I am firmly in the the MacOS corner because the OS is stable-stable-and can I say, WOW! stable! I’ve had my MacBook Pro since late 2013 and I’ve had two problems with it, one was fixed with a security update early on (the keyboard was getting disabled) and it crashed once, but I think that was because I opened Forbes’s website and the ads tend to crash things.
Compared with my Windows machines in the same timeframe, I’ve had to reboot Windows numerous times (I only need to reboot my mac when I install updates), and I’ve had several instances where Windows just bailed to a blue screen. None of that with MacOS. Also, I don’t have to disable updates to protect running processes overnight, MacOS will never force an update unlike Windows, which has screwed me several times in the pass by grinding an overnight compile to a halt causing our entire team to have to push scheduled upgrades back.
The fact that MacOS is built on top of Unix is a huge advantage over Windows, although if you need to do any kind of Select, Poll, or EV server work, you really should do that on Linux. Being able to work from the command line natively and locally is just exhilarating. Sure, you can get that from using a Linux OS, but…did I mention that MacOS is stable? It’s been my experience that Linux GUIs, even the really intuitive ones, are just…not stable, even when run on good hardware. MacOS is just easy to use and does not get in the way of getting work done.
I am planning on acquiring a new 15" MacBook Pro(MBP) (I would love to get a 17", but they don’t make them anymore) to give me more screen real estate as 13" sometimes gets VERY limited. Yes, there will be a slight hit in battery time, but when you are expecting 10+ hours anyway, 1 hour doesn’t hurt that bad (my 13" MBP w/Retina from late 2013 still gets 8+ hours a day).
There are two very major downside to the new MBPs: The Touchbar replaces function keys, and the ports are a little too forward thinking. With the first, I work extensively from the command line. This means I use Vim for editing code, I cannot stand the “features” that come with most IDEs, so I use the escape key liberally. There is no escape key on the new MBPs, it’s an icon on the touchbar (assuming it is present in the currently running app). this makes it EXTREMELY difficult to touch type. I find the escape key by running my finger up the side of the keys, and push in from the corner when I find no more keys. This is impossible with the touchbar and is an unacceptable deviation in my typing for reasons I won’t go into.
The other major issue is the ports. They have zeroed in on just one for everything: USB-C. This would be fine in another year or two when everything is USB-C, but today it’s not. The other major issue is they removed the MagSafe port for power. This is ridiculous because the MagSafe has probably protected thousands of people from damaging their MacBooks from accidental load on the port. I know there have been a number of times I’ve popped that thing and been thankful it wasn’t like some of my older Windows Laptops where I’ve broken the power port right off the motherboard.
All in all, if you need to do Windows development, go with something like an ASUS, they are great. Otherwise, make room in your budget for a MacBook. And yes, aim for 16+GBs of RAM so you can run virtual machines of Linux locally if you ever need to do some serious server development.
