story
People were annoyed because they don't want to run a different OS. Yes, you could get cheaper/powerful hardware somewhere else... but it's not macOS. Hackintoshes need not apply here.
Thing is, Mac OS isn't as great as it used to be either. They used to be brilliant developer laptops, but Apple seems to want everybody in their walled garden.
My summarized conclusion is that: OS X isn't that great. It's not "bad," don't get me wrong, but it's nothing marvelous. Perhaps at one point in time there was some advantage over a Windows or linux environment but at this point in time, unless you're tied to some package tied to a specific environment for some reason, just work with the environment you're most comfortable with. I don't know how much time I've had to waste adjusting to the OS X environment (especially muscle memory keyboard shortcuts I'm accustomed to), finding replacement niche applications that were environment specific, figuring out how to do basic tasks that are simply different.
On that note, avoid committing to a specific environment unless your application really needs to squeeze out every cycle of performance. It's 2019 and we have portable options now for most application demands.
There were other things (good-enough port selection complementing the high battery life and good trackpad to mean I could just grab my laptop and go for nearly any situation, without taking anything else, being high among them) but they're gone now. It's basically the software and the trackpad keeping me around. I'd rather use a "worse" Macbook specs-wise than a Win10 or Linux laptop that's much better on paper, because the experience will still suck far less. Design, "thinness", trendiness, all that, don't give a shit. Give me a brick of a Thinkpad with an Apple trackpad, official macOS support, and a 20% lower price than a MBP at same specs, and I'll take that option in a heartbeat.
would you agree with this change to your description?:
"Yes, you could get [better] hardware somewhere else..."
When it finally broke down, I got a Thinkpad.
This new 16" Macbook would be the first in years that I'd consider, but it's just a couple of months too late. I found my replacement.
Same case for me but desktops and laptops are Windows based. Laptops: very old Toshiba which was super nice at the time. After that gaming laptops from Asus and HP. All desktops are built to order from the components I chose.
Hardware problems during last 20 years:
3 hard drives had died (one on desktop, 2 on servers). Does not mean of course that I use the same one for 20 years. Keep upgrading them every once in a while as the amount of stuff I have to keep grows.
1 Video card from nVidia died.
1 Desktop began crashing. Further investigation revealed that thermal paste deteriorated completely and the CPU would shutdown after a very short while. Put new thermal paste and all works again like a charm.
Other then that I kept upgrading things but now it does not happen so often as the hardware became generally good enough for just about anything. Well I am sort of looking at that new 32 Core AMD for server when it comes out.
Chromebooks do offer better hardware per dollar than other computers, but you are (or perhaps were) pretty locked-into the ChromeOS, or at least none of the workarounds seemed palatable. So if you like ChromeOS then there is better value hardware out there, but Mac is it for the rest of us.
If it's just about running MacOS, they absolutely apply.
So no, I don't consider it the same. It's a great hack if you want a ton of power for a build machine, but otherwise... I'd rather pay the financial cost up front and just be done with it.
There are nothing else making the macbook lines worth it. If Linux with hardware manufacturer come up with a standard for greater touchbar control, the mac will be out of circulation in no time.
I've noted this in a few other comments here but there's more to it than just the base computing system. Apple products as an ecosystem dwarf whatever you'd cobble together in some homegrown Linux-based setup, and Windows in general just feels... really messy, like there's no clear consensus on how the ecosystem should work.
Every software company I've worked in building websites/webapps (Ruby, Python, Java, HTML/CSS/JS/React/whatever etc.) tends to issue their developers with MBPs. None of them need to do so for Xcode to build Mac/iOS apps. A few people may opt for Lenovos running Linux, but they're a distinct minority who really likes compiling their own tiling window manager from scratch etc.
Why MBP as standard? Because you get a reasonably stable Unix box that also runs commercial business and productivity software (Office, video conference stuff), and the Adobe suite for the front-end/creative folks.
Windows is going after that with WSL. Linux is going after that with, err, GNU/Freedom I guess?
Writing Python/Ruby/JavaScript/Java/Go/Elixir/whatever hot new shiny, in Atom or Vim or VSCode, is about as easy on Linux as it is on Mac (and it is getting better on Windows with WSL). But when you've got to use some awful video conferencing corporate crapware, there's at least some chance it'll work on a Mac in a way it won't on Linux.
As of last year, roughly 10% of all personal computers on the internet are Macs. Do you think a majority of those--say 6% of all PC users worldwide--are iOS devs and other professional MacOS lock-ins?
