This is just it though! You're not describing "Apple fanatics versus Windows fanatics," you're describing "Apple fanatics versus people with an irrational and excessive hatred of Apple fanaticism." Why does this culture exist specifically around Apple?
It doesn't. It also exists around Linux, in general and around each distro. It exists around Windows. It exists around FreeBSD (but you may not have heard from them recently)... It basically exists everywhere.
If you look at a thread about ARM, you will see it there, and the corresponding x86 one too. (And if you are lucky, you will catch some actual x86, not amd64, fans and anti-fans too). Haskell, Rust, Javascript, and PHP threads have those groups too.
The interesting difference between the identities of "Linux user" and "Apple customer" is that one came from grassroots hacker subculture and the other is the product of corporate marketing.
Myself, I have been back and forth between PC (windows) and Apple several times. My priorities have changed over the years and I find PC's fit my requirements to a better extent since 2014. If Apple can bring back a notebook like HP ZBook or Dell Precision I would consider moving. Until then, I will live with the tradeoff's...
I usually stay the heck out of the debate because it devolves to namecalling so quickly, but something about HN makes me want to participate -- the promise of a civil discussion.
Oh, oh! I know this one.
Apple's devices are extremely closed. This is antithetical to the spirit of personal computing. But this is only one component: what ultimately pushes Apple to generate an anti-Apple crowd is the combination of them being a closed platform, them using every dirty trick in the book to suck users into their closed ecosystem, and them being extremely successful at it.
Want to make an iOS app? Buy a Mac. No, not an old Mac, a new one.
Want to send proper messages to an iPhone user? Get an iPhone. Or convince them to install Signal. (I'll wait! LOL.)
Want to make a video call to an iPhone user? Get an iPhone. (Or ask them to install Duo, haha!)
Want to install Mac OS? Buy our hardware.
None of this would matter so much if we were talking about coffee makers. But we're talking about personal computing, a very central component of our nerd lives. If you're a youngster you're probably happy with occasional hardware replacement and messes of dongles, but for many of us our computing experiences are rooted in opening up the box and switching the guts around, or booting different software on the box, and we don't especially appreciate having to constantly battle the hardware vendor to make this happen.
Apple products seem to be very high-quality. But that's not really the point.
I'm pushing 50 and 35 years ago I was building PCs (and selling them, too!). I love building PCs. Still do, it's fun. Tinkering is very enjoyable. I technically have more Linux machines than Macs (though admittedly that requires counting Rasberry Pis).
But. For my 'daily driver' computing, I'm pretty happy in the Apple ecosystem. They sell me 'just works' with a polished interface and I can focus my tinkering on the stuff I want to tinker with. And by infecting my extended family with this opinion, I've lowered my technical support load quite a lot.
It's the same reason that years ago I stopped modding my daily driver car, and moved that passion into a hobby instead.
I can compile for EVERY PLATFORM from my Arch Linux, just not for Apple stuff.
It's ridículous... This kind of behavior reminds me of Ballmer's Microshit.
1. Why do some people seem to be so fanatical about their love for Macs?
2. Why do some people seem to be so vocally fanatical online about their love for Macs?
As far as #1 goes, I think it's just about finding something that you have to use every day that you are much happier with. I have found small pieces of software that have made me jump for joy simply because they resolved a small problem; it's not hard to understand why someone would become so fanatical about switching to a a completely new piece of hardware and OS that they feel works so much better than what they were previously using.
I used to have long and aggressive arguments with my college roommate about why Windows was superior to OS X and said that I would never even consider owning an Apple product. I've been using a Mac now for work and personal use for a little over a decade and I dread every time I need to use my Windows machine for certain work tasks.
I think this is perfectly understandable and I don't think there's anything wrong with people going through the process of finding something that changes the way they do something major in their lives.
#2, however, tends to be more unpleasant when it becomes vitriolic/persistent. I think this is just a symptom of the happiness that exists from feeling like you've found the greener grass (and wanting to share that with others) mixed with an inability to understand the negative aspects of aggressively stating to complete strangers that the preferences of others are objectively wrong. I think this is inevitable considering the Mac is still considered the "alternate" option for some reason, and it's paired (inevitably) with those that feel that the fanaticism for the alternate option is unwarranted.
I think the tech sector has always attracted both skeptics and idealists/innovators, and that's bound to create an environment where you'll have groups that feel like it's their duty to inform others of what they feel is the better way and groups of people that feel like it's their duty to temper unwarranted fanaticism.
For me it's the opposite. Maybe I'm missing something obvious or I've had back luck with peripherals, but when trying to do something as simple as disabling mouse acceleration involves nonsense like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/it420s/how_to_quickl... it's just baffling to me. I am noticeably less productive on Mac computers because of weird quirks like the mouse acceleration.
In that thread, you'll see people for whom that fix does work, and doesn't work, and other fixes that for some people do work, and don't work, and people that have no idea what's going on.
Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion, but when I switch from working on the Android version of my apps on Windows, to working on the iOS version of my apps on Mac, I feel like I'm using an aesthetically pleasing toy that just wasn't meant for productivity.
That is a good question. But ...
> They seem to want to push everyone to use Mac, like religious fanatics try to push everyone to their "truth".
As soon as you can adequately explain why there are people that are vehemently anti-Apple, you will have the answer to this question. You make it sound like it's only pro-Apple people that are fanatics.