, and that sort of use cases is rare enough that having a dongle seems fine. Conversely, about 80% of the people I know use Apple laptops for work.
babypuncher 3y ago
Macbooks have HDMI ports and solid keyboards. I don't see ethernet ports making a comeback on thin laptops anytime soon though. They are handy for LAN parties, so bulky gaming laptops will keep shipping with them, but for everyone else it makes more sense to leave that functionality to a dock.
gumby 3y ago
That's what's so great about capitalism: I'm not interested in any of those features on a laptop, so Apple is great for me.* You do, and several other companies compete for your business. On a desktop (which these days isn't a tower) I do want some of those features, and I get them. * except kbd, and I find the apple kbds just fine -- I even survived a couple of rounds of the infamous "butterfly" kbds. But I know some people were unhappy and eventually Apple got their act together.
holbrad 3y ago
Just chiming in to agree, I don't think we have a single mac in our entire company (100's of people). It's all just windows/x86 like every other business I've worked at.

ezfe 3y ago

MacBook Pros have HDMI ports and many USB-C ports. I also don't know any issue with MacBook keyboards except the 2016-2019 model years. I work for a large financial services company and receive a MacBook Pro for my work. My work laptop battery can handle all-day IntelliJ & web browsing without charging, I've never heard the fan and the laptop stays cool. It has a Geekbench multicore score of 13,649. My personal laptop also lasts that long and stays cool, and doesn't even have a fan.

edgyquant 3y ago

We live in different worlds. All engineers I know have Macs and the ones that don’t have Linux. The one guy on my team who uses windows is a constant problem as he has to find work arounds for every process we have/service we build.

redwall_hp 3y ago
Yep. I work in an entire office of engineers with only Macs (mostly ARM ones now) and I only have a Mac at home, besides a very old ThinkPad running Ubuntu. (Aside from FFXIV on MacOS, I've moved any gaming to PS5 and Switch.) I haven't actively used Windows since 2008. It's such an obnoxious OS to use, and I have never seen a Windows laptop with quality in the same zip code as a Mac. There's always a terrible touch pad, keyboard flex, plasticky trash fit and finish, mediocre display or something that just ruins the whole thing.
- selectodude 3y ago
  I just received a brand new Thinkpad from work. I don't even mind Windows but holy crap is that thing an absolute chore to use. I don't understand how this is still an issue while Apple has been putting out what amounts to the perfect laptop for like 10+ years now.
  - innocenat 3y ago
    On the other hand, I moved from MacBook to ThinkPad and holy crap it's just so much easier to use.
  - rejectfinite 3y ago
    >I don't even mind Windows but holy crap is that thing an absolute chore to use. What are your issues? I have a T490 that is a few years old and its great for my use. But I keep it docked in to a monitor and external mouse and keyboard 90% of the time.
- shortrounddev2 3y ago
  I like the aluminum bodies of macs, but I hate the flat keyboards. In my view, no laptop brand has had a good keyboard since the Thinkpad T420. In terms of build quality, apple laptops are pretty good, but I can't stand macOS and apple keeps fucking with their ports. My Inspiron 16 has a good glass screen and a pretty solid aluminum body. It's got all the ports I want (HDMI, USB-A 3.0, SD card reader, USB-C, and a 3.5mm headphone jack). Personally, the macbook pro my company issued me is one of my least favorite laptops I've ever used. I also had compatibility or performance problems with x86 based software when I got my first M1 macbook, I don't know if they're improved anything since then
- hota_mazi 3y ago
  > I haven't actively used Windows since 2008. It's such an obnoxious OS to use You might want to modernize your perception of it, holding on to 15 year old views is not a very smart move in the tech industry. Windows 10 and 11 are a joy to use, and to develop. I used a Mac for 15 years and switched to Windows to develop 5 years ago, and now macOS looks extremely antiquated and creaky for development.
shortrounddev2 3y ago
Every company I've worked for provided a macbook to us, and all my coworkers use a macbook. When I have the option, I pick PC. My last company gave me a choice between mac or PC, and I picked the thinkpad. My current company gave me a macbook pro, but I opted to use my personal Windows machines instead. I'm the guy who has to come up with a workaround, but it's never a problem for others. Usually I'm translating some bash command into powershell, which takes maybe 2 minutes. Everything else runs just fine, and I don't even need to use WSL. Windows is a perfectly viable development platform, if you give a shit about learning the differences between a unix-like environment and windows instead of just copping out and using WSL
oblak 3y ago
1. Build a pipeline with macOS in mind (because "All engineers I know have Macs") 2. Complain when the macOS-oriented process doesn't work for everyone.
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  Apple is doing what people hated Microsoft for. It's amazing that a closed ecosystem is so welcomed by Apple fans. But I suppose man has always been tribal.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Any closed ecosystem is annoying but I'm not going to complain very hard while their desktop market share is below 20-25%.
    - WeylandYutani 3y ago
      Desktop is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Most people don't even own one anymore. Apple is as close to WeChat as you can get in Western countries.
- ezfe 3y ago
  I work on a split team, Windows and macOS. We do straightforward Java work and most of the problems that we have are related to installing command-line software on Windows. Installing Postgres, Redis, etc. on Windows is wildly complicated compared to on macOS or Linux.
  - jimmaswell 3y ago
    Tried WSL?
    - edgyquant 3y ago
      Yes it’s a constant source of problems. Trying to live share and get any actual work done leads to constant crashes, simply git cloning and trying to docker-compose and yarn install is a convoluted mess etc. windows is just not friendly to the kind of development common these days.
parineum 3y ago
If your dev environment is meant to be multiplatform, it's sounds a lot more like the other developers are checking in things that don't work on anything but macs. Your Linux devs are just used to dealing with it.
- senttoschool 3y ago
  >If your dev environment is meant to be multiplatform Why would this be the case? Dev environments should concentrate on a single platform as much as possible.
hota_mazi 3y ago
You probably live in the US and parent lives... anywhere else in the world really.

scarface_74 3y ago

> Based on what? I would never buy an Apple laptop and no one I know has one either Yes because no one that you know buys an Apple laptop that must mean that Apple isn’t selling any… > Same for my work laptop, again Windows/x86 and no one I know with a work laptop is supplied a Mac either. I find the lack of self awareness…amusing. Because no one you know uses a Mac laptop, that must mean no one uses one. Well my anecdote from working at the second largest employer in the US that the vast majority of technical people prefer Macs even though they can choose Macs or Windows.

arp242 3y ago
"Apple isn't selling any laptops" wasn't what was said. The original claim was x86 has "thrown in the white flag" and that Apple dominates the laptop market, which is a pretty ridiculous claim since x86 is still the vast majority of laptop sales and Windows is still the dominant laptop OS.
- havblue 3y ago
  I don't personally see MacBooks as a viable platform either right now, but I would say that this looks like a steady decline for windows x86 laptops until Chrome laptops take over or an arm-based windows replacement takes hold. "Hey this isn't a surrender, it's a war of attrition for the next five years!!!"
  - arp242 3y ago
    Given that 15-20 years ago almost all laptops were x86/Windows, "decline" is pretty much the only direction the platform could go in. I don't expect either x86 or Windows to go away any time soon – in general I think x86 has been somewhat unfairly maligned, and for most applications (including laptops) it works pretty well and is even the best available choice. I would prefer to say "diversification" or "the existence of actual competition" rather than "decline", as that doesn't imply it's going away.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    > I don't personally see MacBooks as a viable platform either right now But yet Apple is selling millions. Someone must see it as a viable experience.

glimshe 3y ago

I would never buy an Apple laptop. I have one for work and I hate it. Linux and Windows are by far more productive for me, so all I need to do is keep getting better PC laptops. While Mac hardware does have a slight edge on cost/benefit at that price point, macOS is just too cumbersome for my needs. EDIT: It's funny to see this downvoted. I'm literally speaking of my particular use case and needs! Are there people who believe Apples are better in all scenarios?

adamc 3y ago
The whole "click once on the app for it to wake up, click again for it to know which window you wanted" makes using Mac OS highly unpleasant on a daily basis. Yes, I'm on Mac OS, and no, I don't like it.
- TillE 3y ago
  Use Mission Control for everything, it's great.
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    Except for how there's no stable sort order for windows, even if you turn off the setting that's supposed to not rearrange it all the time. Mission control was probably one of the things I liked least about the Mac when I used one for work... To the point that I ended up using hammerspoon to create shortcuts to switch between my applications directly rather than deal with it.
- cthalupa 3y ago
  As a daily Mac user for about 13 years now I have no idea what phenomenon you're talking about. For any program that is open, even if it hasn't been in use for a while, I click it once, and it comes to the forefront immediately. For programs that are not open, I click it once, and then if I wait for it to launch, it appears in the forefront. If I immediately click back over to my web browser and begin using it before the program launches, it does not appear in the forefront... because I interacted with another program after starting the launch.

katbyte 3y ago

MacBooks now post 2019 have a great keyboard, hdmi and multiple usb c ports, as well sd card and headphone jack. The only thing it is actually missing from your list is Ethernet and usb a

cthalupa 3y ago

MBP once again have HDMI ports and good keyboards. I wouldn't mind a single USB-A port but I don't particularly miss it, and 3 USB-Cs is plenty for my uses. I haven't needed an ethernet port on a laptop since the mid 2000s troubleshooting why my newly installed stack of Cisco switches weren't working, and that sort of use cases is rare enough that having a dongle seems fine. Conversely, about 80% of the people I know use Apple laptops for work.

babypuncher 3y ago

Macbooks have HDMI ports and solid keyboards. I don't see ethernet ports making a comeback on thin laptops anytime soon though. They are handy for LAN parties, so bulky gaming laptops will keep shipping with them, but for everyone else it makes more sense to leave that functionality to a dock.

gumby 3y ago

That's what's so great about capitalism: I'm not interested in any of those features on a laptop, so Apple is great for me.* You do, and several other companies compete for your business. On a desktop (which these days isn't a tower) I do want some of those features, and I get them. * except kbd, and I find the apple kbds just fine -- I even survived a couple of rounds of the infamous "butterfly" kbds. But I know some people were unhappy and eventually Apple got their act together.

holbrad 3y ago

Just chiming in to agree, I don't think we have a single mac in our entire company (100's of people). It's all just windows/x86 like every other business I've worked at.