Okay, so, earlier today, you asked me about how a MacBook would fit your aims in purchasing a laptop for the likes of schoolwork, web browsing, et cetera. I’ve heard you ask similar questions about MacBooks and their viability as work computers for a little bit now, maybe a couple of weeks or so, so I’m just gonna get my thoughts down here.
Overall verdict? They’re solid machines. For the price, you’d bloody well hope so, but they do indeed tend to be technically solid machines. This entirely depends on whether you wish to play Apple’s game from a user experience standpoint, though.
No, this isn’t something I’ve just made up. I’ve legitimately heard of this before from a relatively large publication or two.
The MacBook effect is basically when someone moves up from a cheap, ~£200 or whatever Windows laptop to a MacBook costing them £1,000. Naturally, they go ‘Woah, this MacBook is so much better!!! I’m only ever going to use macOS and Macs for the rest of my life!!!’, without having even tried or even really beared consideration for non-Mac systems in equivalent or similar price tiers.
This is something to bear in mind. That said, we’re not here to talk about ‘effects’, or stuff like that; we’re here to talk about you, and whether Apple’s fruit machine contenders will fit your bill.
I’ve heard statements from people even in our class that MacBooks supposedly just aren’t as cut-out for computer science work as PCs tend to be. Now, this isn’t something I’d generally agree with, but I understand where the sentiments come from.
macOS is rightfully regarded much like iOS; a playful sandbox in which you can do more or less whatever you want, but only by Apple’s wishes. Your freedom is innately small, merely a crumb of your actual system and what you could do if you were let further under the weeds.
Windows is somewhere in-between, not necessarily being friendly to changes and customisations, but not being all too opposed to them, either.
Linux, of course, lets you directly ‘under the bonnett’, so to speak, if you so choose.
Regardless of how this may feel it applies (or doesn’t apply) to you, it’s fairly easy to understand where the notion that Macs aren’t as good for more technical work (e.g. programming) could come from. Honestly, I lack too much experience doing development on macOS by myself, but I know of many developers who daily drive Macs, as well as PCs, including Linux boxes and goofy Windows machines.
macOS is a beautiful pile of ass.
I should rephrase. I don’t mean to say it’s inherently bad; I think it’s just for a certain, very particular type of person. I feel that once again, Apple very much wishes to blend its users into its own ideologies of what a person or ‘user’ should be, rather than giving them the liberties to carve their own paths.
This general mentality isn’t really what I take issue with, though, even if it doesn’t suit me; it’s the seemingly completely arbitrary limitations that Apple seems to be adamant to put in place on macOS users.
And no, I’m not even talking about the fact that direct access to the root filesystem is completely prohibited. If you were hoping to go about and do so much as quickly change a config file, you can throw such hopes and prayers out of the window.