“Both OSs are pretty good, you can choose either one, thanks for coming to my TED talk” 😜
Nevermind 😂 . If you’re new to the software world, you probably asked “Macbook or Windows laptop” to your teachers or seniors. And they probably gave the unhelpful answer “Both are fine, choose the one you prefer” 😩
I’m also relatively new as a 4th grade computer engineering student. Though I’m using both a Windows laptop and a Macbook, I have experience doing software assignments, building Python libraries and Android apps on the laptops. So I belive that I’m kind of qualified to give an answer.
The answer is… Macbook
In my opinion, Macbook is a much better platform for software development than Windows.
Note that I’m assuming that you’ll use the laptop for:
- Software Development
- Doing homework, preparing documents and general productivity usage
I don’t take into account gaming performance. In this comparison I’m considering the latest iteration of M series Macbook Pro vs equivalently priced Windows laptop from popular brands like ASUS or MSI. Though, my points are based on the general principles of Macbook vs Windows and not related to a particular model or a certain price range.
Let’s being exploring Macbook’s advantages
*** Hardware ***
1- Better build and component quality
This is the area where basically everyone, even diehard Windows fans, agree. Macbooks simply have the best build quality, screen, touchpad, keyboard and camera among all laptops in any price bracket.
2- No Fan Noise
M series Macbooks have literally zero fan noise during general usage thanks to its minimal power consumpion. It actually takes a lot of effort to start the fans, I designed a multithreaded C program to run all cores of Macbook Pro at 100% capacity and I only start to hear a slight humming after 10 minutes. This is totally different from the Windows world, where fans start roaring when you open Google Chrome 😅
3- Battery
This is probably the biggest advantage of Macbook. Recent Macbooks have unbelievable battery capacity that can last 10+ hours with multiple IDEs constantly running. Windows laptops usually last for 2–4 hours. Note that these numbers can vary SIGNIFICANTLY based on your device and usage, but we can safely claim that Macbooks last at least as twice as lonh.
Now here is the even more important part. Macbooks can sustain the EXACT performance when on battery. This is a significant advancement in technology that no one could think of before M series Macbooks.
Most Windows laptops immediately start lagging when you remove the plug. Macbooks sustain the same performance even during gaming or heavy programming loads such as emulating an Android phone in Android Studio. This is quite significant as it allows you to continue the same workflow on the go.
*** Software ***
1- Being Unix Based
When it comes to software, the biggest and the most well known advantage of Macbook is being Unix based.
Why does it matter ? Almost all servers, clouds, docker containers are based on Linux, which is also Unix based. All Unix systems share same (or very similar) structure for terminal commands, bash scripts and file systems.
As such, MacOS is very similar to Linux and this is a huge advantage. In context of programming tools, Linux is by far the most popular OS. When you search for “How to do X in terminal” you will see results for Linux terminal. For Windows you have to search “How to do X in Windows terminal” and you’ll probably see StackOverflow questions with zero answers 😂
If something is available on Linux, its change of being available is 90% on MacOS and 30% on Windows (not statistics, my educated guesses 😜). Another advantage for a newbie is as you learn your Mac’s terminal commands and bash scripts, you’ll become familiar with Linux as well.
2- Homebrew
Homebrew is MacOS-exlusive package manager similar to Linux’s APT, which is a significant advantage over Windows who doesn’t have a one (Microsoft released Winget in 2020 but it is far from being popular).
Homebrew allows you install millions of command line tools & GUI applications with a single command, brew install xyz . You can also easily and safely list, update and delete them from terminal.
Let’s say that you want to convert a pdf file to excel. In Mac, you can easily install pdf2excel or similar brew tools and finish your job. In Windows, you have to download a GUI application from internet. You open the .exe and click “Next” on the infamous setup screen 😀 to install it (and a lot of bloatware if not malware). You may also see that the app asks for money for certain features and you’ll start searching for cracks 😀. Ah, my childhood days with Windows.
An advantage of doing something in terminal is you can easily create bash scipts to automate it or process multiple files with it (i.e. convert 1000 PDF files to excel). And in many platforms like Docker, you don’t access to have a GUI at all, so getting familiar to the terminal is crucial.
3- Better Performance and Stability
Thanks to the ARM architecture of M series Macbooks, they are quite good in terms of performance. Macbooks are simply 100% fluid in general usage . In my 2 years of experience with Macbook Pro, I have encountered very few lags, and it was usually when I intentionally tried to reach the device’s limits. On contrast, Windows may suddenly lag when on desktop or when browsing on Chrome. I encountered a lot of “nonsense lag” with Windows, where the device illogically lags while CPU and RAM usage is below 20%. And thanks to its high quality applications (I will get into later), better updates and safer OS, MacOS doesn’t need regular formatting unlike Windows which needs formatting every 6 months (ok I’m exaggerating it a little bit 😀)
4- Safer
This one is very straightforward and universally agreed. MacOS and Linux are much safer than Windows thanks to UNIX’s open source code. Everything about UNIX/Linux is extremely well studied, documented, and battle tested especially when it comes to safety elements like file permissions. These things are more arbitrary on Windows and they often change between versions. And Windows is a more popular target for malware designers due to its GUI & “Next Next Next” culture 😹 and its high user count with low technical knowledge.
Apple also extensively scans Mac App store apps for malware, and started a “Notarization” program where 3rd party apps can apply to be scanned by Apple to ensure being safe.
5- Everything is made by Apple
Everything component and the OS of the Macbook is designed by Apple and this is a big advantage over Windows.
For example, a Windows laptop has its OS made by Microsoft, CPU by Intel, GPU by Nvidia and motherboard by an OEM (i.e. Asus). This causes all sorts of overheads and inefficiencies. For example, all of these have their own performance setting. What if you set Windows to high performance, Intel to power saving, Nvidia to balanced and Asus Control Center to power saving ? What if you do it the opposite way? There is no way to know which combination is optimal.
In Macbook, this setting is very simple, you either toggle power saving on or off. This simplicity and efficiency applies to all sorts of hardware & software customization.
6- High Quality 3rd Party Applications
You’ve probably heard that almost all 3rd party applications such as code editors, IDEs, Whatsapp, browsers are much better on MacOS compared to their Windows counterparts, just like iOS vs Android. There are a few reasons for this:
- There are 3–5 Macbooks on sale, compared to hundreds of thousands of Windows laptop models at any given point. And the Macbooks are almost identical while Windows are extremely fragmented with so many different CPUs and manufacturers. As such, it is easier to optimize an application to Macbook. If you are using one of the latest Macbook models, the changes are 99.9% that JetBrains throughly tested their latest IDE on your device, but this is very unlikely on your Windows laptop.
- Software development infrastructure for MacOS is way better than Windows. Apple has extensive documentation, SDK and the Xcode software that is specifically created to design MacOS (and of course iOS, WatchOS etc.) applications. Apple is also known to keep strict standarts and reject applications that doesn’t meet a bar. On the other hand, Windows is a total zoo 😀.
- Macbooks users have higher income on average (this isn’t my arrogant elitism, a statistical fact 😜), and cracks are less available in MacOS. Therefore developers generate more revenue from Mac and of course pay more attention to it.
7- Windows is actually more restrictive
There is a narrative that Apple is jailing their users and while this is true for iOS, I actually think that MacOS gives users more freedom than Windows.
- Windows forces you to login with a Microsoft account during setup (I had to cut the computer’s internet access to bypass this), while Apple doesn’t have such BS.
- Some windows applications are only available on Microsoft Store, which is extremely annoying, while Apple never forces you to use Mac App Store . Once upona time, I tried open a HEIC image file in Windows and a Microsoft Store prompt popped up asking me to pay $0.5 to open HEIC extension. This in unimaginable on any Apple product !
- Microsoft does all sorts of gimmicks to force you to use products like Edge, Outlook and Bing. On my Mac, I was initially using Chrome, and I didn’t see a SINGLE prompt urging me to use Safari. Later, I discovered Safari on my own and it has become my preferred browser since.
- Last but not least, the infamous Windows Updates. When there is an update, Apple simply alerts you and you can do it whenever(if) you want. Windows ??? . They force you to do update and you can only postpone it for 1 week, then at any given point your work may be interrupted with a sudden update. (It used to be like this, maybe now they changed it 🤣) Check these!!! :) :
8- Mac exclusive software
Macbook is packed with Mac exclusive Apple software such as Xcode, Logic pro and Final Cut Pro. If you want to develop software for any Apple Platforms (Mac, iPhone, Apple TV…), Xcode is a must. The opposite isn’t a true, as Windows and Android tools (.NET, Android Studio) are available and work pretty well on MacOS. So a Mac gives you access to both ecosystems, while Windows is limited to Windows-Android.
9- You can use Windows on MacOS, but not vice versa
You can run Windows and MacOS with softwares like Parallels Desktop, but you can’t run MacOS on a Windows Laptop. (There was thing named Hackintosh but was pretty unreliable and don’t know if it still works). This is another advantage of Mac. And when Windows 11 is fully released for ARM, it will be possible to run it natively on ARM (M series) Macbooks.
10- Better interface and operating system
This one is more subjective compared to my previous points, I prefer the interface of the MacOS. The settings menu, shortcuts, native apps, spotlight search, application system are better than Windows visually and functionally. And MacOS is releasing a new major version every year with awesome updates. MacOS’ update system makes FAR more sense than Windows. The current version of my Mac is 14.3, I know that Apple will release minor updates every week and a major version (15) next year. Makes more sense than Windows 11 Service Pack 7983 Security Update Patch 1739202 😀. Did I say that the Mac doesn’t force me to do updates ?
11- The Apple Ecosystem
This has become a meme at this point to mock Apple fans, but trust me, the Apple ecosystem is a real thing. You can copy a text from your Mac and paste it on iPhone, your data is synchronised across many apps, you can start working on something and continue on your other Apple device etc.
Now some people say “how hard is it to email a text to yourself, does it really matter to being able to cross copy paste?”. I think they misunderstand the point. Yes, in 2023 there millions if not billions of ways to transfer a string from device A to device B. But speed and productivity are really important, spending 30 seconds to email yourself adds up on long term. Nowadays in software world, oftentimes you can do something but what really matters is how efficient you are while doing it.
If you don’t have other Apple devices don’t worry, you won’t have any issues with Mac, you just won’t get the benefits of the Apple ecosystem.
Windows’ Advantages ?
Of course Windows have some advantages over Macbook
- Windows is simply better when it comes to gaming. While Mac is trying to catch up, Windows will remain dominant in gaming
- While I usually prefer the interface of MacOS, I prefer Windows’ file explorer over MacOS’s finder. And some settings such as WiFi are better on Windows as they offer more configuration for advanced use cases.
- Windows is better at handling I/O devices. When you connect a device to a Windows’ USB it usually works better without headache. Some legacy electronics kits don’t work at all on Macs .
- While you can install Windows on Mac with Parallels Desktop and it works flawless for modern applications, it doesn’t support some old software like old engineering simulation softwares. For example, some features of the Proteus Design Suite doesn’t work on Parallels and you need a native Windows for it.
Summary
While Mac and Windows have their own advantages, I think Macbook is the superior software development platform overall. And I believe that its future is brighter as well, because the ARM adaption is just getting started and there are many advancements on the horizon. If you’ll use a single laptop, IMO getting a M-series Macbook is a no brainer at this point.
Macbook is better with modern IDEs and software, while Windows is sometimes better when working with older software and hardware. But let’s be honest: if your teachers are still giving assignments that could only be done with 1980s-era technology, it’s more indicative of your teacher being a dinosaur than it is a fault of the MacBook. 😉
