I hate MacOS and the way it's getting worse every release, but I don't hate it nearly as much as Windows, and how much Windows is getting worse every release.

> I don't hate it nearly as much as Windows, and how much Windows is getting worse every release.

As much as I try to maintain a fair and balanced point of view, that is a pretty low standard to meet. I work as a sysadmin at a windows shop (~75 clients), and I regularly have to deal with stuff that would make run away screaming if my trusty old GNU/Linux desktop gave me that kind of trouble. Handling updates for Windows alone is enough to send grown women and men into hysterical laughter. And then you look at license management for their server software, and you think you must have fallen asleep and woken up in some Kafkaesque nightmare[0].

[0] I am told vendors like SAP or Oracle are much worse. But still, Microsoft's licensing schemes are pretty ____ing insane.

I wonder start makes your setup so fragile? We have a similar number of Windows machines, and we would be doing nothing in IT this week if we were just answering support calls.

We use WSUS for updates, and barely have to touch it?

Again I don't have any problem with licensing. I tell a reseller what I want and review their response. No big deal?

> We use WSUS for updates

So do we. But I have encountered my fair share of cases where an update to Windows or Office broke some third-party application. Once, and update for Office 2007 failed to register properly (but only on two machines), so after the reboot, Windows Update wanted to install that update again, followed by a reboot, etc. Once, an update to Office broke Autodesk Inventor, and reinstalling inventor subsequently broke Outlook. And don't get me started on Siemens SIMATIC/WinCC software. I have seen Office 2013 cease working spontaneously (again, only on a few select machines, and only a full reinstall fixed the issue), I have seen a certain revision of the AV software we use cause Windows 8.1 to crash regularly (literally: every 24 hours, the same time of day).

During my training at a large IT company, I heard they had a team whose entire job was to install and test updates to Windows and third-party applications and test if they broke something. I used to think they were a bunch a wimps, but after a couple of years as a Windows admin, I envy them for having the resources to do that kind of testing. My strategy is to wait for a couple of days after updates become available, check a couple of forums if anybody complains about stuff breaking and then release the updates that I consider safe.

> I tell a reseller what I want and review their response. No big deal?

Have you ever had to deal with, say, per-CPU vs. per-user licensing for SQL Server? Or consider whether to use a plain old license vs. software assurance? Maybe using GNU/Linux or BSD on my private machines has spoiled me, but I always wonder if MS wants to annoy their customers or if they just want to screw them over.

I am not sure if we are doing something wrong or if you are lucky. But I am glad that I do more programming than sysadmin tasks these days.

> Windows 8.1 to crash regularly

When windows 8.1 came out, we stayed on Windows 7. When Windows 10 came out, we stayed on Windows 7. We downgraded each new machine to Windows 7. Last year we gave a power user Windows 10 to find out how it operated with our collection of third party software. Two more were added over the year. A year later we are rolling out Windows 10 across the estate. I think this is the answer, we run a conservative strategy with regards to OS versions. We went from XP, to 7 and then to 10 and skipped all of the experimental versions. don't get me wrong, I tried them all, I installed Windows 10 on my laptop the day it was available, but not on my domain...no way.

We let WSUS install critical updates when it wants to. I don't install much else without a good reason. AV updates have caused a few freezes that have meant a couple of reboots are in order, but not much else.

I use Kubuntu and Ubuntu server and I have had some really annoying update issues with them too. I used to have an Apple laptop that after updates would disable it's own wifi and need a reboot.

> Have you ever had to deal with, say, per-CPU vs. per-user licensing for SQL Server?

No, but if I did it would be licensed once and then stay the same for years. I do have Oracle, like you mentioned before. That has a very quirky license, but that hasn't left me anything to do for 3 years since it moved server. It did 7 years on the old server!

I think one of the secrets of enterprise IT is conservative versioning, "n-1 is the version you want", I was told some years ago. A normal PC at our place would be running Windows 7, ERP client, browsers, and Office 2010. A number run Adobe cc and other things I can't avoid. We are looking at moving to Office 365, but if we instead re-buy Office 2016 we will stick with it for years. Perhaps that is the secret? It seems like you are unable to run this conservatively in your environment?

This generalized hate towards change is typically a symptom of age, not technology. It happens to the best of us.

That's a bit too flip, I think - surely people are entitled to dislike some changes? Or is all change equally good? I would agree that macOS has gotten buggier and less flexible, and those don't seem to me to be positive changes.

To rephrase, you're saying everything is hunky-dory in Mac and Windows Land, and you look forward to every new release as a breath of fresh air of new functionality. To feel otherwise is to be an old fuddy-duddy.

I don't know that I could argue that your opinion is mainstream, at least not here.

“Here” really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Far too many zealots on either side of this echo chamber.

I've disliked change since I was a teenager. Perhaps you're making a generalization?

What gave it away, where they said "generalized" or where they said "typically"?

I agree. I ran a Hackintosh off of a GA-P35 motherboard for years (Snow Leopard/10.6). I then scaled down to leave the country and switched on a real Mac running 10.7. Big fucking mistake. Lion was terrible. No expose. Only one row of workspaces. Mission control. And there was no way to downgrade back to 10.6!

Oh and I also made the mistake of going from Final Cut 7 to Final Cut X. To be fair, I did edit two complete videos before going back to 7 and eventually ditching Final Cut entirely. FCX is terrible.

Shortly after I started running Linux in a VM and got into i3/tiling window managers. Every iteration of macOS has gotten worse and worse.

If you really like macOS, then maybe it's worth it to run a hackintosh. I run Win 10 for games and video editing and Linux for absolutely everything else.

Almost exact same setup for me GA-P35 + Snow Leopard running tri-boot (Linux, Windows, OSX). I reclaimed the OSX disk as a data-only partition as it became seriously unmaintainable in 10.7. FWIW I've not had any issues upgrading Linux or Windows at major releases.

Their “wonderful” hardware costs a lot of money, is chronically underpowered compared to the competition, basically doesn’t exist in some form factors, and regularly comes with unnecessary and user hostile features.

Frankly, I can get the same or better hardware in a Thinkpad, which was designed with actual users in mind rather than aesthetics, is more durable, has better battery life, still has a real keyboard, is still upgradeable and repairable, and also for less money.

I have loved Macs all my life, but they have been coasting hard on reputation over delivery for awhile now.

I can't for the life of me understand why Thinkpad doesn't nuke Mac in sales, other than I guess marketing? Or just maybe people prefer the "simplicity" of MacOS? Because Apple hardware is pretty?

I must be neckbearding, because from an objective standpoint, it doesn't make any damn sense. Swappable batteries (on some models), universally better keyboards (at the very least, more robust!), usually far cheaper for far better internals, ability to swap hardware out, before-market and after-market customization options...

This whole "but it just works" thing doesn't make sense to me, because my latest job gave me a macbook pro and it didn't "just work" - desktop config was weird (fullscreen opens in some random ass place and desktop locations were completely randomly assigned), nothing was configurable like I wanted, I couldn't dual boot well (windows/ubuntu on my thinkpad)... No yea, I am definitely neckbearding here, my argument basically boils down to "but it's not Linux wah!"

I think you are neckbearding because it sounds like a lot of your issues just boil down to unfamiliarity with the OS. There's a ton you can configure especially if you're comfortable with the command-line, which, as a Linux user, it sounds like you are.

> Swappable batteries (on some models),

I don't see the advantage, why would I pay the size / weight penalty? I don't use my machine long enough on battery in a single sitting to gain any benefit from extra batteries.

> universally better keyboards (at the very least, more robust!),

That is not an objective statement, its purely subjective.

> usually far cheaper for far better internals,

Not really, if you actually build a comparable machine the 'apple tax' doesn't even exist for many of their product, and is a couple hundred bucks for the rest. I spend a significant portion of my life on a computer, a couple hundred bucks means nothing. What you can do, and what usually happens when people do cost comparisons, is cheap out on some parts and come up with something considerably cheaper. That's fine, but it's no longer an apples to apples comparison and not a matter of Apple charging too much.

> ability to swap hardware out, before-market and after-market customization options...

Hardly anyone does this, even for desktops. I've been building my own PCs for ~20 years now. I remember the days of the 440BX chipset, when it came out you may have had a ~250Mhz cpu and 128MB of RAM, but just a couple years later you could toss a ~1Ghz PIII and multiple GB of ram it in cheaply. Thing is, that doesn't happen anymore. CPUs aren't advancing that fast and by the time you would want to upgrade the CPU there is a pretty good chance the new CPU requires a new chipset. RAM is also stagnant, we aren't seeing higher density or cheap prices (quite the opposite on prices actually, they have sky-rocketed). Point is, the last 3 PCs builds I've had are fully expandable and everything is swappable, yet the only component that has changed in any of them is the GPU. Expandability just isn't terribly important anymore.

> That is not an objective statement

How can you possibly say that when MBP keyboards are failing left and right from single grains of sand, while Lenovo keyboards are being lauded for their indestructibility by multiple hardware ratings sites?

> Hardly anybody does this

You seem to not, but I do regularly. I just last month stuck an SSD into an old laptop (which to be fair you can do for some macbook models), and my desktops regularly get upgraded piecemeal...

> CPUs aren't advancing that fast and by the time you would want to upgrade the CPU there is a pretty good chance the new CPU requires a new chipset.

This is true in intel land, but AMD has kept compatible mobos for many, many cycles now. Ryzen is the first forced refresh, and I'd say you should be very willing to pay the extra to go from Bulldozer to Zen

> This is true in intel land, but AMD has kept compatible mobos for many, many cycles now.

Not really, AM3+ only supported Bulldozer and Piledriver. _Some_ AM3 boards could support these CPUs, but not all that many and only at certain TDPs. It's basically the same deal as intel, you get about 2 cycles per chipset, it's just that AMD didn't release anything new for quite a long time.

I was seriously looking at Linux laptops last year and ended up begrudgingly getting another Macbook Pro. Here's my perspective when I looked at Thinkpads;

There's a series: X, T, P, and A. I really hate when companies do this (I also think Apple does this a bit too much). "Powerful mobile workstations" or "Renowned professional tools" doesn't really help me narrow things down. Trying to seek these out in person, retail stores like Best Buy or the Microsoft store carry between 1 to 3 models total.

I never got the appeal of swappable batteries. I had multiple batteries about 10 years ago (mostly because one was EOL and I kept it around). Since it had to charge in the laptop I had to remember to swap it to keep both charged. I looked at external chargers; if it existed it was too much money (a few hundred dollars). This sort of workflow makes sense in a professional environment, like a photographer on set all day. That's what is done with camera batteries, but is too much of a pain for someone who just wants a bit of freedom from a desktop. I had a lot of skepticism when Apple dropped the removable battery; their swappable batteries lasted 5 hrs when new and had something like 200 cycles. The non-removable batteries had 6-8 hrs, went up to 1000 cycles, and were about the same cost to replace (and it was just a matter of unscrewing the case).

Even though I didn't like the new Mac keyboards as much as the old ones, I liked the Thinkpad's keyboard even less--which is a fairly subjective choice. The trackpads I found on every non-Mac laptop was objectively worse.

Connectivity: I really like that it charges with USB-C (I was quick to eliminate laptops with proprietary charging), but that's the only USB-C port. I never really found a laptop with 1 USB-A and a couple USB-C ports. At least for my use-case multiple USB-C ports and carrying an adapter works well for me now and I expect adapter use to decline over the life of use.

I was looking at the X1, which had memory soldered on. The laptops in the same "class" as the Macbook pro (size and weight), the PC versions used the same chipset and had similar compromises...which also meant the prices were fairly similar.

If, for example, you're looking for a chunkier and heavier laptop with swappable parts Apple doesn't make that laptop, but if general, if you like most of the concessions, similar models aren't that much cheaper and don't really offer that much more.

Right, I see where you're coming from. RE: connectivity, I think I'm misunderstanding you here, but the latest x1s do charge via USB-c, and come with 2 USBc ports and 2 usbA ports... and a headphone jack ;)

I just checked the laptop I'm typing this on to confirm this.

I was looking almost a year ago so I wasn't looking at gen6. Also, it may have had 2 usb-c ports (one of a very few if not the only)...so I might have been mistaken about that, but eliminated it for other reasons. On that topic of headphones (afaik all Macbook Pros still have headphone ports), Airpods improved the miserable experience of bluetooth headphones by a lot...but I feel like it's still 2/3rds to where it should be. It also still sucks during those times where you don't have them handy and need other options or the fact game consoles don't support them. It sucks that so many phone manufacturers followed Apple's lead, there.

I hope PC laptops keep getting better because I'll check them out again in 3-6 years when I look to buy another. I feel like the new laptop is worse than my previous one in a bunch of areas that Apple used to excel at; no LED when charging (I've already plugged it in to charge while the other end was not plugged into the wall), wake time is closer to what I'd expect from a cold boot with an SSD (around 10 seconds instead of 0-3), I really dislike the half-height arrow keys, and the camera has the exact same specs as my 2011 model.

They also have a terrible spongy keyboard and a horrible trackpad and cost as much as the MacBook Pro.

Weird, I have only found review sites that laud the keyboard (even sites that don't really give the laptop a good rating for other reasons). At the very least, they can certainly handle a grain of sand better than a new MBP ;)

It could just be your subjective experience, though! Aint nobody can come between a person and their feelings.

One reason would be to use non-Mac hardware and Windows or Linux as your primary OS, but still have access to macOS for the times that you need it, for example to do iOS development. I do some iOS development and primarily use a Dell XPS 13 with Linux on it, and have to switch computers any time I need to work on an iOS project.

And specifically about the Mac hardware - I agree MacBooks are the best available, especially the touchpads. But Linux doesn't really support my 2016 MacBook Pro, so I have to use the XPS to run Linux.

Man, I would so love to be able to run MacOS in a VM on my non-mac machine.

I have a crazy powerful desktop, better than any mac hardware I could buy, so that I can run all the different things I want in a VM. I can kind of run a MacOS vm, but the performance is garbage. I just want to be able to run all the operating systems on a single machine, so I can not be limited. Is that too much to ask?

I've been in your boat so many times, and I similarly thought good performance was impossible.

Just out of curiousity, did you spend much time tweaking the VM? Out of the box, for example, a Debian VM on my fast hardware does not perform very well. However, if I tweak the amount of RAM it gets (not too much, not too little, juuuuust right), the number of processors, amp up the video memory, try switching on/off 3d acceleration, and mess around with the actual Debian settings as well, I now have near perfect performance on it.

There's usually big threads out there on stackoverflow and forums with performance tips for your given host/guest/VM software.

My solution to that was to RD into a Mac Mini. It was good enough to fulfill my obligations, then I got away from iOS development completely.

Really, that's interesting. I actually love MacOS and consider it the best desktop/laptop OS by multiple margins. My guess is the OS is the reason people keep buying expensive Mac hardware, and that includes the phones and tablets as well.

I like their software. I get an opinionated *nix under the hood and everything just works. I can text message, my calendar syncs to my iphone, and I like a lot of the macos only apps (fantastical, iterm, forklift, transmit).

I've used and still used linux a lot but it can be a pain. Much of the desktop linux software is lacking that extra 10% of polish, there are always little annoyances. And nothing pains me more than needing to load up a QT app in my Gnome environment.

I wouldn't call their latest generation of MBPs wonderful. I've had weird video issues with both machines I've had (2016 and 2017 models). Touchbar is a novelty. Initially used TouchID, but haven't for several months now. (using 1Password's browser extension that doesn't support it, and Apple Watch for unlocking the machine). Haven't had the keyboard issues, but I also dock so I rarely use the keyboard.

I tried switching to Linux, but so many parts of my workflow I was making compromises on. (for instance, I prefer Tower for git and Transmit for S3) Multi-monitor was a headache.

My main problem with multi-monitor on OSX is little mouse cursor freezes that happen every few seconds while I'm using it. I've searched and found that it had to do with multi-monitor but have yet to find a solution.

Compared to this Linux isn't all that bad. Took me a bit to find the magic xrandr invocation that would allow me to manage screen pseudo-brightness sanely. If I can find out the right way to put together a f.lux-style Night Mode I may switch to Linux on all machines.

You might like RedShift instead of f.lux on Linux.

> The biggest appeal of Apple is their wonderful hardware

Not with the latest round of laptops it isn't. One spec of dust and it's toast. But, yes it used to be and on older MBPros it's amazing. I've abused the hell out of mine and it's still going, minus a couple screwholes in the base no longer holding and some dents. Given the abuse, that's amazing.

The Apple level build-quality hardware seems less consequential when it's a PC that you don't actually have to touch daily. You touch the keyboard and mouse, and you look at it through a monitor. Unlike a Macbook or iPhone where a person would physically interact with it during every normal use, and most or all input devices are built into the unit.

> The biggest appeal of Apple is their wonderful hardware.

To you. To others (like me) the biggest appeal was the only even vaguely usable & consistent OS, supported by nice hardware. Now they have replaced the nice hardware with thin-and-light toys with fake keyboards, we're in a bind.

> It seems to me that a Hackintosh is the worst of both worlds. If you spend that much time hacking around the hardware anyways, why not use Linux ?

Quite, I agree. I don't want to futz with either hardware or software, so have gone for a Windows laptop. Windows is profoundly horrible, but it does work for me without having to mess around. We really have reached the point in 2018 where there literally are no good options. Just least-worst for the task at hand.

I think the article isn't really talking about laptops, and I haven't heard anybody singing the praises of Apple desktop solutions recently.

Seems like the author depended on MacOS for their workflow?

What wonderful hardware? Ah, you must be thinking of the laptops.

If you need desktop power, anything Apple sells right now is out. iMac Pro included, because of lack of storage (for my particular needs at least).

I'd think, that of all the components in a not-user-upgradable stationary desktop computer, storage is the one that's easily solved through external devices.

I obviously don't know your particularly needs, and gather there's something I'm missing here — are there e.g. throughput issues with external SSDs? — so I'm curious to learn why my assumption is wrong!

No external thank you. I'm not buying an all in one octopus. Apple can go [whatever] themselves.

For my particulars, I need about a gazillion VMs on local storage. They're not accessed often enough to pay thousands for enough SSD, and the iMac(Pro) only has space for one anyway (4 Tb won't cut it). So I need at least one spinny disk in addition to the system SSD. I am not willing to put said disks on thunderbolt, usb 3.14159 or whatever, I want them inside the case.

How it looks or how it performs? I'll take a Thinkpad every day of the week over a fucking POS that can't even get the keyboard to reliably work.

Wonderful, but increasingly underpowered, hardware.

Wonderful 6-year-old hardware.