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It’s surprising to me MacBooks have such low market share. I got my first Mac after using Windows all my life and I’m stunned. The laptop: 1. Lasts all day on b

by tyleo 1y ago

It’s surprising to me MacBooks have such low market share. I got my first Mac after using Windows all my life and I’m stunned. The laptop: 1. Lasts all day on battery 2. Doesn’t get hot 3. Compiles code twice as fast as my new Windows desktop I really don’t like macOS but I’ve shifted to recommending Mac to all my friends and family given the battery, portability and, and speed.

ajross 1y ago
I won't buy or recommend one just on principle. I've spent way too much of my life advocating for open firmware and user-customizable systems to throw it all in the trash for a few hours of battery. I absolutely tell everyone they're the best, and why, but my daily driver has been a Linux box of some form (OK fine I have a windows rig for gaming too) for decades, and that's not changing. Also, again, most folks just don't care. And of the remainder: > Compiles code twice as fast as my new Windows desktop That's because MS's filesystem layer has been garbage since NT was launched decades ago and they've never managed to catch up. Also if you're not apples/applesing and are measuring native C/C++ builds: VS is an OK optimizer but lags clang badly in build speed. The actual CPU is faster, but not by nearly 2x.
- kstrauser 1y ago
  >> Compiles code twice as fast as my new Windows desktop >That's because MS's filesystem layer has been garbage since NT was launched decades ago [...] I confess that this kind of excuse drives me batty. End users don't buy CPUs and buy filesystems. They buy entire systems. "Well, it's not really that much faster, it's just that part of the system is junk. The rest is comparable!" That may be, but the end result for the person you're talking to is that their Windows PC compiles code at half the speed of their Mac. It's not like they bought it and selected the glacial filesystem, or even had a choice in the matter. That's right up there with "my Intel integrated graphics gets lower FPS than my Nvidia card." "But the CPU is faster!" Possibly true, but still totally irrelevant if the rest of the system can't keep up.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    > End users don't buy CPUs and buy filesystems. They buy entire systems. [...] Possibly true, but still totally irrelevant if the rest of the system can't keep up. At least historically for hardware components of PCs, this was not irrelevant, but the state of things: You basically bought some PC as a starting basis. Because of the high speed of improvements, everybody knew that you would soon replace parts as you deemed feasible. If some component was not suitable anymore, you swapped it (upgrade the PC). You bought a new PC if things got insanely outdated, and updating was not worth the money anymore. With this new PC, the cycle of updating components started back from the beginning.
    - kstrauser 1y ago
      But that still doesn't save away, "oh, it's only slow because the filesystem is so slow". Assuming that's true, that's a very integral part of the system that can't readily be swapped out by most people. You can't say "the system is actually really fast, it's just the OS that's slow", because the end result is just plain "the system is slow."
      - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
        > You can't say "the system is actually really fast, it's just the OS that's slow", because the end result is just plain "the system is slow." If performance is so critical, people do find ways around this. Just to give an arbitrary example since you mention file systems: Oracle implemented their own filesystem (ASM Cluster File System (ACFS)): > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oracle_Cloud_File_System&oldid=1291076507 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oracle_Cloud_File... "ACFS provides direct I/O for Oracle database I/O workloads. ACFS implements indirect I/O however for general purpose files that typically perform small I/O for better response time."
  - ajross 1y ago
    > I confess that this kind of excuse drives me batty. The use case was "compiling code". My assumption was that anyone buying hardware for that application would understand stuff like filesystem performance, system tuning, also stuff like "how to use a ramdisk" or "how to install Linux". Yes, if you want to flame about the whole system experience: Apple's is the best, period. But not because they're twice as fast, that's ridiculous.
nhod 1y ago
It definitely depends on what circles you run in. When someone I know or is a degree of separation away from me pulls out a PC, it is always a little bit of a surprise.
jyap 1y ago
Regarding market share and your friends and family recommendations, you’re thinking first world. Rest of the world wants and can only afford sub-$500 laptops.
- criddell 1y ago
  I’ve found that the $1000 Mac laptop is worth about $500 after 3 years and the $500 laptop is worth $50. The price difference over time really isn’t that big and the Mac is going to have a better trackpad and display and longer battery life.
  - serf 1y ago
    larger initial purchases are harder on the lower income earners regardless of the long term value they offer; that's one of the hard parts about being poor, it also makes positive economic decisions harder to accomplish.
  - Marsymars 1y ago
    Yeah but in the longer term the price trends to $0 either way, and Windows will get software support for longer. My mom is happily using a Lenovo from 2013 and looking to upgrade because it doesn't support Windows 11 and Win10 is running out of support. A contemporary Mac would have been the 2012 Mac Mini which would have received its final OS update with 10.15 Catalina in 2019, and would have received its final security update in 2022. (Desktop, so no difference in peripherals, etc.) Incidentally, I actually purchased both the Lenovo and a 2012 Mac Mini (refurb) so I have the pricing data - the Lenovo was $540 and the Mac Mini was $730 - and then both took aftermarket memory and SSD upgrades.
  - whatever1 1y ago
    If your $1000 MacBook breaks after a year you need $1000 to repair it. A 500 laptop is probably more repairable and worst case you pay $500 to get a new one. Not to mention battery replacement etc. The expected total cost of ownership is very high for a Mac. It’s like owning a Mercedes. Maybe you can afford to buy one, but you cannot afford maintenance.

by tyleo 1y ago

ajross 1y ago

I won't buy or recommend one just on principle. I've spent way too much of my life advocating for open firmware and user-customizable systems to throw it all in the trash for a few hours of battery. I absolutely tell everyone they're the best, and why, but my daily driver has been a Linux box of some form (OK fine I have a windows rig for gaming too) for decades, and that's not changing. Also, again, most folks just don't care. And of the remainder: > Compiles code twice as fast as my new Windows desktop That's because MS's filesystem layer has been garbage since NT was launched decades ago and they've never managed to catch up. Also if you're not apples/applesing and are measuring native C/C++ builds: VS is an OK optimizer but lags clang badly in build speed. The actual CPU is faster, but not by nearly 2x.

kstrauser 1y ago
>> Compiles code twice as fast as my new Windows desktop >That's because MS's filesystem layer has been garbage since NT was launched decades ago [...] I confess that this kind of excuse drives me batty. End users don't buy CPUs and buy filesystems. They buy entire systems. "Well, it's not really that much faster, it's just that part of the system is junk. The rest is comparable!" That may be, but the end result for the person you're talking to is that their Windows PC compiles code at half the speed of their Mac. It's not like they bought it and selected the glacial filesystem, or even had a choice in the matter. That's right up there with "my Intel integrated graphics gets lower FPS than my Nvidia card." "But the CPU is faster!" Possibly true, but still totally irrelevant if the rest of the system can't keep up.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  > End users don't buy CPUs and buy filesystems. They buy entire systems. [...] Possibly true, but still totally irrelevant if the rest of the system can't keep up. At least historically for hardware components of PCs, this was not irrelevant, but the state of things: You basically bought some PC as a starting basis. Because of the high speed of improvements, everybody knew that you would soon replace parts as you deemed feasible. If some component was not suitable anymore, you swapped it (upgrade the PC). You bought a new PC if things got insanely outdated, and updating was not worth the money anymore. With this new PC, the cycle of updating components started back from the beginning.
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    But that still doesn't save away, "oh, it's only slow because the filesystem is so slow". Assuming that's true, that's a very integral part of the system that can't readily be swapped out by most people. You can't say "the system is actually really fast, it's just the OS that's slow", because the end result is just plain "the system is slow."
    - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
      > You can't say "the system is actually really fast, it's just the OS that's slow", because the end result is just plain "the system is slow." If performance is so critical, people do find ways around this. Just to give an arbitrary example since you mention file systems: Oracle implemented their own filesystem (ASM Cluster File System (ACFS)): > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oracle_Cloud_File_System&oldid=1291076507 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oracle_Cloud_File... "ACFS provides direct I/O for Oracle database I/O workloads. ACFS implements indirect I/O however for general purpose files that typically perform small I/O for better response time."
- ajross 1y ago
  > I confess that this kind of excuse drives me batty. The use case was "compiling code". My assumption was that anyone buying hardware for that application would understand stuff like filesystem performance, system tuning, also stuff like "how to use a ramdisk" or "how to install Linux". Yes, if you want to flame about the whole system experience: Apple's is the best, period. But not because they're twice as fast, that's ridiculous.

nhod 1y ago

It definitely depends on what circles you run in. When someone I know or is a degree of separation away from me pulls out a PC, it is always a little bit of a surprise.

jyap 1y ago

Regarding market share and your friends and family recommendations, you’re thinking first world. Rest of the world wants and can only afford sub-$500 laptops.

criddell 1y ago
I’ve found that the $1000 Mac laptop is worth about $500 after 3 years and the $500 laptop is worth $50. The price difference over time really isn’t that big and the Mac is going to have a better trackpad and display and longer battery life.
- serf 1y ago
  larger initial purchases are harder on the lower income earners regardless of the long term value they offer; that's one of the hard parts about being poor, it also makes positive economic decisions harder to accomplish.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  Yeah but in the longer term the price trends to $0 either way, and Windows will get software support for longer. My mom is happily using a Lenovo from 2013 and looking to upgrade because it doesn't support Windows 11 and Win10 is running out of support. A contemporary Mac would have been the 2012 Mac Mini which would have received its final OS update with 10.15 Catalina in 2019, and would have received its final security update in 2022. (Desktop, so no difference in peripherals, etc.) Incidentally, I actually purchased both the Lenovo and a 2012 Mac Mini (refurb) so I have the pricing data - the Lenovo was $540 and the Mac Mini was $730 - and then both took aftermarket memory and SSD upgrades.
- whatever1 1y ago
  If your $1000 MacBook breaks after a year you need $1000 to repair it. A 500 laptop is probably more repairable and worst case you pay $500 to get a new one. Not to mention battery replacement etc. The expected total cost of ownership is very high for a Mac. It’s like owning a Mercedes. Maybe you can afford to buy one, but you cannot afford maintenance.