for me, it's because nothing matches MBPs trackpad. I never feel I need a mouse using a MBP, but on both Windows and Linux notebooks, I really need a mouse and sit down in front of a table to be productive.
Is it better on the Surface Book than a regular Surface with a touch cover? Because I have the latter, and it is not even in the same ballpark. I just plug a mouse in when I use my Surface.
This is a big deal for me. I hated trackpads before I got this MBP. I was using a Thinkpad before and I thought it had a pretty nice touchpad compared to other laptops I had used. After a few months, I can't use the Thinkpad's touchpad because it's so much worse (movement and gestures).
My main machine for the past few years has been Lenovo X1 Carbon from a few gens ago - have had a great experience. Dual boots windows and Ubuntu without issue, battery life is great, performance is great with 16G/SSD/i7, feels well built and keyboard is as good as any that I've had on a Thinkpad. The only thing I miss from the MBP is the trackpad.
the main problem for people complaining about the new macbooks pro is the keyboard. just buy a silicone keyboard cover protection and it's working great!
I think the people who don't like it are the loudest. It certainly has some drawbacks (like the keyboard, lack of ports), and for some that's a deal-breaker.
Personally, I love my MBP I got late last year — 13", no touchbar. I use the larger, touchbar version for work, and it doesn't really suit me.
The only things that really bother me are the keyboard and sometimes the lack of ports, but honestly the keyboard is still pretty good, and I don't find myself plugging things into my laptop that often.
I think people are mostly complaining about the direction the last update took, such as the touchbar which seems more targeted at less experienced computer users and lack of RAM options beyond 16gb, etc.
Because I got tired of the blue screens of death, and despite the MBP being way over priced it does one thing very well... it works 99% of the time. Plus it looks cool, if you care about that sort of thing.
The downvotes for you are puzzling. At work I compile a large project in VS2017 multiple times per day, and my machine will intermittently bluescreen during the compile. Happens to a number of my coworkers as well. W10 has come a long, long way since the unstable foundations of its forebears, but my personal experience with it still includes more crashes than I can write off as flaky hardware/drivers or mere chance.
Agreed, Windows 10 is still a mess. I have constant issues with stability.
My latest fun issue is that my gaming desktop won't install OS updates. It knows there are updates available, but when I tell it to install, the progress bar never progresses. I've tried restarting multiple times, but it makes no difference. I thought maybe I just needed to let it run for a while. It's been running for 3 days now, and the progress bar still hasn't moved.
I guess I'm probably going to have to either reformat the machine, or decide that I don't want OS updates any longer.
Yep. I ranted about this in another thread recently so I won't rehash (much), but part of what I dislike about Windows is that its excessive complexity creates a gulf between the quick fix and "welp, time to reformat." And thanks to the need for backward compatibility, I doubt it will ever get better.
I have a mac mini for my study desktop (use it to shell into machines to develop, watch YouTube tech videos, and listen to music with iTunes from my NAS), but every time I think about buying an MBP I remember the horror stories from watching Louis Rossmann's videos on YouTube and think "Do I really want to drop almost $2,000 on a device that is going to break down because it's more slick than it is well constructed?"
I'll never understand the "stability" argument for macs. I have a gaming desktop at home that I also use for personal projects. In a decade, I have had zero bluescreens, despite AMD drivers not being the happiest all the time, and doing sketchy things with homemade code that I possibly shouldn't.
Meanwhile, my OSX work laptop needs to be restarted multiple times a week, or the wifi gets temperamental and programs somehow start to accumulate and eat all the available CPU and RAM, it restarts itself periodically with zero warning (thank goodness for the "open everything up exactly how it was" feature, pretty much necessary at this point, compare that with Windows, where I'm glad for the once a month forced restart because otherwise I'd never close out of way too much software), and has had several kernel panics just this year, which are caused by OSX itself according to the dump. It regularly struggles to do basic things, like dismiss the screensaver on wakeup.
It truly is a finicky and pathetic system to me, and the only reason I'm okay with using it is that it has SLIGHTLY better support for POSIX than Windows 7, and because I'm required by my work to use it.
> despite AMD drivers not being the happiest all the time
This is something you will not have to even think about on a healthy mac, as long as the hardware is not damaged in some way.
> Meanwhile, my OSX work laptop needs to be restarted multiple times a week, or the wifi gets temperamental and programs somehow start to accumulate and eat all the available CPU and RAM, it restarts itself periodically with zero warning (...) , and has had several kernel panics just this year, which are caused by OSX itself according to the dump.
Your mac has hardware problems -- ask for a new one, if possible.
Really? OpenGL drivers on macOS are absolutely shitty and I've seen plenty of strange behavior from them that definitely wasn't a hardware issue. It's also not hard to get suspend-resume issues on macOS with perfectly healthy hardware, especially if you keep upgrading instead of installing the new OS fresh. Plus there are plenty of small issues across various utilities here and there. It really isn't the most stable piece of software out there.
I had lots of inexplicable failures and kernel panics, and ran the diagnostic (hold D during startup), got an error code, brought it in, and got a new motherboard.
Runs mostly ok now, though still a pretty crap machine in my view (keyboard, 4 hours battery life (less if you do any actual work), terrible WiFi (2.4 GHz) when any dongle is plugged in (and with 2 ports, one of which is for charging, you need dongles), etc.).
There are 8 billion people on this planet. The people that think MacBook Pros suck are likely very often not the same people that use them. And, when they do overlap, it's likely due to technology lock-in (they use Final Cut or whatever) or thinking the other options suck even worse.
I have to second the other person recommending a Lenovo X1 Carbon. I had one for awhile and it was just about the perfect laptop. Surface Pro looks nice too.
Honestly the linux subsystem for windows 10 is good enough for me. I see less and less of a need for an osx box for development if you're just looking for a unix subsystem.
FWIW I use a Dell XPS 13 and a Surface Pro and both work perfectly well. Install Ubuntu from the app store, get Mobaxterm and run gnome-terminal. You're set at that point.
I find it "just" good enough, if I limit my development requirements. It won't run the latest CockroachDB for example (bug filed). Running anything under Docker that has significant internet I/O leads to having to restart Docker several times a day - this seems to be due to excessive caching (or a memory leak) in the necessary VPN technique Docker uses to interact with the Windows networking. This bug seems to alternate between existence and non-existence - maybe it's a dual development track issue at Docker. Running tmux has odd interactions regarding copy/paste that I still find irritating, but I simply live with. So, what I do is use it as a proper ssh terminal, do and keep my work on other proper servers, and live with the tmux idiosyncrasies. That's just good enough for me, and lets me use a large-screen Yoga, which I like, and keep Windows, which work occasionally requires, without messing with VMs.
The Razer Blade is a surprisingly capable, beautiful alternative.
I will say that the primary driver is more being on MacOS, which is a nice middle ground for ease of use for our developer team that's primarily working in things like Ruby on Rails and React, and also really great for movie editing for our marketing folks.
We're all still holding hope that the next MBP fixes the keyboard issues. Personally I'm still jamming on a 2011 MBA that's probably the single most reliable, functional piece of hardware I've ever owned. It's the definitive workhorse. It's a shame the quality hasn't kept pace across the other lines and new models.
With OSX, I get to be lazy when it comes to the OS. No wrangling, configuring like I see friends having to do. The environment is mindless and works.
And they're pretty. Great screens and resolution. And everyone else had one when I started developing. And I was kind of excited to put a sticker on top of the apple.
Switching to linux is in the same category as Vim for me. Something I should do someday.
YMMV, but I configured i3, vim and some other stuff years ago and just copy configs from previous laptop to the next one. New laptop usually works just of the box and it is already configured the way I'm used to.
If you can get used a TrackPoint (the nub thing on ThinkPads) or similar on another brand it's probably a better alternative to a MBP. I did as of a few years ago and would never go back to the imprecise and slow navigation with a trackpad.
The only thing I miss from my 2015 MBP is the MagSafe charger. Hardware wise, everything else now is better I think, even the touch bar which actually means there’s some utility for me in that space of the keyboard – I never used the Fn-keys and a software Esc key doesn’t bother me one bit.
That depends on your tools and platforms of choice. For most open source stuff, Windows has less support than Linux and macOS because it usually requires tweaks (build tools, libs, etc).
I usually see this as a purposeful choice of open source teams and developers. It's not like you CAN'T create an easy and thorough build process for Windows machines. Even if you ignore turning it into a VS solution, batch files can do the job, but nobody is willing to do the extra work because they personally don't use Windows so it won't benefit them.
I've been using macbooks full time for 3 years now and I hate them. They are bad hardware for a high price tag.
As a developer they are the perfect middle ground. OSX runs everything I usually run in Linux and I have all the paid for software I'd run on windows (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc).
Prior to switching to mac I just dual booted windows and linux depending on what I needed. Then sketch came out and it was only OSX and I had to make the decision on having a third setup.
Then I realized everything I was doing in my 2 OSes I could do in a single one even though I hated the hardware.
You ever tried to do photo manipulation, graphic design, or video editing in a virtualized OS? It is miserable. There is a reason I said I was dual booting and not running virtualization :)
I use GPU passthrough and run games in Windows under KVM with equal or slightly less (~3-5%) frames. Photo manipulation and graphic design work fine in Photoshop in my setup. Not so sure about video editing.
Can you define "bad hardware"? To my coworkers, this usually means they can't get the largest amount of RAM on the mac that they can get when they buy a $WINTEL.
On the flipside, their battery life always ends up worse and they go through twice as many machines in the same time frame, which is _much_ more annoying. A week of productivity loss a year isn't worth the cost savings.
The cost issue is always strange one for me. Most employers are happy to drop $2500 on a laptop. If you are purchasing it yourself, fine, but that's usually not the case for a work machine.
I have read a fair bit about Python being a mess on Macs recently, and a few years ago Java was apparently a mess. I don't use a mac so I wouldn't know, but is it really just a case of installing things easily on a Mac?
If it's available on Homebrew and up to date(!), then most of the time it's two or three commands to install. However, when homebrew doesn't do the job 100%, then you are likely better off trying to build from source rather than play around with how homebrew works to "fix" its install
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[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 181 ms ] threadSurface Covers had a lot of restrictions in terms of size, power and complexity.
Personally, I love my MBP I got late last year — 13", no touchbar. I use the larger, touchbar version for work, and it doesn't really suit me.
The only things that really bother me are the keyboard and sometimes the lack of ports, but honestly the keyboard is still pretty good, and I don't find myself plugging things into my laptop that often.
I think people are mostly complaining about the direction the last update took, such as the touchbar which seems more targeted at less experienced computer users and lack of RAM options beyond 16gb, etc.
(Although I admit I've primarily used a Mac the past couple years, so maybe Window 10 has degraded recently.)
My latest fun issue is that my gaming desktop won't install OS updates. It knows there are updates available, but when I tell it to install, the progress bar never progresses. I've tried restarting multiple times, but it makes no difference. I thought maybe I just needed to let it run for a while. It's been running for 3 days now, and the progress bar still hasn't moved.
I guess I'm probably going to have to either reformat the machine, or decide that I don't want OS updates any longer.
Meanwhile, my OSX work laptop needs to be restarted multiple times a week, or the wifi gets temperamental and programs somehow start to accumulate and eat all the available CPU and RAM, it restarts itself periodically with zero warning (thank goodness for the "open everything up exactly how it was" feature, pretty much necessary at this point, compare that with Windows, where I'm glad for the once a month forced restart because otherwise I'd never close out of way too much software), and has had several kernel panics just this year, which are caused by OSX itself according to the dump. It regularly struggles to do basic things, like dismiss the screensaver on wakeup. It truly is a finicky and pathetic system to me, and the only reason I'm okay with using it is that it has SLIGHTLY better support for POSIX than Windows 7, and because I'm required by my work to use it.
This is something you will not have to even think about on a healthy mac, as long as the hardware is not damaged in some way.
> Meanwhile, my OSX work laptop needs to be restarted multiple times a week, or the wifi gets temperamental and programs somehow start to accumulate and eat all the available CPU and RAM, it restarts itself periodically with zero warning (...) , and has had several kernel panics just this year, which are caused by OSX itself according to the dump.
Your mac has hardware problems -- ask for a new one, if possible.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257
Runs mostly ok now, though still a pretty crap machine in my view (keyboard, 4 hours battery life (less if you do any actual work), terrible WiFi (2.4 GHz) when any dongle is plugged in (and with 2 ports, one of which is for charging, you need dongles), etc.).
I have to second the other person recommending a Lenovo X1 Carbon. I had one for awhile and it was just about the perfect laptop. Surface Pro looks nice too.
FWIW I use a Dell XPS 13 and a Surface Pro and both work perfectly well. Install Ubuntu from the app store, get Mobaxterm and run gnome-terminal. You're set at that point.
I will say that the primary driver is more being on MacOS, which is a nice middle ground for ease of use for our developer team that's primarily working in things like Ruby on Rails and React, and also really great for movie editing for our marketing folks.
We're all still holding hope that the next MBP fixes the keyboard issues. Personally I'm still jamming on a 2011 MBA that's probably the single most reliable, functional piece of hardware I've ever owned. It's the definitive workhorse. It's a shame the quality hasn't kept pace across the other lines and new models.
Switching to linux is in the same category as Vim for me. Something I should do someday.
This 2015 model comes with MagSafe, USB-A, and a physical Escape key: all features you won't find on the newest model.
I won't be buying another Mac. But I do love this one.
Next laptop will probably be some Dell XPS, Lenovo X1, or Surface Pro. It'll depend on what I'll need at work.
Now the software though... so, many, bugs!
I tend to agree with him.
That's not true at all. The Macintosh OS easily requires more tweaks than Windows to do things like Python, Go, Node.js and Rust.
Everything is better on Windows.
As a developer they are the perfect middle ground. OSX runs everything I usually run in Linux and I have all the paid for software I'd run on windows (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc).
Prior to switching to mac I just dual booted windows and linux depending on what I needed. Then sketch came out and it was only OSX and I had to make the decision on having a third setup.
Then I realized everything I was doing in my 2 OSes I could do in a single one even though I hated the hardware.
Its on my list to try again and see if they've made it better.
On the flipside, their battery life always ends up worse and they go through twice as many machines in the same time frame, which is _much_ more annoying. A week of productivity loss a year isn't worth the cost savings.
The cost issue is always strange one for me. Most employers are happy to drop $2500 on a laptop. If you are purchasing it yourself, fine, but that's usually not the case for a work machine.
I've seen developers waste an entire week trying to get basic things like docker to run on Windows...
I'm sure things have gotten better in Windows land, but now that I already have my Macbook, the impetus for change is just not there...
and
trackpad size is like salt, you can have too much.