Survey: 71 percent of students surveyed said they would either use a Mac or prefer to use a Mac if cost were not a consideration

[Aztechnology]

I'm a software engineer. And grabbed a Mac for Xcode development. After college I almost immediately shifted back to using PC (still using my MacBook pro, just typically Linux or Windows). There's a lot of aspects I like about my Mac, and it's a nice machine. But it's hardware restrictions, lack of upgradeability and cost are also major factors. Outside that I don't really mind it that much, I just hate the closed nature of it.

 

[Aztechnology]

What? For frontend stuff maybe, because of npm crap I guess. It doesn't "dominate" at all, unless you mean 20-30% of workstations means dominating. Or did I miss something and did it increase a lot more in the past year or so.

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I don't think it really has much to do with npm. Dealing with package managers, through command lines or otherwise isn't all that much different and if you're hosting machines I don't remember it being any different really. I'm not really sure what would make a Mac more useful for software either other than specific programs being Mac first (fairly rare) of Mac only. Like xcode.

 

[NineConsonants]

What? For frontend stuff maybe, because of npm crap I guess. It doesn't "dominate" at all, unless you mean 20-30% of workstations means dominating. Or did I miss something and did it increase a lot more in the past year or so.

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Plenty of back-end work as well. Obviously, people aren't buying Mac server machines if that's what you mean. Classifying macs as the laptop you buy for light-use stuff has been a long-standing mischaracterization. They're great for professional use. NPM isn't the only reason people use Macs for software development.

 

[gozu]

Been using a Macbook now for a while for work, and I am sort of confused as to where the praise for the physical aspects are coming from. The build quality is nice sure, but it's so uncomfortable to use compared to most other laptops, aside from the touchpad. The keyboard is ehhh, with too little travel, annoying half sized arrow keys, and missing strokes. ]. The edges is what I'm most annoyed by, they're so fucking sharp

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you answered your own question. The biggest drawbacks of laptops compared to desktops are screen size and lack of mouse.

Screensize is unsolvable because people want portability.

Therefore, mouse replacement is the holy grail, and Apple trackpads feel years ahead of everybody else.

Beside that, I don't like the MacOS UI either. It's really impractical to me, moving between open windows, seeing what you have open, the file explorer, and other stuff. Visually it's not appealing to me either, much prefer the look of Windows 10.

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Like you said, tastes differ. Both OS UIs are great in my opinion. I prefer the vanishing macOS dock to the Win10 taskbar.

 

[Windrunner]

MacOS is in a total pickle when it comes to OS wide shortcuts -- every shortcut you can think of using cmd will interfere with some other shortcut already set in some application. There is no possibility for proper dedicated UI / window management shortcuts.

Window management in general is absolutely abysmal. You need to go to shitty third party apps to have any sort of proper window placement through shortcuts.

Multiple screens? Even worse. Can't switch easily between screens. The menu bar remains on the primary screen (who the fuck thought that would be a good idea). Can't have windows be half half. Can't alt tab properly between windows.

It astounds me that posters here above me can hold the opposite opinion really. Just goes to show widely tastes can differ.

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Nothing shitty about BetterTouchTool, it makes window management and gestures really customisable.

I have the menu bar visible on both my monitors. I find it frustrating moving an app from one monitor to another in Windows: there's a bit of resistance before it will make it over, no such resistance in macOS (if it's possible to turn this off please let me know). The bezels of my monitors are far too big to want to have an app spanning both of them but I can see why with the right hardware you might want to do that. cmd+` cycles through the windows of a given app but I just use a 3 finger swipe upwards or press the Expose key if I want to find a specific window when I've got a bunch open, much faster than alt-tabbing until you get to what you want.

And yeah tastes can differ and all this can change either on the OS level or via third party solutions. I don't have any loyalties and I maintain a familiarity with Windows both because of work and in case Apple disappoint me enough to leave them! Most of my grievances with Windows are probably down to the low quality of its third party apps however and I don't see that changing.

 

[Rosebud]

My PC is great and can do everything I want, just like my Samsung.

If I had money to spare I would just upgrade my PC.

 

[secretanchitman]

The only reason I have my PC is for gaming plus it's upgradable, otherwise I use my 15" MacBook Pro (Late 2013, not the lousy current-gen ones) for everything else.

After using a W10 debloat script, killing nvidia telemetry and other stupid shit, W10 isn't too bad but macOS is much easier and pleasant to use IMO.

 

[Deleted member 46493]

I love my Macbook. Have been a Mac/iOS user for over 10 years. Nowadays I rely on so mamy macOS-only programs or workflows that switching is impossible and I;d never consider, but I don't mind because I still love the products.

What? For frontend stuff maybe, because of npm crap I guess. It doesn't "dominate" at all, unless you mean 20-30% of workstations means dominating. Or did I miss something and did it increase a lot more in the past year or so.

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I've worked in backend development only for years and I've never seen a developer not work from a Macbook unless they explicitly asked for another computer. It's unix and mostly gets out of the way of the programmer and you can rely on Apple to fix issues. Microsoft is trying to change this so we may see more diversity in the future.

I know everyone has their own bubble, but I can tell you at least in the NYC tech world, Macbooks are everywhere.

 

[collige]

Plenty of back-end work as well. Obviously, people aren't buying Mac server machines if that's what you mean. Classifying macs as the laptop you buy for light-use stuff has been a long-standing mischaracterization. They're great for professional use. NPM isn't the only reason people use Macs for software development.

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Also, npm has nothing to do with "frontend stuff" lol

 

[Deleted member 1445]

I've worked in backend development only for years and I've never seen a developer not work from a Macbook unless they explicitly asked for another computer. It's unix and mostly gets out of the way of the programmer and you can rely on Apple to fix issues. Microsoft is trying to change this so we may see more diversity in the future.

I know everyone has their own bubble, but I can tell you at least in the NYC tech world, Macbooks are everywhere.

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I mean, I guess you are in a bit of a bubble then? Stackoverflow has Windows at a comfortable dominating 50%, MacOS is at 27% in this 2018 survey.

I would really disagree about "getting out of the way" too, for me, MacOS is the worst of both worlds. It's just unix-like, so you might as well just work from a shell in windows. Powershell is the best for scripts anyways.

 

[Z-Beat]

Makes sense for most schoolwork

 

[Deleted member 1445]

Also, npm has nothing to do with "frontend stuff" lol

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Nodejs? That's just using frontend stuff to do backend stuff :P

 

[edgefusion]

PC at work, Mac at home. If I could use macOS at work I would in a heartbeat, I feel like I spend most of my day fighting stupid Windows nonsense than getting anything done. Each to their own and all that, but I will never understand how anyone could prefer the aggravating mess that is Windows. 🤷🏼‍♂️ 10 has improved significantly but they are a long way before they match macOS in usability and reliability.

 

[Deleted member 19844]

Love my PC, love Windows, dislike MacOS.

 

[Deleted member 1445]

PC at work, Mac at home. If I could use macOS at work I would in a heartbeat, I feel like I spend most of my day fighting stupid Windows nonsense than getting anything done. Each to their own and all that, but I will never understand how anyone could prefer the aggravating mess that is Windows. 🤷🏼‍♂️ 10 has improved significantly but they are a long way before they match macOS in usability and reliability.

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I think it all comes down to what you know best, because my experience has been the opposite. It's been much more cumbersome to manage MacOS stuff for me. Although I can recognize that the stuff that I do without a second thought on Windows, took a long time to understand. Same goes for MacOS, it just takes a long time and dedication to learn how to customize as well as manage any potential issues. For me, it's not worth it to learn all of MacOS's quirks, I just don't see any upsides -- I haven't seen anyone do anything on MacOS that I can't do on Windows (aside from compiling iOS apps), and I straight up dislike the MacOS look, UX and hardware, so it's an easy choice I guess.

 

[console_logger]

I've met maybe one or two software engineers in all my life that prefer Windows over a UNIX based OS. Windows OS makes your life far more difficult than it needs to be and given that the vast majority of internet servers run on Linux (UNIX based), it doesn't translate well once you need to start SSHing into your servers during development and interact with your infrastructure. Windows virtual machines and Docker images are also heavy as hell and extremely cumbersome to spin up at scale.

If you're a software engineer not completely stuck in a Microsoft ecosystem, I can't think of a reason why the pros of using Windows over a UNIX based OS would ever outweigh the cons.

 

[opticalmace]

I will say that in astronomy, macbook pros are everywhere. Aside from people doing computational work.

 

[console_logger]

Nodejs? That's just using frontend stuff to do backend stuff :P

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For what it's built for, which is handling a highly trafficked app in an asynchronous and non blocking manner that doesn't suck up memory, it works immensely well as a backend technology.

The problem is when people start to use nodejs in a manner that it's not built for (cpu intensive tasks, multithreading, etc).

 

[Snack12367]

I do think the Mac UI design and feel is pretty far ahead of the PC, but the PC is just so much more value for money than a Mac. It's cheaper and supports gaming far better than a Mac. Windows is also a pretty conformable stand in for those that want to use servers, but don't want to leave what they are comfortable with. Mac is not good for servers. It's so user friendly it hides the backend from users.

I think if mac were cheaper, they'd be my choice for laptop. However for all other purposes windows and linux are my baes

 

[Snack12367]

For what it's built for, which is handling a highly trafficked app in an asynchronous and non blocking manner that doesn't suck up memory, it works immensely well as a backend technology.

The problem is when people start to use nodejs in a manner that it's not built for (cpu intensive tasks, multithreading, etc).

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Not disagreeing. I've just never heard of it being used for multi-threading. Isn't the whole point of NodeJS that it's single threaded?

 

[Deleted member 3038]

As much as I dislike Apple, the Macbook is actually a pretty decent piece of hardware that isn't ridiculously overpriced. MacOS is also a great OS if you are a creator of any media.

I'll stick with my custom PCs and Linux/Windows though.

 

[Deleted member 25445]

Macs are absolutely stupid expensive, not worth the price at all

 

[NameUser]

I like PCs, but Macs are just so hassle free for the most part. With Windows it seems like I always had to worry about drivers and updates. The hardware is better for the money, I just don't like fighting with the OS.

 

[LinkStrikesBack]

Makes sense for most schoolwork

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Unless school has massively changed in the last decade, which I guess it might have, it really doesn't. The vast majority of peoples schoolwork is going to require an office-like suite for document writing, maybe spreadsheets, a pdf reader and a browser at most. The only reason that kind of person has to need a Mac over a much cheaper pc is as a status symbol.

 

[a_mad_bag_of_cats]

I work on windows, primarily in Sql server and visual studio, we use windows 7-10 and Windows Server. I have a gaming pc and a MacBook Pro. Every time I prefer using the MacBook, even with dual booting I'll stay within macOS.

Windows has come a long way from it's early days and I do like windows 10 a lot, macOS feels less distracting.

Saying that, would I get a new MacBook? Not with those keyboards...

 

[JustinP]

MacOS is in a total pickle when it comes to OS wide shortcuts -- every shortcut you can think of using cmd will interfere with some other shortcut already set in some application. There is no possibility for proper dedicated UI / window management shortcuts.

Window management in general is absolutely abysmal. You need to go to shitty third party apps to have any sort of proper window placement through shortcuts.

Multiple screens? Even worse. Can't switch easily between screens. The menu bar remains on the primary screen (who the fuck thought that would be a good idea). Can't have windows be half half. Can't alt tab properly between windows.

It astounds me that posters here above me can hold the opposite opinion really. Just goes to show widely tastes can differ.

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Uhh, why use cmd then? I've had MOOM shortcuts bound to option key + arrows to maximize windows and move them between monitors (automatically resizing them to fit new dimensions, because I usually run at least one vertical monitor for coding) and they don't conflict with anything. Better than Windows default window management (Windows' drag to maximize stuff is nice but I prefer keyboard shortcuts).

Not sure what you mean by menu bar. It's on all my monitors as I type this and reflects whatever app has focus on that monitor. Unless you mean the dock... but I'm not sure why you'd want to duplicate your dock on all the monitors.

Alt tabbing works basically the same way as Windows. Grouping of apps is more often a plus than a negative and there's various ways to navigate between multiple windows of same app. I never miss the way windows does it.

Windows is also a pretty conformable stand in for those that want to use servers, but don't want to leave what they are comfortable with. Mac is not good for servers. It's so user friendly it hides the backend from users.

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This meme about MacOS hiding things from users to be more user friendly is basically the opposite of my experiences. Windows' permission system is hideous and Windows treats users like idiots -- just look at the way forced updates work. Not even sure what you mean by servers -- MacOS being similar to Linux is so handy when working with servers, which is partly why so many software developers choose Mac if they can afford it. When dealing with all three, Windows is the odd one out.

 

[Akira86]

used to help people maintain their work/personal use laptops, and i don't care what they prefer
but the apple based laptops were a pain. the ibm based were a pain in a different way, but the apples were really annoying.

of course today the ibm based have mountains of software based issues because of microsoft, so i guess they have their own version of the corporate design demon making things fun for the rest of us.

 

[Snack12367]

This meme about MacOS hiding things from users to be more user friendly is basically the opposite of my experiences. Windows' permission system is hideous and Windows treats users like idiots -- just look at the way forced updates work. Not even sure what you mean by servers -- MacOS being similar to Linux is so handy when working with servers, which is partly why so many software developers choose Mac if they can afford it. When dealing with all three, Windows is the odd one out.

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Then this is probably just my own experience then. I've only used macs about a half dozen times and the time I have I've been trying to fix stuff, so it's probably coloured my opinion.

 

[LOLDSFAN]

"64% Like the brand"

Lol of course that would be the highest ranking metric in an Apple survey.

 

[console_logger]

Not disagreeing. I've just never heard of it being used for multi-threading. Isn't the whole point of NodeJS that it's single threaded?

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Well while the runtime environment is single threaded, NodeJS under the hood uses C++ libraries heavily and is actually leveraging multithreading. With newer versions of NodeJS, some of that functionality has been exposed to the runtime environment via "worker threads". It's not very well optimized though and is generally very heavy compared to other languages (i.e. Golang), but people are definitely trying.

 

[Deleted member 2625]

Some of these usability arguments... I wish I could race some peeps. Like, give us a list of common tasks to check off with file management, mass renaming, juggling windows, file sync, previewing things, merging things - whatever. I'm pretty sure I could destroy most Windows users on my Mac.

 

[Pwnz]

You couldn't pay me to use a mac. The Mac OS is just simply awful from a general use perspective (in my opinion) and trying to fix problems on mac is nigh on impossible.

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Are you a developer? I generally agree, but disabling csrutil in recovery terminal to get true root access and using brew to replace all of the BSD linux antiques with modern linux commands makes it much, much better.

 

[Illusion]

I'd prefer a Mac for its software. But I don't want to deal with ownership and having to fix them. Apple stores are shit and I hate their ideology in general.

But credit is due where credit is due. There software is amazing.

 

[Peter Ian Staker]

Between Gaming and my engineering software I haven't been able to use anything but Windows for my daily drivers.
As frustrated I've been with Windows over the years (my first PC had Windows ME and it was as bad as you have heard) I think it has developed to a point were I don't feel I will gain anything from switching to Mac or Linux either in usability or stability.
Haven't had a BSOD in years at this point and 99% of the problems I've had can be attributed to faulty hardware or third party software and doesn't have anything to do with Windows.

 

[Thunder11]

I grew up w/ Windows, jumped into Mac w/ the 2017 15" Pro - I regret spending so much money on it and am dismayed w/ the myriad of issues, although mine, knock on wood, has been issue free and a great laptops of far. There are lots of things I really like about Mac OS, and it's baffling how things are still handled on the windows side comparatively. That said, I like and use both OSes.

 

[farmland]

Is Linux an option?

I was a mac person at one point and a windows person at another. I'm platform agnostic these days except I like the philosophy behind linux.

 

[_Killa_Queen]

As a cs student I'd like a macbook, strictly so I could have a fairly functional unix environment with OSX's stability, but I'd probably dual boot it with a linux distro like Ubuntu or Manjaro for the freedom and packages. I don't enjoying gaming on laptops, at least not anything too intensive, just for gamedev stuff on the go. But yea, macbook pricing is bloated, plus every macbook I've ever used feels like it'll burn a hole through my lap just browsing the web.

On my desktop I'd prefer Windows strictly for games, with a similar dual boot setup.

 

[Panic Freak]

I bought a Mac in 2012. Never again.

 

[Qikz]

Are you a developer? I generally agree, but disabling csrutil in recovery terminal to get true root access and using brew to replace all of the BSD linux antiques with modern linux commands makes it much, much better.

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I'm in IT Support, so I support networks and users.

 

[Deleted member 50374]

I'm comfortable enough with KDE and Linux terminals that it's just not worth it to use anything else for me. I'd probably format OS X and install Linux even if I had a Macbook, which I do not want.

Also lol at people being out of touch with the web dev industry.

 

[Red]

I'm not a student. I used a PC/Hackintosh set up during college and bounced between the two OSes (and some Linux distros) pretty regularly. Currently I have two PCs and a MacBook Pro. My MacBook Pro is great for development. It's the huge trackpad and best-in-class gesture support that does it for me. It's simply quicker to navigate and manage multiple applications on MacOS than on Windows. I get more things done, and faster, on MacOS. But I'm not going to hate on Windows 10. I use Windows for work and for the most part it's just fine—as long as I've got an extra display. My two PCs at home are both on TVs and are basically media machines, one for movies and the other for games. I can get work done on either of them but I prefer the MacBook for most tasks.

 

[Yourfawthaaa]

As a student, office is much better on PC than Mac.

Makes my life much easier.

 

[mikeys_legendary]

Guess it's a shame that price will always be a factor for most. =\

 

[Ganransu]

As a working person, as an artist, I would love to choose Mac, however in reality, I chose PC, because of price and space; my home doesn't have so much space for me to own two desktops, or even desktop + laptop combo, also I need PC for gaming.

Also, what's up with that "I have no preference in 2019", is that a joke that went over my head or some fanboy bullshit?

Pick the tool most suitable for you not the tool with the brand logo you called father.

 

[RM8]

I'm sure Mac is great and I don't have a hard time believing it's better than Windows, but I like videogames so PC it is.

 

[VaporSnake]

My Mac works seamlessly with my iPhone.
My Mac reboots in under a minute and reopens everything.
My Mac doesn't come with crippling Spring and Fall updates like my work Dell Latitude.

I hate having to use Windows 10 at work.

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This might be the worst list of pro-apple features I've ever seen. Reboots under a minute is a huge lol. Under a WHOLE MINUTE? What kind of snake oil are you selling here mister?!

 

[Deleted member 29660]

I'm sure Macs are great for what they and what they do but I couldn't give a furry behind about them myself.

 

[AlwaysSalty]

I have an iPhone and iPad but for computer stuff I'm strictly pc. Although YouTube and web browsing are primarily done on my iOS devices. If I could play games on a Mac I might consider it, but then again I wouldn't be able to upgrade so there's no point in considering it,

 

[Deleted member 41502]

I have to use a Mac for work. I have a Surface at home. I really can't tell the difference between them much anymore. i.e. I personally kinda look down on anyone who struggles/prefers either.

There was a short period where my fingers really struggled with CTRL vs CMD, which is still the dumbest difference in the world IMO. But somehow they now know which machine I'm on and do the right thing for it. So again, I now don't really care.

 

[take_marsh]

A single Windows PC does all I need and want.

But for music production (particularly on the go), I'd like a Macbook Pro. Too bad those things cost >$1000.