I think I need to go all in on either Microsoft or Apple (long-ish) Which would you choose in my position?

[KarsusTG]

Mostly interested in hearing from people that have made the transition or work with these systems on a daily basis, especially with a developer focus.  I don't really care about the Mac/Windows flame war stuff.  In my mind, they each have their strengths and weaknesses and provide comparable work flows once you learn their ways of doing things.

 

So a bit of background.  I come from an engineering background.  I am a software developer, mostly been server side, embedded systems, and that sort of thing.  I also do drone work and have some serious number crunching requirements on that side.  I have recently been working towards getting into mobile and web development, mostly because I want to get into a stable freelancing routine and that is where the bulk of the work is as well as being able to do it while traveling for my other job.  My primary purpose in making this transition is to limit the fragmentation, become more mobile, and eliminate some of the work flow interruptions from jumping OS's constantly for different tasks.

 

I have not really been 'dedicated' to any particular OS.  The last 8-10 years I would say I have been spending about 60% of my time on Linux, about 30% on Windows, and about 10% on Mac OS.  But over the last year or two my time on the Mac OS has been eating into the Linux portion, greatly.  I have purchased software for each of them that I use on a regular basis, but because of this my software library, media library, and workflows have been somewhat fragmented across the different eco systems. 

 

What I like about Mac OS and Apple in general:

• Everything just seems to work right off the bat.  This really struck me when I swapped to thunderbolt monitors and the OS not only made the transition, but also automatically re-arranged the monitors to the configuration I had before without me having to intervene.
• The apple silicon is a modern marvel.  Most users don't really appreciate the level of engineering in their silicone, but it is amazing and the transition to most of their machines to these chipsets makes this a great time to jump in as a developer.
• Everything is pretty tightly integrated, I can pretty seamlessly go from the ipad, to the mac book, to the mac mini desktop almost as easily as if I was just using multiple monitors on the same system and that is awesome.  This means I can transition workflows easily without having to think much about it.
• The software is almost always optimized for their machines so even when it is at a lower spec device, you don't really feel it. 
• The apple store is pretty comprehensive and frankly, once you have paid the apple tax on the hardware I find the costs to be pretty reasonable.
• Their machines are built for media, which I do appreciate given the level of travel I frequently do.

What I like about Windows and Microsoft in general:

• Basically everything works on windows.
• The hardware you can get your hands on that will work on windows is second to none.
• The progress they have been making with WSL and becoming developer friendly is pretty awesome.  I used to HATE writing and compiling code on windows, not I only dislike it, although VS code is awesome and runs on all three operating systems.
• It is probably the most familiar operating system to me outside of Linux.
• One note with the surface pen is almost not replaceable.

What I don't like about Mac OS and apple in general:

• Apple Tax... Their hardware is overpriced for the specs you get and is often not as resilient. 
• Their T2 Chip, DRM, and their right to repair stances are frankly embarrassing.
• The lack of windows snapping is irritating some times.  I have found an app that fixes it somewhat, but it still feels clunky.
• Sometimes software availability can seem limited.  I don't really play games so this is drastically reduced on that side, but it is real on many other fronts and I will have to take steps to mitigate this if I do go all in.

What I don't like about Windows and Microsoft in general:

• Their update scheme is lead by a group of monkeys with typewriters.  Seriously, I have never seen regular patches to fix patches that were there to fix other patches.  At least not as a regular way of doing business. 
• I don't feel windows is nearly as stable as Mac OS or Linux and system stability is really important to me.
• It feels like windows is still designed almost exclusively for stationary desktop use and are not nearly as mobile friendly. 

Hardware I currently have:

• 2019 Mac Mini i7 6-core, 32gb Ram, vega64 e-gpu, Mac OS
• MSI GS66 stealth i7 6-core, 32gb Ram, 2070 super max-q, Windows 10 Pro, Fedora, used as a developer machine, and is generally crazy overkill for what I do with it.  Most of the time it sits on a desk tied to a thunderbolt docking station.
• Lenovo P53 xeon 6-core, Quadro rtx 5000, 128gb Ram, Windows / MX-Linux / Fedora, used for processing and heavy loads when I need it while traveling.  Also somewhat overkill most of the time, but I also don't have to worry about it breaking if I run it maxed out for 10+ hours straight multiple times a week.
• Custom Workstation 3970x 32-core, 256gb Ram, gtx-2080, Cent-OS / MX-Linux.  Primarily a Pix4d processing machine and vmware host.
• Multiple Android and Mac tablets, Surface Pro 6 i5 version, used primarily for note taking (the pen is awesome) and light web browsing.

[jaslion]

I stick with windows because of the simple thing that more people use it so more software and tools are made. It's really nice when you find those weird little programs that can assist you so much in your work (for me it's lazy nezumi pro for drawing in photoshop). I also just like that I can just decide what device I get instead of. Get device series A, B or C when neither would fulfill my task well enough whilst on the windows (and linux) side of things I can just get device G with a hint of C and the quality of B.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

6 minutes ago, KarsusTG said:

The apple silicone is a modern marvel.

lol silicone. Soft and feels real! (I think you mean silicon)

[BuckGup]

Apple hands down in my opinion. 

 

Eco-system integration 

Security 

Micro-Kernel mangement 

Updates

Device lifespan

QC

IOS development 

Bootcamp for windows

Trackpad

UNIX based

 

With that all said I still do carry around two laptops. One windows and one macOS as I've found you cannot fully lock into one platform without sacrifices. I'd rather sacrifice 2lbs in my backpack than deal with software work arounds.

[KarsusTG]

1 minute ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

lol silicone. Soft and feels real! (I think you mean silicon)

hehe, ya.  One of the dangers of auto-correct...

 

 

[Kilrah]

Although I tried many times I just can't get to grips with Mac OS, really can't like that OS. Plus I just cannot support their recent bullcrap.

I don't see Apple silicon as being of any interest unless your goal is to make money by being among the first to offer apps tailored for it. IMO it'll be a low end option for years before competing with high end if it ever does.

 

Windows as everyday system and linux for servers and whatever else benefits from it it for me.

 

 

[Nayr438]

You already pointed out what you like and dislike, so I think the real question is, what are your more comfortable with using?

Do you need to target a specific OS?

Do you need specific software that only works on one OS?

Are you willing to transition to different software if needed, even if it works vastly differently?

Are you willing to pay to move to Apples ecosystem, while they are preparing to transition to ARM?

 

Really your the only one that can answer that.

 

I have personally used Windows, MacOS, and Linux for development utilizing various languages. In the end I personally prefer Arch with KDE and various open-source software. That is however my preference.

[KarsusTG]

2 hours ago, BuckGup said:

Apple hands down in my opinion. 

 

Eco-system integration 

Security 

Micro-Kernel mangement 

Updates

Device lifespan

QC

IOS development 

Bootcamp for windows

Trackpad

UNIX based

 

With that all said I still do carry around two laptops. One windows and one macOS as I've found you cannot fully lock into one platform without sacrifices. I'd rather sacrifice 2lbs in my backpack than deal with software work arounds.

Ya, at this point I am carrying 2 laptops, a surface pro, and several tablets.  I really need to get that down.  I don't know about QC, but the lifespan, updates, and security are undeniable.  The eco-system integration is both the biggest pro and con to going this route. 

 

53 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

You already pointed out what you like and dislike, so I think the real question is, what are your more comfortable with using?

Do you need to target a specific OS?

Do you need specific software that only works on one OS?

Are you willing to transition to different software if needed, even if it works vastly differently?

Are you willing to pay to move to Apples ecosystem, while they are preparing to transition to ARM?

 

Really your the only one that can answer that.

 

I have personally used Windows, MacOS, and Linux for development utilizing various languages. In the end I personally prefer Arch with KDE and various open-source software. That is however my preference.

 

I am not really more comfortable on one or the other.  The only specialty software I really NEED is stupid expensive and Linux only (how ironic) and I have a dedicated thread-ripper machine just for that software.

 

Everything else I do I can do on any of them.  The truth is though, I probably spend 6-10 hours a month tweaking and futzing with things on Linux to get this or that to work and I am tired of it.  Linux on a laptop honestly sucks even though it's my preferred development environment.  I would much rather develop on Mac OS than Windows and the media options are much better on Mac OS, so there is that.  But the versatility and availability of powerful hardware on windows is a tremendous advantage. 

 

I guess the questions is for those of you that made the switch to Mac, are the quality of life improvements of the apple ecosystem worth the increased cost and giving up the versatility and power of the windows hardware? 

[igormp]

In my personal opinion, I'd just stay with linux, it's by far way easier to develop stuff on, without needing to rely on any 3rd party to fix stuff for you 

 

On the other hand, if I really had to chose, I'd go with MacOS. Way easier to get a dev env going, and it was way more support than windows for the kind of stuff that I do (ML, embedded and some DevOps).

Windows just feels... sluggish. Updates are a mess and even though WSL2 is actually useable, it's still not as comfortable as just popping a shell instantly and doing whatever you need to do.

[Kilrah]

7 hours ago, KarsusTG said:

I guess the questions is for those of you that made the switch to Mac, are the quality of life improvements of the apple ecosystem worth the increased cost and giving up the versatility and power of the windows hardware? 

I'll comment since before going back to Windows I did "switch to mac"... and no, for me the Apple ecosystem got in the way more than anything. Their "quality of life" items only work if you do things exactly the way they intend you to. On other systems when something almost does what you want you can usually tweak it a little and get by, with Apple you have to scrap it all and find a completely different solution, which often will have impact on completely different things as well because everything's interlinked and if you don't want to use program X for something then you have to give up everything because all the other integrations are based on you using program X.