why does devs tend to choose a macbook over a windows/linux laptop?
Posted by theusrl@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 152 comments
are macbooks just built different or something? i dont see why spending so much on a macbook, especially if someone has the macbook pro m5, because there’s probably nothing that will require the full potential of an MBP m5…
sooodooo@reddit
I was fighting the Apple ecosystem a lot ... until I was forced to use one at work for a while. It's not one thing, it's a combination of many. Spoiler: it's not the UI.
Hardware, TLDR great in few things, at least mid in others, few bad parts:
+ it's light and cool while having excellent performance
+ great battery life
+ good screen
+ good keyboard, great touchpad
+ great build quality and good durability, only second to (oldschool) thinkpads
+ unified memory means lots of RAM and/or VRAM. It's good for AI, good for data processing, good for a lot of things on the same machine.
+ iOS needs to be developed/built on macOS, if you're a mobile dev or use react-native this is non negotiable
+ magsafe is a blessing
- bad repairability and upgradability
- bad screen resolution handling with external screens
Software:
+ Easy out of the box, usable for anyone from grandma to frontend dev to low level engineer
+ unix-like, enough to be similar to linux for devops people
+ great dev support: first OS for most tools to be tested on, huge dev-marketshare
+ no forced OS updates, sad that I have to mention this
-/+ bad customizeabilty: employers like it, focus on your work, not on ricing your desktop, personally of course I want to ricemaxx my screen
Apple ecosystem, yes this is huge, big part is every other OS and vendors shit the bed here:
- I work a lot remote, iPhone hotspot "just works" open my laptop/ipad and I'm online, close my laptop and hotspot sharing stops, iPhone and macbook discover each other over BT, low battery impact. Compare that to having to explain to someone how they need to enable hotspot on their phone, then open the laptop and not forget to disable it or burn through their battery.
- iPad as second screen, if you get an iPad it's instantly available as a second screen on your macbook. You could do that with windows/linux and android on some models, with extra software sometimes, but then iPads are just the better tablets by themselves because it has better apps and accessories. Android tablets just waste their potential by not upstreaming drivers to the linux mainline, locking the bootloader and not allowing root.
- Airpods automatic switching between iPhone, macbook and iPad. No fumbling around with the BT settings, when a call comes in on your macbook or your iPhone it just switches automatically. Other systems: bluetooth multipoint exists, but there are many bt-profiles so you need to do your research and few of the vendors care enough to make it work properly
- Others: Airdrop, screen mirror iPhone to desktop
BringBack4Glory@reddit
The airpods benefit isn’t true for my company bc they don’t allow us to log in to our iCloud accounts on corporate managed devices, which apparently that feature depends on. I have to go into BT settings and manually pair before every meeting. It’s infuriating!
sooodooo@reddit
That's on your IT manager. Now imagine, that is the default/best you can get in every other ecosystem.
BringBack4Glory@reddit
My Jabra headset pairs with my Windows laptop automatically and switches between it and my phone flawlessly. Dunno why Apple can’t get this right unless I’m logged into iCloud on every device.
sooodooo@reddit
That’s of course better, true multipoint where the Jabra is connected to both devices at the same time. Apple doesn’t use multipoint at all, the device switches the bt connection thus the need for the same iCloud account to signal and secure it. Both have pros and cons, bt multipoint requires to be connected to multiple devices simultaneously and that can eat away bandwidth and is often limited to switching between 2 devices, on the pro side you can mix and match any devices. The Apple solution can connect to more devices and does not share bandwidth, but forces the iCloud login on you and only works for Apple products.
Lynx2447@reddit
Because marketing works
Slottr@reddit
Do you have other devices with the same performance / power efficiency / build quality?
Lynx2447@reddit
Certainly, especially when you consider the metric you left out, economic efficiency. Given any set of specs Apple offers, I can build a pc that performs equally as well, for cheaper. Apple has its upsides, but are we really going to pretend its popularity has nothing to do with its marketing campaigns? What an absurd question lol
Slottr@reddit
You didn’t even answer the question lol
Lynx2447@reddit
You were vague in your question. I was vague in my answer. Give me an example of a specific MacBook you want an alternative to.
Slottr@reddit
In an enterprise environment, if you have an alternative to an M5 Pro - this I would be curious if there was something that supported MDM specifically, but when it comes to MacOS alternatives I don't believe there is.
For the average user, perhaps an M4 Air?
Lynx2447@reddit
The higher end business class lenovo yogas would get you pretty close. I'd say with similar specs you aren't going to beat the m5's efficiency, but it's pretty new and Apple is at the top of their game in that regard. All the higher end business class laptops I know of support MDM.
I think Lenovo in general puts out quality products, and are pretty similar when comparing apples to apples lol. Apple builds great products, but I don't think that's why it's as widespread as it is. I think they heavily marketed towards creatives, and then slowly took over CS departments.
Not trying to be a duck, I just thought it not too difficult to look up some product comparisons. Of course they won't match 100%, but you can get the same job done without much change in quality of experience. This is also ignoring other aspects, like the gpu heavy world we live in today.
Slottr@reddit
Noted- if I ever head back into Windows-land for enterprise I'll take a look at these. Thanks
lKrauzer@reddit
As much as I love Linux I think that MacOS is the easier UNIX out there if you don't want to get tech ical, I use Fedora.
AFlyingGideon@reddit
I've some issue with a software developer who doesn't "want to get technical". Fedora for laptops here, too, with RHEL-based servers. The workstation/server divide keeps shrinking, first running server distributions via KVM and, more recently, using docker or podman.
sooodooo@reddit
Not everyone is born with 10 years of experience, some start as self-taught or are beginners. Do you want to teach your frontend interns how to use Fedora or do you want them to work on the frontend ? MacOS is beginner friendly anyone can use it, but it has just enough depths for most of developers, docker and podman also work just fine. The "getting technical" part can come later and many will never get to the point where macOS is the barrier preventing them to dive deeper.
It's like learning to drive, you don't start out building a car and by studying the map and mark down all the turns and red lights. You start with the basics of driving and learn as you go.
Jannis_Black@reddit
I may be biased here, but I don't think MacOS is actually easier to use, at least for the tasks a developer would generally need to do, than a modern Linux distro like fedora.
I think the real reason in companies isthat they often don't offer Linux machines in the first place.
lKrauzer@reddit
Also official support, MacOS has more leverage on this regard compared to community maintained distroa like Fedora.
AFlyingGideon@reddit
I suspect that it's also that K-12 schools tend to use microsoft or apple. People often fall into the trap of believing that what they've learned first is "intuitive".
There's something of a controversy floating around parts of edutech about Chromebooks, in fact, with some worried that the obscuring of too much detail is preventing students from learning. A common manifestation of this is the complaint "young people don't even know how to download and save a file".
I'm not sure i agree that this is a problem as long as interested students have the opportunity to go beyond these hand-holding devices. Plenty of members of our FRC have laptops running a Linux distribution, for example. Meanwhile, those not interested in the details of these tools have easily used tools facilitating the learning of other things.
Where I become unsure is that the Chromebooks, in many districts, are loaned to students at no cost. The laptops running Linux require a family to invest. What of families that cannot afford this? There are organizations which try to help mitigate this divide, but they're not ubiquitous.
AFlyingGideon@reddit
That applies to all skills related to software development, so it seems moot. If someone wants to be a practitioner of a trade, they learn the trade. They learn the tools of the trade. A carpenter arguing that he or she wasn't born with the skill to use a measuring tape as an excuse shouldn't be permitted to wield a hammer.
It's really not except for those who learn it first. We're not born with UI skills either. As a side note, I've seen numerous apple users with a desktop messy and overloaded enough to know that they're not using their UI in an efficient manner. I've seen this with users of microsoft and linux too. That suggests to me that there can be bad users of any UI. A hammer does not a carpenter make.
And then they're ready to be professional software developers. What you're describing as "frontend", without "getting technical", is just graphics (not even reaching the level of UI or HCI (for which those technical skills are necessary but not sufficient)).
That's a good metaphor. The person without "getting technical" uses the tool. A mechanic - who's learned more - works on the tool.
HIKIIMENO@reddit
If you need that adequate level of hardware and software quality and performance, a Mac is far less expensive than a Windows machine.
PersianMG@reddit
This is straight up false. You can get much higher specs on Windows machine for cheaper. The downside will be things like weight etc (matching Macbooks battery life on Windows is going to have a huge battery weighing 2k on its own kinda thing). But from a pure spec perspective (CPU clock, RAM memory capacity & speed, SSD's etc) the Windows machine will be stronger for cheaper easily.
HIKIIMENO@reddit
Yeah, of course a Windows machine with only the same “spec” is cheaper than a Mac, but that’s only a little portion of “quality”. I’m referring to the overall “quality”, including but not limited to CPU and GPU performance and efficiency, battery life, trackpad supporting forced touch, Thunderbolt 4/5, Retina display with P3 support, speaker playback audio quality, chassis material and design, fan noise, OS updates, stability of drivers.
Frolo_NA@reddit
macos is a unix derivative. most devs prefer some flavor of unix-like workstation
rbuen4455@reddit
I mean you can always use Linux or Windows with wsl2, so MacOS isn't really special apart from being marketed as high quality.
hyperactiveChipmunk@reddit
People who think WSL is a reasonable substitute for Linux fall into one of the following two categories:
Which are you?
rbuen4455@reddit
I never said WSL (version 2 that is) is a substitute for Linux, but it removes all the advantages Mac had over Windows for decades, and the fact that Macbooks are overpriced. And as far as substitude, same thing can be said about Mac. Most deployment settings are Linux based in the end, and a lot of times you're just ssh'ing into a cloud server running on Linux.
kuwlade@reddit
It's the OS, the Nix base and those new arm chips are really great. My M1 still flying. If you have patience you can get a pretty good experience on Linux but I always find I get sick of configuring everything.
ViolentCrumble@reddit
i just wanna chime in and say that linux mint is basically windows in terms of ease of use now. I converted my ryzen 9 7950x3d to linux mint 2-3 months ago and haven't switched back once, it just works out of the box. The only configuring I did was add extra taskbars on my multiple monitors and it just works. no need to configure shit.,
Np_slip_69420@reddit
How’s the bluetooth working for you?
I switched to mint after they ended support for windows 10, everything is fine but, i have faced bluetooth issue multiple times (mostly after some update or when my laptop shuts down due to low battery)
Bluetooth on linux is not seamless. Rebooting the system or changing the kernal works but it does get annoying when you have to diagnose this just before a meeting or a break.
ViolentCrumble@reddit
Hmm haven’t had a single issue. I use Bluetooth with my sound bar, I paired it once and never again.
My headphones use a dongle and haven’t had issues with them either.
Don’t use Bluetooth for anything else
Np_slip_69420@reddit
Maybe i should also get headphones with dedicated dongle.
Which ones do you use ?
ViolentCrumble@reddit
So I use the Sony inzone h9 they are the bomb. They do dongle and Bluetooth at the same time. So I can Bluetooth to the switch and also use the dongle for the pc and I can sit at the desk and play switch and watch a show and hear both at the same time.
Also they (and the Apple AirPods Max) are the only headphones I have found that have a decent pass through so I can actually hear around me while using them. Otherwise most headphones I always have to keep one of the cups off.
Hefty price tho. But love them
Np_slip_69420@reddit
Hmm.. Are the cups breathable ? Like do you sweat while using them?
I got jbl tune NC headphones, but where i live its really hot and humid so i get acne breakouts if i use them for longer periods (even with ac on) so i mostly stick to earbuds.
ViolentCrumble@reddit
Nah pretty good actually. When Elden ring came out we played it on PlayStation for 8hr sessions and never had an issue. Where I live it’s not humid at all tho but very very hot.
So your experience may vary. I usually live in aircon also
13Zero@reddit
It really depends on your hardware. In my experience, Intel wireless cards are excellent on Linux unless they’re brand new.
Np_slip_69420@reddit
My laptop has a realtek wireless driver and it works fine when it does, but few times when the bluetooth app would scan the device but they wont show up or if they are already registered then they wont connect.
If I restart the bluetooth service then it would say “failed to start bluetooth deamon” or “bluetooth deamon not running” or something.. rebooting solves this but some times you have to change the kernal version. I haven’t find the main cause but these 2 steps solve the problem.
Oh and Currently when my headphone connect automatically i dont get sound, i have to switch between the “audio profile” from the Bluetooth app to get it.
Lurn2Program@reddit
mac OS is unix-based and offers a lot of native support for most programming languages. It's really easy to get started on one
thirteen_tentacles@reddit
Yeah I absolutely loathe macOS generally but if I was getting a dev laptop I'd probably take it over the piles of crap on offer on the windows side for the same price, and macOS is generally easier to develop on unless idk you use C#
TheRealKidkudi@reddit
Modern C# is just as easy on macOS. You’re only really in trouble if you have to maintain old .NET Framework apps.
smdaegan@reddit
I like Rider just find but it's no where close to Visual Studio, which doesn't have Mac support.
If you say vs code is a capable c# ide, then I question your credibility.
caboosetp@reddit
If you can't use vscode for c# then i question your credibility.
smdaegan@reddit
There's not a single thing that vs code's debugger does that's better than VS. It's dogwater by comparison. Cool if you're building trivial stuff, but the debugger is beyond ass.
You can't even move the active line in it. It doesn't have anywhere close to the thread debugging, performance managers, memory snapshots or allocations.
Literally I can't think of a single time I've used it's shitty debugger and went "yep, this is built for professionals"
Tin_Foiled@reddit
Absolutely, when people imply VS code is anywhere near as good as visual studio I think it’s just the Dunning Kruger effect at play a bit. They ain’t been in the trenches trying to find a memory leak or trying to debug across multiple threads to find a race condition. They just wrote for loops. Which VS code is more than capable of.
caboosetp@reddit
I've been using vscode as a main ide for almost a year. They've beefed it up a ton because of the focus on vscode for AI. And no, I'm not just writing for loops. I work on some very high usage high availability software.
I feel like people that are saying vscode is incapable haven't taken the time to actually learn how to use it with proper extensions in the last year or two.
I'm not saying vs2026 isn't better. It for sure is more feature heavy. But you not knowing how to do those things in vscode does not mean it's not capable. There's just a little bit of extra setup.
BroaxXx@reddit
I mean… You also can just write code on a piece of paper, use an OCR tool on your phone and the compile it on the computer. VS Code is neat but I can’t remember the last time I’ve used it.
TheRealKidkudi@reddit
IMO Rider and VS are close enough that your own preference is really the deciding factor more than anything else.
VS Code is adequate. As a full IDE it’s clearly not in the same league as Rider/VS, but if you’re competent in C# then it’s squarely in the “good enough” category for everyday development.
But VS Code just is what VS Code is. If you’re used to it with other languages, the experience in C# is basically more of the same. It shines as a polyglot code editor, but if you want to do any profiling or advanced debugging then you’ll just end up using a different tool.
UrbanSuburbaKnight@reddit
Not OP, but doesn't your answer just raise the obvious question, "why use macos instead of Linux native?"
Attila_22@reddit
I mean… you can. Just dual or triple boot with a linux distro if your workplace allows that.
The macbook hardware is really nice and generally way better quality than a windows work laptop so if I’m given the choice by an employer i’ll always pick a mac.
throwawayacc201711@reddit
Just to expand on this. 90% of public cloud workloads and over 78% of web-facing servers running on Linux. Having your local environment operate in a similar way, have similar scripting and commands is a huge boon. WSL is starting to mitigate this for windows users.
There are whole segments where windows dominates the space such as game dev. But a lot of SWEs are deploying to the cloud in some capacity.
Infamous_Ruin6848@reddit
Well nothing stops them to have say Ubuntu Pro. Playing devil's advocate here.
sharkflood@reddit
Also requires work arounds to program/test for MacOS or iPhone when not using an Apple device
Super382946@reddit
people keep mentioning macos in this thread but i feel like that's hardly the best feature of the macbooks. the sheer power efficiency of the M chips is way more valuable because of how much more battery life you can get out of it, and how much thinner the MacBook Air can be because of no fans.
100BottlesOfMilk@reddit
As another non MacBook user, I'd switch in a heartbeat if they made a proper 2 in 1 MacBook to replace my ThinkPad Yoga. I love the M chips and prefer MacOs to windows and would solve a couple of problems that i have with programs not supported on Linux. Until then, I'll just be running my laptop off of Ubuntu
timpkmn89@reddit
But how often do people program undocked?
rjcarr@reddit
Me, like 80% of the time, and on a 14” (gasp!).
TheIncarnated@reddit
Me, like 99% of the time (also a 14" and even the m4 Max! Le gasp!)
rjcarr@reddit
Funny, my 14” is also a M4M.
Holiday-Medicine4168@reddit
I live in tmux and nvim on a 14 inch MBP. Small fonts and knowing keystrokes. My only other window is Edge because we are a Microsoft shop and I have all my 0365 stuff running in there.
Super382946@reddit
outside of work, fairly often based on what I see. but I'm a student so I have a fairly skewed sample set to be fair.
rjcarr@reddit
Developers chose Apple before Apple Silicon. It’s mostly the OS.
Garland_Key@reddit
No. They never chose Apple. WTF? I honestly wouldn't be able to take a software engineer seriously if they had a Mac unless they were developing MacOS or iOS apps.
rjcarr@reddit
Macs are toys, har, har, good luck getting any real work done on that, right?
disappointer@reddit
In that case, I know lots of senior devs working who you would not take seriously.
dca12345@reddit
You’ve probably only worked in old large companies. This is not the case in startups and Big Tech. Your information is way out of date.
ihavesalad@reddit
Look at any "learn to code" video from the 2010s at any tech office, you'd see tons of macs. Yeah maybe less in the old corporate world or some engineering places, but anything in the valley, more modern tech, etc, always had them.
PopulationLevel@reddit
Yeah, it’s a Unix OS that has a nice UI and you can buy software for. WSL is nice in a pinch, but osx predated it by many years, and is still nicer imho.
Xawlet@reddit
Yeah it's basically the power efficiency from what I heard. They can last a full day of work and still have a few hours left before they need to be charged again.
brstra@reddit
There is nothing close to Apple Silicon chips and battery life. I’d love to have Linux on this hardware.
kuwlade@reddit
There is a Linux distribution for the Apple arm chips. It sets up a dual boot. I tried it and it was decent but felt like going backwards
brstra@reddit
I know, but it’s all reverse engineered basically. I would not use it professionally, only as an enthusiast.
alexppetrov@reddit
In my personal life I have had a few laptops, in my professional life also.
Macbooks (the M processors, even m1s) are just great. They work. They work well, they are quiet, powerful, battery lasts a long time, Unix based OS (Linux stuff can be done very easily). Coming from windows/Linux machines they took some time to get used to, but once you get used to them it's just a fine machine to have.
On the other hand especially with windows you can never be sure what issues you will encounter. With my current work laptop I need to take anger management because it just doesn't work the same way. Not the specs issue - rather the OS, but it feels very heavy. Not to mention the hoops you have to jump through to get some stuff working. With my personal laptop I've had no issues though, but that is because I did spend a lot of time choosing it. And you can run Linux on there as well, windows is very popular and has tons of tools, a lot of support. But every so often when I need to try something new or install something new I eather use the terminal with bash installed or have to dig through config files/settings/path/etc and stumble upon limits which would be nonsensical sometimes. With the Mac I didn't have that.
Ultimately, it is a personal choice. I know I don't need an M5 Mac, but if I get one it would be a years-long purchase (at least 5 years probably). In fact even the M1 still performs top notch after many years for most generic professional or free time work (excluding gaming since I haven't used a Mac for gaming).
GeneralPITA@reddit
My Macbook M1 is still running beautifully after 6 years of near daily use (only having to restart it for occasional optional software updates or software installs).
kuwlade@reddit
This is exactly what I'm saying. I was able to say the same for my 2014 MacBook until the arm chips came, too.
Neckbeard_Sama@reddit
they don't
SO dev survey ... which OS do you use professionally:
49.5% Windows
32.9% MacOS
j3rem1e@reddit
And 20% works on a phone? Really?
I can't trust this survey for this question personally
Neckbeard_Sama@reddit
mobile dev
FE devs also test on mobile
j3rem1e@reddit
The survey is about the "primary os for dev"
high_throughput@reddit
You're not supposed to buy your own laptop. Your employer pays for it, and a $2000 laptop every few years is pocket change compared to the expense of a developer's salary.
FlamingoEarringo@reddit
Where I work I can pick between Windows, Linux and Mac
Innovator-X@reddit
I would pick mac anytime of the day, except when I do game development.
One-Program6244@reddit
The cost of a laptop is usually costed for over a number of years as a depreciating asset (say 3 years).
Many years ago I was made redundant and the company was downsizing so they gave me my work laptop for free as it had effectively been depreciated to £0. I'm sure there's a proper accounting term for this.
Late 2013 Macbook Pro and it's still working fine.
Innovator-X@reddit
The accounting term is that the MacBook is “a fully depreciated asset”.
CaptainPunisher@reddit
I work for a county department and they gave me a brand new gaming laptop when about 3500. They also gave me a 38" curved monitor, docking station, peripherals, and 2 24" monitors before the 38". Oh, and a new office chair. I'm trying to get them to buy toner for my personal printer that I basically only use to print work related stuff (honestly) because that would be cheaper than them giving me a whole printer that I don't want to have to find the space for at home.
AlfalfaLive3302@reddit
Wait, you’re not buying your own computer for learning or studying? Lost redditor….
Jannis_Black@reddit
For learning and studying you traditionally buy a used ThinkPad and run Linux.
fakemoose@reddit
I assumed they meant the company spending that much. I prefer literally anything over a windows laptop, especially since almost all my work is on Linux. But the only other option is a MacBook.
Mikkelet@reddit
I bought my own as well though, to keep personal work and professional work separated
SirDarkDick@reddit
I have just moved from a Mac back to windows and the reason is pretty clear to me.
minneyar@reddit
Regardless of any opinions on the operating system, Apple Silicon CPUs are by far the best in class in terms of performance per watt. If you want a lightweight laptop that runs well and has a battery that can last all day, Apple laptops are really your only option.
Also, if you want a Linux laptop, you don't have a lot of options. There's System76, which isn't bad but sometimes has pretty questionable build quality. Tuxedo is basically the same as System76 except you get to pay international shipping and tariffs if you live the USA. There's Framework, which is cool for the repairability but as a consequence tend to be more expensive and bulkier than other laptops. If you buy from any other manufacturer, you have to do extensive research to make sure Linux works at all, because a lot of them use WiFi/Bluetooth adapters that do not have good Linux support. (to be fair, Lenovo is usually pretty good)
hope_dreemur@reddit
Framework seems promising since they seem to be going directly after the MBP with the new 13 Pro, while also being officially certified by Canonical to ship with Ubuntu.
Garland_Key@reddit
Every laptop is a Linux laptop.
Icy-Temperature377@reddit
Thats the neat thing, for a lot of work you don't even need the pro model.
M chips are so efficient I am able to do mobile and web development on a 1000€ Macbook Air with M4 / 24GB ram.
And if you look at their offer across the board now with Neo / Air / Pro, Windows laptops just don't stand a chance any more even price-wise.
Because having 8 gigs ram more on a Windows laptop means nothing if OS uses those, and any amount of ram means nothing on a Linux dev machine which does not wake up from sleep after I just closed the lid for 30mins lunch.
Halifaxaking@reddit
Your confidence in your ignorance is terrifying
Sudden_Collection105@reddit
Honestly, the main reason is that around 2003, Apple pivoted their marketing to higher education and started aggressively flooding the universities with free hardware.
OS X just came out, and laptops were finally affordable enough to make it realistic to expect every student to have one.
The result was a generation of CS and IT graduates becoming familiar with the platform, even though the OS was sub-standard in its unix compatibility, and the hardware was twice as expensive as equivalent PC hardware.
Significant_Bar_460@reddit
Macs are not that expensive. A business oriented laptops like Dell XPS, Lenovo Thinkpad T/P/X often cost similar or even more then similarly spec Mac.
But Mac will crush them anyway with way more efficient CPU, Even if other laptops have good benchmarks on performance, the real life experience and snappiness is superior on Macs.
Battery is another thing. While 80% of time I work docked, sometimes I need to work on travels. Mac wins here and is not even comparable. It is true that some laptops with Lunar/Panther Lake offer similar battery life in light workloads, on heavier workloads on battery they will lose. And all Intel/AMD chips lose more performance in battery mode than Mac.
And try to keep Mac in the backpack sleeping during weekend. You lose like nothing % of battery. Any Windows laptop will easily loose half of the charge during 3 days in sleep.
Proffesionals choose Macs because they are way more refined and polished both in HW and SW.
Stopher@reddit
My company gave me a windows surface laptop. Four years ago. It’s the nicest laptop I’ve ever had. It’s crazy thin and light fast as I need and has a touch screen. Platform really doesn’t matter for my job. I work in a web app.
PersianMG@reddit
It's usually an employer choice, not dev choice. Having all your employees use the same OS is useful for setup, common configurations and so on.
Macbooks are amazing, they have insane CPU's and specs, and the battery life is best in class. The main downside is high cost (which for developers is not really a con). I'm personally not a fan of Apple ecosystem because all the software, hardware, right to repair stuff is completely locked down. So for personal projects I run Windows (daily driver, games) or Linux (specific activities).
walmartbonerpills@reddit
Because it's a stable environment when the software you are working on isn't.
No fucking with drivers, no ads, no surprise updates.
midas_yellow@reddit
to be honest, in my opinion it is the ergonomics that sell it. The screen is incredible, the trackpad is so good I’ve completely ditched my mouse, and the keyboard feel is top tier. Plus, the power efficiency is really really good, you actually get almost full day of work without hunting for an outlet every hour. When you try to find a windows or linux alternative with the same build quality, display, and battery life, there is not too much alternatives, and you often end up spending more than you would on the mac
AlfalfaLive3302@reddit
They are reliable long term, easy to get up and running, and the operating system offers a solid middle ground of the best of the other two choices. Arguably, Linux is the best choice for development but if you’re developing software for iOS or Mac, then you’re kind of stuck with Apple.
TheSoloGamer@reddit
Can’t speak for linux laptops, but have you seen windows laptop offerings? For comparable performance, you’re paying 200-300$ more for anything that comes close to a macbook air or neo. Not to mention the out of box simplicity. Macbooks are indeed built different in that the system is unix based, so many tools are cross compatible with linux, while also being dead simple to setup simple things like webapps or vscode. Battery life is astonishing and macbooks can take a decent amount of abuse. I keep mine naked and it has plenty of dings and scratches and works fine.
Anything compute heavy or needing more than a few hours of work, I’ll be doing on my desktop. My macbook is portable and lasts like 2-3 days on a single charge. I can charge it with the same cable as my phone. It just works (tm).
My general experience with windows and linux is that the setup will take longer than it takes to actually code the thing I want, and even then both platforms suck pretty bad when it comes to battery life. Also, if you’re a native app developer, then macs are the only thing that can natively deploy and test iOS apps on-device.
Sibexico@reddit
MacBooks is cheap. Don't try to compare MacBooks and Chromebooks on Celeron. Compare laptops with comparable performance. Dell XPS, Lenovo ThinkPad, or Microsoft Surface can easily cost more than MacBook...
GreatStaff985@reddit
Because Apple is a better general OS experience than linux and if you are working on things like docker an various ios stuff window suck.
InvestingNerd2020@reddit
Better CPU performance on the hardware is the best in the industry for a laptop, and the operating system is more stable than Windows. It has become the top choice of laptop for Java developers and front-end website developers.
Linux distros, especially Ubuntu for professional work, is the best for programmers. Unfortunately, the hardware that runs Linux distros isn't as good as a MacBook Pro laptop. With a good AMD or Intel CPU, it can still be a good experience.
bananabastard@reddit
I bought my M1 Macbook air in March 2021, still using it now, no problems.
I've used it probably an average of 10 hours every single day since the day I bought it.
There's some serious value.
FisherKing22@reddit
I work at Google and a crazy percentage of people have MacBooks despite a push for us to use Chromebooks. Chromebooks play better with our codebase and dev tools and are comparable performance-wise for the main Google developer workflows.
On paper a maxed out Chromebook running gLinux is the better choice. I personally use a MacBook and deal with some of the downsides purely for the creature comforts like OS responsiveness, battery life, screen quality, an amazing trackpad, etc.
I’m doing nearly 100% of my work in Chrome or on a remote Linux machine, and the little quality of life differences in MacOS and Apple hardware add up.
Plus I didn’t have to pay for it.
beldum-please@reddit
I want to work on my code, not on OS maintenance, also Windows sucks ass
sf4r@reddit
I have an m4 max and I max out CPU compiling and testing daily. I would use a Linux laptop in a heartbeat if I could get the same reliable battery life etc. With the newer laptops being built for Linux this is probably changing but I have had enough trouble running Linux on a Dell laptop to appreciate that my company would rather have something reliable and efficient across 2000 developers.
We also have graphic designers etc that use some of the same tools as I do but also need Mac software as windows is not great for them either. It we all have the same laptop (even managers not coding) it makes mending 5000 laptops easier.
We are starting to save money by defaulting to 14' over 16" though!
rbuen4455@reddit
Not all devs use MacBook. Perhaps you're referring to front-end devs or FAANG (or whatever its called nowadays) devs. I always thought it just trendy to use a MacBook in those cases.
*some people say its because Mac is unix-based, but Windows with wsl2 makes that advantage irrelevant and most deployment platforms, so it doesn't really matter if you use a Mac or Windows machine.
ViolentCrumble@reddit
i can code on my macbook every day for 8 hours and get almost a week on the one charge... Anytime I put it to sleep by closing it, It always wakes up. have you ever put a windows laptop to sleep by closing the lid.. It just won't wake up like 50% of the time.
I can compile my whole app on my macbook faster than my windows desktop which has ryzen9 7950x3d cpu and 64gb ram.
My windows desktop has been moved to mint now and never looked back. Linux and mac rocks, windows sucks in short.
duckonmuffin@reddit
Yes they are built in different ways. All computers are.
timpkmn89@reddit
Do you know of any specifics?
Dustlay@reddit
Another reason: Because apple forces developers to use their OS in order to be able to build MacOS Desktop apps and iOS apps.
BadRomans@reddit
Been on windows since forever. The last 2-3 years of Win11 updates bloated up the OS to the point that 16Gb of RAM (which I cannot update) became a true bottleneck. Got proposed to get a MacBook for work and I gotta say I won’t probably be coming back. Just alone the power management of M processors makes them superior to the majority of Windows laptops.
The only thing I really dislike about Apple is their tendency of removing agency from users, but with some effort I can live with that.
Ordinary-Cycle7809@reddit
Well not all Dev's ig it's good way to flex ig, and ngl macs are pretty fast... But snap back to reality I use windows
JoshWaterMusic@reddit
For me, it’s the longevity of it. I bought an M1 Macbook Air back in 2020, and I still don’t see any need to upgrade. When I had Windows laptops, I’d get maybe two years out of them before something went to shit.
tacticalpotatopeeler@reddit
My PowerBook g4 from 2005 still runs fine
disappointer@reddit
Most of the major reasons have already been mentioned, but one other potentially big one for a long time is/was first class Adobe and Microsoft support.
KoMaMcNoob@reddit
Personally I use all 3! At home I use windows and CachyOS and work I use Mac.
The cost of a Macbook for companies is a pittance compared with someone's salary. If I could, I would prefer Linux but completely understand why many orgs don't use this.
On Mac most things just work without a lot of fiddling, docker, shell scripts etc. From an org POV you need to be able to monitor and control what your employees are doing though, and that is not easy on a Linux machine. I haven't used a mac without it being Jamf managed and locked down if things are stolen etc. Also you will get power users who will work around things and the other end of the spectrum of people who don't know what they are doing, and you gotta waste time fixing broken systems. Also you can add in many proprietary systems like Microsoft apps which don't support Linux too.
Cock_Broker@reddit
Best Linux distribution is iOS
Garland_Key@reddit
First of all, what makes you think most developers use a Mac? That's absurd.
black_widow48@reddit
Because it's unix-based.
I personally prefer Linux. Mac's window management system pisses me off. I have to use third party software to make it piss me off slightly less.
seipa@reddit
I recommend Aerospace. Probably the best resemblance of i3 on macos.
black_widow48@reddit
I use yabai/skhd
manvsmidi@reddit
Linux on laptop tends to break often, not support corporate software, and can be annoying for IT to manage. Macs give you that *nix experience with the corporate friendliness.
talk_nerdy_to_m3@reddit
Simple answer - If you want to build an ios application, you have to have a Mac. But also all the other reasons stated as well.
Any-Range9932@reddit
UNIX. That is why
Business-Shoulder-42@reddit
Most programmers are softies and couldn't handle a Ubuntu dev machine. So they do it on a Mac and then pretend like it's the same as there production environment.
zoddrick@reddit
what does that even mean? any differences between the two are completely superficial. At the core they are both still UNIX based OSs and have the same tooling support.
Business-Shoulder-42@reddit
Yes and Ubuntu is a little harder to manage hence the softie devs just paying a large sum to have something more locked down and prettier for them.
Newmillstream@reddit
I wouldn’t say Macs are the always the preferred choice, because devs in some disciplines will need a Windows machine, but in a corporate environment, often the only managed options you have are a Mac or a PC, and IT is loath to just let devs install their own os without insisting on a bunch of other restrictions on what you can and can not do with it.
Windows subsystem for Linux and some other developments have narrowed the gap in advantages Macs got by being Unix under the hood, but Macs have some nice advantages over a Windows box still. If you do native iPhone development (I don’t, so I could be wrong), I understand some tools in XCode are required. Some development software like Nova is Mac native, and if that’s part of your workflow, you would be loath to give it up.
Macs typically have decent to good displays, whereas it is very easy to find a windows laptop with a nasty display. Certainly there are some windows laptops with very good displays, and hopefully you are able to use a large high quality external monitor anyway, but it is very handy if you are reading for prolonged periods on the go, or doing design work where color accuracy matters, the stress and time saved by the display alone are valuable factors.
The high value of Macs is also a factor. If you are a corporate dev, you probably care little to anything about what the company pays. If you are with a more scrappy operation, the Mac does have resale value if things go up.
Finally, a Mac is generally safe to be seen with. Some people really like it, and very rarely will you see a professional or a businessman that will think less of you for picking one to the point it costs you an opportunity. If you pull out a chunky looking windows laptop, some stakeholders might question how advanced you really are. Yes it is stupid.
I am curious why you don’t think the full potential of a MacBook Pro M5 could be leveraged. If there is a ceiling, you can hit it. If you compile big projects, do heavy 3D, etc, you could easily bog it down.
jakapop@reddit
Claude code
anarchyx34@reddit
Because it’s hands down the best laptop from a hardware standpoint, nothing else even comes close. On the software side it’s the closest you’ll get to the capabilities of Linux with the bonus that everything just fucking works and you wont be limited to purely open-source alternatives when it comes to software when only closed-source will do.
rakhalism@reddit
unix is the key
smegblender@reddit
Incredible battery life... exceptional build quality... the touch pad is still miles ahead of anything else in the market.
... and most of all, a bulletproof suspend/resume low power state that I'm yet to see replicated as seamlessly on non-mac devices.
A 3k-5k laptop budget for SWEs every few years isn't really notable for any major organisation.
HaikusfromBuddha@reddit
Because dev windows/linux machines look ugly as hell. I don't want a think pad or bulk HP. I'll take a Mac Book I aint paying for any day.
If they offered me a Surface or some Razer Laptop then I'd consider a Windows machine.
tcloetingh@reddit
Terminal
johnnybgooderer@reddit
I can only speak for myself. I like that macOS is UNIX, and more importantly POSIX just like Linux. There’s no compatibility layer. It just is POSIX.
The only other reasonable choice is LINUX. But I find that I spend way too much time learning deep Linux things when I use Linux. And I don’t really actually want to learn Linux beyond what I need to to host services in a docker container. I want to work on the program I’m shipping. macOS is much better at working with software and devices that aren’t endorsed specifically by the OS maintainer. It lets me focus on my work instead of my environment.
Condomphobic@reddit
They’re lightweight, have a long battery life, have the best keyboards, etc
MacOS is closer to Linux than Windows is too
GlassCommission4916@reddit
Windows is trash for development, I even develop windows programs on linux.
MacOS and linux are both great for development, they're both quite similar under the hood since they share the unix ancestry.
Linux is however harder and more time consuming to use if you're not an expert at it.
The choice becomes pretty clear.
irishfury0@reddit
Because most company IT departments don’t support desktop Linux and MacOS more closely resembles the Linux environments our products get deployed to.
Intelligent-Youth-63@reddit
My very nice Macbook cost less than the Windows machine they wanted to give me at my new job.
Global_Discount7607@reddit
idk they are hipsters first of all and Apple has the strongest brand in the world especially for people who tend to have western country definitions of disposable income.
Effective-Total-2312@reddit
I switched some months ago after a whole life using Windows (been programming non-professionally since 2010). Honestly, Mac is just faster with even less resources than Windows. Having said so, I don't really mind one or the other as long as it runs equally fast (my personal computers are Windows and they are as fast as my Mac, but have more resources).
sunk-capital@reddit
Just battery life and quick loading times
nightonfir3@reddit
Large parts of the server world run on Linux. As such lots of devs work on programs that end up on Linux. Macs are Unix based and so running linux programs there is fairly easy. Plus some of the nice mac features with battery life and a smooth UI its pretty popular. Microsoft figuring out WSL made windows computers also work for this. A fair amount of developers also run Linux itself.
fluchtpunkt@reddit
They probably enjoy using Macs.
HomemadeBananas@reddit
Mac OS is a Unix system but a lot of things are easier to deal with compared to Linux. Windows is kind of a pain in the ass for developing software unless you need it for building something Windows specific. And usually your company gives you a computer to use. But software developers normally make enough money to afford it.
explicit17@reddit
I would take mac only because of m5 processors. Battery life is important to me (i live in Ukraine), and with these new processors, it performs pretty well. Others are trapped in their ecosystem or like their "beautiful" UI, but I, personally, don't see much value in it
hitanthrope@reddit
They are nice pieces of kid and tend to "just work". Windows isn't a great development platform for anything other than the Microsoft stuff and Linux is a bit more high maintenance. Ran it for years but life got short.
AffectionatePlane598@reddit
I have a old intel mac with arch I think linux on a macbook is the best setup because apple has some of the best and nicest hardware without a good os and you can change that