> I can buy any Thinkpad and boot Ubuntu with all hardware detected and functional.
Until you try to hook up an external screen, then all bets are off. I know because I recently attempted to do just that (w530, ubuntu 14.04 LTS). Compare that to buying a macbook pro and it's no contest. The hardware is simply better supported.
That's a straw man argument. If you buy a purpose build hardware for Ubuntu support, you will get a similar working result. As well as on many other configurations. On the other hand OS X only truly supports Apple hardware. Almost every Hacintosh build suffers from some kind of incompatibility.
> On the other hand OS X only truly supports Apple hardware.
I don't care about pendantics. I care if I can plug a monitor into my laptop and have the damned thing work. Guess which one doesn't require me to battle with video drivers and make changes to the bios just to use the displayport?
Until you try to hook up an external screen, then all bets are off. I know because I recently attempted to do just that (w530, ubuntu 14.04 LTS). Compare that to buying a macbook pro and it's no contest. The hardware is simply better supported.