The big question here is - are users of these Macs still going to be allowed to decide what software they can run or will that decision be made by Apple like on iOS?
Doesn't everyone have ways around? Cmd-click + open for programs, "Run Anyway" or whatever it is called in the Security Preference pane for extensions etc?
Possibly, but at some point they will need to provide a reasonable way for their developer base to get by. They do depend on the community quite a lot for the popularity and if at some point you won't be able to develop for their platforms you won't. At the moment there is not much to go around (granted I don't do kernel development).
> Everyting else seems to be cross platform and runs ok on Windows, or even linux.
Yes, but then you have to run Windows or Linux.
I think that people don't (on the whole) get Macs in order to run particular software, but many (myself included) do get Macs in order to run MacOS. (Silky smooth trackpads don't hurt, either.)
This. I can’t stand Windows. Using it in anything than the most shallow of user scenarios feels like an archeology expedition. When you need to do something with the network card (as an example, or a printer) you find remnants of Windows 7, XP, 2000 or even NT. The UI is a mess and version 10 has put lipstick on a pig.
The tools I use in my work aren’t really available in a good form on Linux, so MacOS it is. Also, I have quite a lot of software already that would be both hard an expensive to replace, but I wouldn’t go back to Windows, ever, then I would rather live with the limitations of Linux.
> The UI is a mess and version 10 has put lipstick on a pig.
This is exactly how I've always felt about the Mac OS UI. Small example of why I feel this way: There are many windows on a Mac that you can open that you then cannot switch back to with the keyboard alone. Try it out - on an unmodified macOS open "About this Mac" then alt-tab to some other program. Now try to get back to "About this Mac" with your keyboard the same way you switched away from it. And it's the same for any window you open from a menu-bar.
Macs fail so horribly on such a very, very, very basic interaction and the entire OS is filled with shit like this. I could literally fill an entire blog with examples of how badly the macOS fails users, but that would mean I'd have to use my Macs more often for things other than just compiling iOS apps. No fucking thanks!
Windows is a mecca of consistency where it really matters compared to this garbage. Sure, you can complain about the rare times that you're exposed to 2 different control panels (yawn) but if you fuck up very basic things like window management like macOS does it's much, much worse IMO.
I feel like really good marketing, sex appeal, status symbolism, herd immunity (at least in Silicon Valley) and of course the fact that macOS is a very stable, low-maintenance Unix keep a lot of people blind to the glaring inconsistencies in the macOS UI.
Nope, none of that, at least imho. It’s a damn good Unix workstation, like I’ve been using for the last 30 years, and you get excellent commercial app support. That’s all that’s necessary for me.
That’s the thing. Mac and Windows both have their major UI failures and both suck in their own shitty ways but at the end of the day Mac is built on a good solid platform while Windows underneath the hood is... Windows.
> And it's the same for any window you open from a menu-bar.
Most windows can be switched to by switching to the app with Cmd+Tab, then cycling windows with Cmd+`. The "About this Mac" window is an outlier because it isn't associated with an application.
“About this Mac” is not an application. It is a non-modal dialog box that does not stay open when you move away. What kind of use case do you have where you need it to stay open?
It makes sense now that you describe it as a dialog box instead of a "magic app that doesn't show up in the cmd-tab switcher", which is how I thought of it before. If it were any other app and I wanted to find the dialog again, I would cmd-tab to the app. I guess the problem is that whatever app it belongs to (Dock.app?) has no place in the cmd-tab switcher.
(on my Mojave machine, it does stay open when I move away from it, when I cmd-tab to something else and then a third something else, "About this Mac" is still visible.)
I really like Linux and would use it happily, but beyond all the software you can't get for Linux, things like trackpad and screen support are just great on the Mac, especially multiple, screens with HiDPI.
An underestimated benefit of Linux vs MacOS especially if they go for ARM is that Wine is getting really, really good. One more than one occasion I downloaded an exe by accident and used it flawlessly.
The major Linux desktop environments seem to be perpetually stuck in a weird almost-good-enough-but-not-quite state where all the broad strokes are right, but the fine details are marred with small quirks and papercuts. So close yet so far. It’s a bit frustrating.
For the same price as a macbook, you can get a more powerful Dell that will run bloated apps faster than macbook runs "lean". Then again you can also slightly tweak Linux for any low latency scenario that is needed.
There is plenty of Mac-only software that is better than the equivalent on other platforms yes.
But even for software that is available cross platform, or that has comparable equivalents, the app could be the greatest thing since sliced bread, that can't fix the cluster fuck that is windows.
Edit: I should add: I haven't tried a Linux desktop in quite a while (I use Debian servers on a daily basis). Maybe it's gotten better, but given the number of "hey cool, it uses Electron so that means there'll be a Linux version" comments I see, I'm not really that optimistic.
Windows is a clusterfuck indeed, I would hate to use that to work on. _But_, if it has one 'killer feature' over apple computers, it's gaming I think. Steam proton does a great job making gaming possible on Linux though and possible on Mac as well, haven't tested that.
Yea, but you wont buy a Mac just to run Omnifocus. You can probably find alternatives on other platforms or in the cloud that are just as good or better.
I'm talking about killer applications, where the overall experience on mac is magnitudes better than anywhere else.
But there are many more: Things, DeckSet, Affinity Designer/Photo/Illustrator (available on Windows, but nothing of the same quality on Linux), Little Snitch, LaunchBar/Alfred. The Mac has traditionally had a very good shareware ecosystem.
But even basic things like Preview are many times better than Evince, Okular, or whatever Windows uses. Who needs a killer app when the OS is already a killer app?
Linux user here to confirm that I bitterly miss OmniGraffle. That is one of the most amazing pieces of software of all time. I used to dream GNUStep would advance enough to allow Omni to target Linux.
The Cocoa APIs in the hands of decent developers result in pretty amazing software. Desktop services were great too (though I gather have been hobbled in recent macOS releases?).
I’m actually really surprised there hasn’t been more of a push to emulate Apple’s approach to desktop / GUI APIs. For all the effort dumped into Gnome, KDE, and a thousand skin-deep window dressings for Linux, we could have had a truly first-class alternative implementation of Cocoa.
As it is I worry that too many developers are living as vassals to Apple’s platform. It would be nice to have an alternative to Apple that doesn’t abandon all the blood sweat and tears non-Apple developers have poured into enriching the platform.
There's a lot of unique, very high quality software that only runs on macs:
For designers not on Figma: Sketch, OmniGraffle, Principle, xScope and a fully featured OS color picker and palette manager that works across all apps.
As a developer, I wouldn't want to miss: Paw, Alfred, iA Writer, Monodraw and Kaleidoscope.
A niche favorite that really has no analogues at all: Lumen video synthesizer
Only the design stuff is probably in the "worth getting a Mac for" category though.
Why would you disqualify Apple’s software? They built the OS. That’s the reason to get it. Because while Windows “runs okay” it’s still worse, despite Apple’s recent buggy releases.
Don’t forget that “Apple‘s software” includes utilities like Preview, Spotlight, Finder, the screenshot utility, and even System Preferences where Microsoft isn’t delivering a competent alternative. Let me know when enabling or disabling a network card doesn’t dump me into the Windows Vista Control Panel in a completely separate window.
And Windows still updates itself too much. It’s infuriating. The whole concept of active hours sucks. Microsoft’s “solution” to their update nightmare is to make you keep your computer on all the time. Every time I fire up my gaming PC it wants to update and hijacks my ability to shut down or restart. They should have a “consumers who don’t give a shit about KB1234567 .NET 3.5 patch” channel that releases no more frequently than monthly or maybe even quarterly.
Then if you own an iPhone like half the USA and are already interested in a laptop that costs at least $999 it’s really hard to look away from the Mac.
Considering that smartphones are more important to most people than their laptops, including many people that use laptops for a living, it shouldn’t be surprising that macOS is such a compelling option. My laptop is now basically just for work while my phone is my “PC” - my personal computer.
And in that sense iOS is a driver as a reason to use macOS. I’m not going to give up Handoff and AirDrop just to save a few bucks - and which Android phone costs $399, has the fastest available processor, has a solid camera, and will get 5+ years of software updates?
As long as you don't mind taking an hour or two to root it and unlock the bootloader, an LG V30 is 150$ new, is very well supported by the ROM community, supports GCam (since the camera hardware is superior to pixels, the quality is simply amazing) with results that my friends with iPhone 11 pros accept are superior, has a processor fast enough for everything except heavy gaming, supports "AirDrop" via KDE connect (I literally have my phones filesystem mounted on my computer at all time, and I can share->send to computer, as well as the reverse).
It doesn't have the fastest processor, but at least I can use it however I want, and doesn't have a 1500mAh battery that will render it useless in two years.
It's interesting that people go on the Internet, by nature a global medium, and then assume that their audience is American. iOS currently has a worldwide market share of about 27% (source: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide).
Is there a good machine that allows me to run an ok operating system with command line that has fewer software limitations (Linux) and doesn't feel unpredictable and sometimes broken (Windows)?
I use Linux. I like Linux. But sometimes some mainstream software won't run there. A VM helps but doesn't solve everything.
If you hadn't included that restriction, I'd tell you about Numbers. Not all spreadsheet type problems fit into its limitations, but for those that do, it makes you ask "Why don't all spreadsheets work this way?"
But you did make that a restriction on your criteria, so forget I said anything. :)
The first non-Apple software I thought of when you asked the question was PDFpen, which operates vaguely like what is now called "Acrobat DC" used to. Acrobat drives me up a wall; it's like they asked, "How can we make the Microsoft ribbon interface even worse? Let's do that!"
I have about three Markdown editors that are Mac-only that I like better than any cross-platform alternative I've tried. (Byword, Markdown Pro and MultiMarkdown Composer.) I have three because none of them does everything right, so I occasionally have to switch for some task or other. I'd happily switch to something cross-platform if it matched the union of those three apps' features, those I care about, anyway.
I suspect I have three solid Markdown editors to choose from because they're all based on solid OS-level rich text editing features that exceed what you get on Windows, so the non-Mac competition has to waste a lot of resources reinventing wheels. Just as one example, you get grammar checking for free in most Mac native text-editing software. Where it doesn't occur, it's usually because the app is cross-platform and is thus avoiding Mac-specific features.
A related example is the built-in dictionary. You can get dictionary/thesaurus apps on other platforms, but they generally aren't as deeply integrated as the one on macOS.
Then there are the times where you have a cross-platform app that simply works better on macOS. VLC and MacVim (as compared to gVim) come to mind.
This is where I take issue. Messages is completely inferior to competitors like WhatsApp. Using on your laptop? Everyone has that now. There is nothing that messages has that it's competitors don't. What's something that the competitors have? They work everywhere! Which is the most important part of a messaging app. If half your friends can't use it (which is statistically likely, unless you only make friends with people who use apple) then it's useless.
There is nothing that messages has that it's competitors don't.
The combination of: wide acceptance + an owner who is not incentivized to use your chat (meta)data to sell ads. That is something for a platform we use to share very intimate conversations.
Sure, there is Signal, but it is far less widely used (at least among my friends).
And then Messages has some very nice platform integrations, such as: Continuity, fill 2FA codes from SMS received on your phone into a web form on your Mac, animoji.
Messages works with SMS. As far as I can tell, WhatsApp doesn't. That's a HUGE difference and definitely what I would call "wide acceptance". I can text my grandma from my MacBook via messages. Good luck getting her into WhatsApp.
You're talking about iMessage. Messages uses iMessage AND SMS so it is a tool I can communicate with everyone without them needing to install anything or have any kind of account.
The ubiquity and integration with the OS is unlike anything anywhere else. Every time I've tried to use Linux/Windows/Android it's the killer feature that brings me back.
You comment is blowing my mind. Being a Mac User since the 1990 the usual question was "But don't you think it's impossible to switch to Mac because you won't be able to run X software".
The fact that most software nowadays are cross platform and run on Mac is actually an improvement from earlier situation! (Gaming is lagging behind because of DirectX and other windows only engine)
Apple has kept OpenGL support held back to version 4.1, and it's also been deprecated. They also invented their own rendering API instead of settling with the cross platform Vulkan API that GPU manufacturers settled on. Apple's got no one to blame for game support but themselves.
Vulkan is built on top of AMD Mantle, which predates Metal. There's not much reason to think that when they started working on Vulkan in 2014 that they were even trying to compete with metal, considering it was still iOS only at that point.
> Is there any software not built by Apple that is worth getting a Mac for?
I run basic software like a browser, command-line tools, editors, a few IDEs - it's all completely cross-platform stuff - and I think it's worth getting a Mac for that. I don't know any better hardware for personal computing. What do you use that's better designed, integrated and constructed?
> What do you use that's better designed, integrated and constructed?
That really depends on what you care about. I have a keyboard that doesn't suck, a nice selection of ports, a cooling solution that's quieter and more effective at load, expandable memory/storage (yes, I have actually used this), a power brick that can sustain full load for an indefinite amount of time, a high refresh display and a numpad. Considering repairability, I'd argue it's better constructed than a MacBook. Concerning design, it fits more of my requirements hardware wise. And for integration, all the hardware components I use have stable Linux drivers.
Indeed, a well "curated" PC built specifically to run Linux is a beautiful thing. Now that I know how to do it, I don't see myself going back to Apple for anything other than my phone any time soon.
I see people having a really hard time trying to do basic things like run their displays at a reasonable resolution on Linux, even on premium hardware - some apps seem to scale badly for some reason? Most non-Apple laptops seem to only be available up to HD resolution as well, which seems absolutely crazy to me.
Actually, I see a lot of non-Apple laptops offer HD (1080p) displays, with the only upgrade option being 4K, usually at a price premium of $300-$500. That's even more annoying to me. Lenovo is one of the few manufacturers I see that allows you to step up to a 1440p display for a moderate cost.
I suppose this depends on what you do with the device. I'm now using Mac because of project requirements, and for Android development this is a clear downgrade from Linux. The emulator is like it's running in a pool of tar, pretty painful to do anything with it.
Yes, as it is the one defining difference of the Mac: it is still a real computer where you have file access and can install anything you want - which is basically the prerequisite for doing any serious developer work on a machine. Actually, it is the prerequisite for doing a lot of work on any machine.
