5 Reasons you should get a Mac

This can start some arguments, but whatever, let's be real. I've been a Windows user for a while, heck, I've even worked for Microsoft! Not only would I recommend avoiding the company, I would strongly suggest avoiding the products!

Look, a Mac is basically a usable form of Linux. It has a UI that doesn't suck, and all the built in network engineering tools you could ever need! And god forbid you learn automation and bump your salary by 30%, what platform do you see most Ansible, Python, Javascript, Puppet, chef users, etc?

1) Putty? You mean terminal, ssh x.x.x.x -l username
2) Windows/Android = ~100k /yr
3) It works. Like, at a high level. (If you see someone trying to run Docker on Win10...RUN!)
4) brew install...pip install....parallel....What else do you need?
5) Dota, Stellaris, XCOM, all work on Mac. Steam works on Mac. Why are you on WinBLOWS?

It used to be the old stereotype that only idiots had Macs, now it's the best in class IT professionals (Not all, BUT MOST!). Apple does $230 billion in revenue, Microsoft does $90 and has been around the exact same amount of time. Numbers don't lie.7

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

OfWolfAndMan

I've had a Mac and surface pro. IMO if Visio was available on Mac, I probably wouldn't care about Windows. Just about any other program I need is on Mac. The Surface Pro is overpriced. Don't get me wrong, the Mac is overpriced, but the Surface 1. Has problems with NIC chipset, as well as too much sensitivity to the touch screen (Blotches appears if you use it too "roughly". Relative to someone who is paranoid of putting a piece of tech in their bag with a couple other flat items, worrying it'll break if they put it in there. Just my experience).

In my experience, any PC vendor outside of Apple are overly selfish with how they approach warranty issues. Apple is probably the fairest I've worked with.

Windows works ok. a Linux VM on a PC is OK, but there are display limitations. You can still run a VM in Linux too. You can do nearly everything you want to do in Windows on Mac and more.

-Mac has support for Ansible. Windows does not. (Yes, there is support on Docker, but Docker is not Windows).
-Windows has bash support, but it's still not true bash. Cygwin still wins that battle IMO.
-Windows seems slower as a dev environment (Programming languages outside of those written for Windows) relative to Mac. Just my experience. Hardware differences not being a factor.

If we're talking about games though, yes. Windows wins. Hands down. If I want to play games, no questions. There's no reason to use a Mac when you can have nearly every game you have on a Mac on Windows, and many more past that.

Also, if I had to choose windows, I would usually only choose Dell XPS or Lenovo Thinkpads. Laptop hardware specifically, in the past, my laptops didn't last more than a couple years. I've had my mac since the end of 2014, and it's still running strong.

ITSpectre

MacBooks cannot play steam games.... correct me if im wrong....

Mac's cannot be built or customized the way I want it to be....

Mac's are very overpriced and a PC can outpower a Mac anyday....

[Deleted User]

Wait, what's Apple?! I have Granny Smith and Gala!!

hahaha

Iristheangel

OfWolfAndMan wrote: »

I've had a Mac and surface pro. IMO if Visio was available on Mac, I probably wouldn't care about Windows. Just about any other program I need is on Mac. The Surface Pro is overpriced. Don't get me wrong, the Mac is overpriced, but the Surface 1. Has problems with NIC chipset, as well as too much sensitivity to the touch screen (Blotches appears if you use it too "roughly". Relative to someone who is paranoid of putting a piece of tech in their bag with a couple other flat items, worrying it'll break if they put it in there. Just my experience).

In my experience, any PC vendor outside of Apple are overly selfish with how they approach warranty issues. Apple is probably the fairest I've worked with.

Windows works ok. a Linux VM on a PC is OK, but there are display limitations. You can still run a VM in Linux too. You can do nearly everything you want to do in Windows on Mac and more.

-Mac has support for Ansible. Windows does not. (Yes, there is support on Docker, but Docker is not Windows).
-Windows has bash support, but it's still not true bash. Cygwin still wins that battle IMO.
-Windows seems slower as a dev environment (Programming languages outside of those written for Windows) relative to Mac. Just my experience. Hardware differences not being a factor.

If we're talking about games though, yes. Windows wins. Hands down. If I want to play games, no questions. There's no reason to use a Mac when you can have nearly every game you have on a Mac on Windows, and many more past that.

Also, if I had to choose windows, I would usually only choose Dell XPS or Lenovo Thinkpads. Laptop hardware specifically, in the past, my laptops didn't last more than a couple years. I've had my mac since the end of 2014, and it's still running strong.

Pricing-wise, the Surface Pro is comparable with the Macbook Air. Definitely not spec-wise though since the Macbook Air can only go up to 8GB of RAM (Surface can go up to 16GB), HD can only go to 512GB (Surface Pro goes up to 1TB) and I think the Macbook Air is still stuck on the 7th gen i7. The Surface Pro 4 definitely did have it's quirks with the chipset with things like going to sleep but the new Surface Pro definitely doesn't have that issue. Personally, I owned a Surface Pro 4 for the last 2-3 years and didn't have a problem with the digitizer. In fact, most of my videos were done with it and I use it for report work all the time. Haven't had to deal with blotches yet so I have no idea what happened to yours that made blotches appear but that's got to be some serious rough penning:

NoBlotches.jpg

DoubleNNs

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

I would like to get MAC, but may they're VERY expensive. Why are they so expensive?

Do Macs integrate well in a AD environment?

Macs aren't that expensive compared to Windows computers w/ similar hardware. I actually got my first Macbook Air ~6 years ago because it was maybe $300 cheaper than the cheapest comparable Windows computer at the time.

And yes, you can join a Mac to a domain.

Codeman6669 wrote: »

aannnnddd if you need a cable, a charger, or basically anything, its all proprietary so you gotta pay $ for it.

Nope. The new MacBooks have moved to the standard USB-C connector.

I've been very pro MacBooks (but anti Apple. funny huh?) for the past few years. However, lately the MacBooks have started to lag behind the industry and are lacking innovation for the price. Apple doesn't put much focus on their laptops anymore and simply focus on their phones and tablets. With the traction the current Microsoft has been creating within the Open Source community and the features they've been including in Windows 10, I might make the switch back to Windows in 2010 after staying as far away from Windows as I could for the past half decade.

xxxkaliboyxxx

Everyone here is inferior to the Arch Linux master race.

ITSpectre

Iristheangel wrote: »

Pricing-wise, the Surface Pro is comparable with the Macbook Air. Definitely not spec-wise though since the Macbook Air can only go up to 8GB of RAM (Surface can go up to 16GB), HD can only go to 512GB (Surface Pro goes up to 1TB) and I think the Macbook Air is still stuck on the 7th gen i7. The Surface Pro 4 definitely did have it's quirks with the chipset with things like going to sleep but the new Surface Pro definitely doesn't have that issue. Personally, I owned a Surface Pro 4 for the last 2-3 years and didn't have a problem with the digitizer. In fact, most of my videos were done with it and I use it for report work all the time. Haven't had to deal with blotches yet so I have no idea what happened to yours that made blotches appear but that's got to be some serious rough penning:

Question.....

Which would you say is better....

Samsung Note 12.2 or Surface pro? I plan to get one for Xmas.... and im looking for capability to store on onedrive, take notes, split screen, and be able to link to a PC or hook to a external monitor

Iristheangel

ITSpectre wrote: »

Question.....

Which would you say is better....

Samsung Note 12.2 or Surface pro? I plan to get one for Xmas.... and im looking for capability to store on onedrive, take notes, split screen, and be able to link to a PC or hook to a external monitor

I think it'd be making a mistake to compare them like it's comparing like products. The Samsung Note is a tablet running Android OS and if you're JUST looking for a tablet for reading and not having full apps, then it's perfect and probably cheaper than a Surface Pro. If you want a laptop that can run full apps and dual as a tablet and you have need of that digitizer, then pay the extra money for a Surface. It really depends on what you need to use it for but they're both not similar products even though there is some overlapping function.

SaSkiller

DexterPark wrote: »

1) You've got to spend money to make money.

2) Because they make $230 billion /yr. I am also pissed off that I have to buy the charging cable separate from the base station, but if that's the price to avoid all the trash OS's I'll buy twice!

3) "Salting is used because most bacteria, fungi and other potentially pathogenic organisms cannot survive in a highly salty environment".

4) Yes. MacBooks support AD integration but then again, waterboarding works on everyone.

Yeah I don't support that ideology and I do what I can to avoid companies who do it because it encourages it.

DoubleNNs

OfWolfAndMan wrote: »

-Mac has support for Ansible. Windows does not. (Yes, there is support on Docker, but Docker is not Windows).
-Windows has bash support, but it's still not true bash. Cygwin still wins that battle IMO.
-Windows seems slower as a dev environment (Programming languages outside of those written for Windows) relative to Mac. Just my experience. Hardware differences not being a factor.

I'd say similar reasons why I wanted a MacBook as opposed to a Win 10 machine years ago. However, in 2017 none of these bullet points are correct, even tho most of the features are still technically beta.

OfWolfAndMan

Iristheangel wrote: »

Pricing-wise, the Surface Pro is comparable with the Macbook Air. Definitely not spec-wise though since the Macbook Air can only go up to 8GB of RAM (Surface can go up to 16GB), HD can only go to 512GB (Surface Pro goes up to 1TB) and I think the Macbook Air is still stuck on the 7th gen i7. The Surface Pro 4 definitely did have it's quirks with the chipset with things like going to sleep but the new Surface Pro definitely doesn't have that issue. Personally, I owned a Surface Pro 4 for the last 2-3 years and didn't have a problem with the digitizer. In fact, most of my videos were done with it and I use it for report work all the time. Haven't had to deal with blotches yet so I have no idea what happened to yours that made blotches appear but that's got to be some serious rough penning:

If we're including the keyboard, I'd say it's a bit more, but then again, the price of a surface has gone down a bit. The Macbook airs seem to be dissipating away since the new Macbook pros are acceptably slim for the picky user. I still have DL speed issues with my Surface unfortunately

. Not as bad as it used to be, but still, there could be some room for additional improvement.

Madmd5

ITSpectre wrote: »

MacBooks cannot play steam games.... correct me if im wrong....

Mac's cannot be built or customized the way I want it to be....

Mac's are very overpriced and a PC can outpower a Mac anyday....

MACs are capable of running steam games. I play them on my personal MAC at home. I prefer MACs mainly due to my distaste of Windows. I feel that Windows are designed in a way that after about 3-5 years, they break on you, forcing you to invest in a new one. MACs tend to have a longer life span than PCs, at least in my experience. I'm just not a huge fan of Windows and their GUI anymore.

mactex

xxxkaliboyxxx wrote: »

Everyone here is inferior to the Arch Linux master race.

I used Arch as my main home OS for a couple of years. Even had Steam running on it. No desktop distro will teach you more about Linux than installing and running Arch. Sadly; I had to go back to Windows when I left the military and needed to get a real job.

Iristheangel

On an interesting note, did anyone check this out regarding Mac's High Sierra today: https://twitter.com/lemiorhan/status/935578694541770752

Apparently root is password-free

Danielm7

Iristheangel wrote: »

On an interesting note, did anyone check this out regarding Mac's High Sierra today: https://twitter.com/lemiorhan/status/935578694541770752

Apparently root is password-free

That's the bonus 6th reason, you don't waste time with annoying passwords.

tpatt100

I have had a Microsoft Surface and a few Macbooks/Pros over the years. The Dell laptops irritated me because back when I bought them they were trying to imitate the Macbook Pro but using cheaper parts and it got hot all the time and the fans would run really high doing anything.

Bought a Surface Pro and never had a need to use it as a tablet and I hated the keyboard (second gen) it was a nice laptop but all the tablet apps I liked to use were better on my iPad. I like the newer Surfaces though because they improved the keyboards, unfortunately for personal use I felt no need for a personal laptop anymore and iOS app developers show greater preference for iOS probably because they make more money off iOS so the support is focused there. When Evernote dropped support for their Windows tablet app, I figured I might as well stick with an iPad for personal use.

Apple's prices for laptops don't bother me, Microsoft's prices for their Surface machines is worth it. Microsoft knew they had to raise consumer's tolerances for higher priced/quality machines because so many competitors and the race to the bottom was putting out a lot of trashy Windows laptops with bloated third party software.

With that, once I finished school I never had much of a need for a personal laptop anymore. My Macbook Pro sat unused for weeks at a time. Only booted it up to patch it, sync iPhotos, Evernote, OneDrive, etc.

I sold it on eBay and used some of the money for an iPad Pro and only use my Windows 10 machine for PC gaming. My wife has a Macbook and I hop on that once in a while when I need to do something on an actual computer but now a days my "real computer" use is almost next to nothing.

Microsoft is trying really hard with Windows 10 but it feels like its too little too late. It's got an ecosystem that I really don't have much of a need for anymore because I am not tied to the desktop like I was maybe 5+ years ago? Office is on my iPhone and iPad and I primarily have Office 365 because I got a multi year academic license for 35 dollars.... I use it for OneDrive and look at it as getting Microsoft Office for free.

Apple is really pushing "form over function" now a days and it's finally ended my preference for Mac vs Windows, I don't care for either of them anymore. I love Mac OS but just don't have much of a need for it anymore and Windows 10's updates keeps pushing apps on to my machine that I don't want or have a need for, uninstall and next update they come back. What really pushed me over the edge were ads for OneDrive in Windows file explorer, a service I was already paying for.....

Most online shopping now a days is done on mobile, the personal computer is "something I use at work". Microsoft missed the boat big time with mobile devices but I am glad they support iOS and Android now so I am not tied to any particular platform. I can move between Mac and Windows for personal reasons, for now on though I will only purchase Mac or Microsoft Surface machines for personal use if I find the need for a portable computer again.

Danielm7

tpatt100, very interesting viewpoint. What you're talking about is more how much wife uses a computer today, 99% on her phone, then uses a laptop if she has to write up a document, but also works in the medical field so it's a different situation. I'm assuming you work in security from your cert list, surprised you never need "a real computer" once you leave work.

OfWolfAndMan

DoubleNNs wrote: »

I'd say similar reasons why I wanted a MacBook as opposed to a Win 10 machine years ago. However, in 2017 none of these bullet points are correct, even tho most of the features are still technically beta.

Beta isn't exactly a "Stable" release, but I am glad they're pushing for Ansible on windows at least now

DexterPark

OfWolfAndMan wrote: »

Beta isn't exactly a "Stable" release, but I am glad they're pushing for Ansible on windows at least now .

But who needs native Windows support? You can build a Docker image of Ansible and run it from there.

tpatt100

Danielm7 wrote: »

tpatt100, very interesting viewpoint. What you're talking about is more how much wife uses a computer today, 99% on her phone, then uses a laptop if she has to write up a document, but also works in the medical field so it's a different situation. I'm assuming you work in security from your cert list, surprised you never need "a real computer" once you leave work.

I have a work issued laptop that runs Windows 10, if I have to do work stuff I just vpn in. I really don’t use computers for personal stuff anymore.

I do most of my studies at work when I get some time so I use their systems which they are cool with. I started a Splunk course and since it’s for work I just study there. I take notes on my iPad which comes home with me.

si20

wd40 wrote: »

I had very limited interaction with macbooks, I found the menu bar confusing.

Regarding SSH, Python and other Linux tools (vi for example), you can use them now on the windows 10 Linux subsystem without the need to setup VMs.

Regarding Linux, I use Linux (Kali) mainly now, and it is not user friendly at all, if you face a driver (Nvidia driver) or application issue, good luck in finding a quick solution.

This.

I own an iMac 27" 2017 model, a MacBook Pro (2011 model), a gaming PC (windows 10) and a ubuntu laptop. I'd love to be able to run linux full-time, but it's just too damn hard to solve driver issues. Also, more often than not, linux drivers for Nvidia cards drain your battery (on a laptop) like crazy, even if you aren't gaming.

Macs are good pieces of kit but severely underpowered for the price you pay. On top of that, Apple has a complete monopoly on batteries which basically ties you in to their products. It's pure corporate greed that you cannot replace the battery on new Macbooks. That's why I bought an iMac, because I don't need to worry about the battery situation. Once you've had 500-600 charge cycles on a Mac, you'll be lucky if it lasts 4 hours on a full charge.

My 2011 MacBook that I'm typing from now gets just 3 hours 15 mins from a full charge and I'm on 728 cycles. When it hits 1,000, it's basically scrap. Apple don't make the batteries for the 2011 model any more, and 3rd party batteries are cheap crap.

Apple could take over the entire industry if they lowered their prices - but people will buy them at inflated prices, so they refuse to drop the price.

My 2 cents: If you're an iOS or Mac developer - then you should own a Mac. If you aren't an iOS or Mac dev, then you're just wasting your cash.

snokerpoker

I prefer to work on a PC. I like using MAC OSX for personal use though.

hurricane1091

They gave me like a $2400 macbook for work. Build quality is second to none. Battery life superb. Love how it remembers what I was working on after reboot too. Still though, I'd never spend that money for personal use unless I was doing super well financially and didn't care about an extra grand. They jack up the price for a little bit of storage and memory, it's insane. Lack of being able to plug in a flash drive or USB mouse or anything without an adapter can be inconvenient though.

Hondabuff

Problem is when you break a PC with windows you can find support and parts everywhere. You break a Mac and you have to go to that stupid store at the mall and talk to that dude with the nose ring and tossel cap. Just buy a HP ultrabook bump the RAM up to 16GB and Slap in a 1TB SSD and call it done. Then you can buy something more useful like a massage chair from Brookstone or something while your at the mall.

LeBroke

I always find it weird when people complain that Macs cost too much for the specs they offer.

MBPs are premium ultrabooks, not cheap Acer crap.

It's fair to compare them to something like a ThinkPad X1 Carbon, Dell XPS, or Razer Blade (the latter isn't really a business line laptop but it's in the same category). Look at things like ergonomics, build quality, battery life, screen quality, form factor/portability. How well the ecosystem works together. How much bloatware there is.

It's stupid to look at something like this: https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/15-inch

And wonder why people buy it instead of something like this: https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX69278 which is like half the price for similar specs.

They aren't equivalent at all and have a different audience. I'm perfectly happy with my 13" Pro. Portability and native UNIX shell are invaluable. I can't even stand to use most Windows laptops that aren't business ultrabooks. They're too damn heavy, too damn flimsy, and most things about them suck (except the price).

pevangel

We have a MacBook Pro at home and it doesn't get much use. We moved to a new house earlier this year and it hasn't left the box it was moved in. At home we're mostly using our phones to surf the Internet. When we do use our laptops, it's usually the Windows laptops because they're far superior when it comes to processing power. One of our laptops has a Xeon processor with 64G of RAM. The other has an i7-7700K with 32G of RAM. Both have dedicated GPUs and SSD drives. We don't necessarily need all that horsepower all the time, but sometimes we do. So it's easier to stick to the laptops that can handle everything we need, than use the MBP that can only handle some things.