>Why does everyone have MacBook Pros these days? Prior to Apple Silicon, it certainly wasn't the hardware.
Oh, I don't know about that. Admittedly there were some awful choices made between 2015 and the emergence of M1 architecture, but Apple's reputation for making well engineered hardware goes at least as far back as to when they started milling Macs out of aluminum. I'm thinking back specifically to the PowerMac G5 in 2006. It was designed well, felt solid, and when you opened it up, it continued to look well made. I recently popped open my 2015 Macbook Pro because I'm finally having hard drive issues, and for as much as I have railed against Apple fanboyism over the decades, it looked so nice inside I wanted to take a picture. (Why?! Who cares!? What would I even do with that picture?)
I got tons of mileage out of various Dell desktops and self-built machines over the last couple of decades. It was better bang for the buck, I didn't have to fuss over proprietary connectors and a locked down operating system. When the company I worked for made a big shift away from (it's okay to chuckle) Coldfusion and MS SQL Server to Ruby on Rails and MongoDB in 2013, though they offered to let me continue running on Windows, I asked for a Macbook because that's what everyone else was using. Might as well learn. Didn't much like OSX but the hardware was better than any Windows laptop I'd used. Later I bumped up to a 2015 MBP, which I only just retired this year.
While I was Windows at home and MacOS at work, last month I snagged a Macbook Pro w/ 64gb of RAM from B&H for $2400 - the first Apple computer I've ever paid for myself - and it's replaced my Dell desktop and that 2015 Macbook that my old job let me keep.
I effectively skipped the bad Macbooks, so my perspective is tinted by that. But even during the bad years, even my friends who continued to operate in the MS domain were buying Macbooks and dual booting them into Windows.
I had access to a Surface tablet through work early on. It was really nice! Just like a Zune. The Surface Pros looked pretty great too, but anecdotally, I never saw them outside the context of visiting a business that was a strictly MS shop.
I still like Windows as an OS better. But Apple's new architecture (which importantly doesn't have me carrying dongles around, or even needing them at home) was compelling enough for me to take the plunge.
I haven't liked the usability of the entire Macbook line though, and It's very upsetting that so many laptop makers have decided to just copy it.
There's lots of little details which are well made, but bad decisions: the screen hinges tend to be a little too floppy, the trackpad is oversized, removing the physical buttons makes it hard to use, moving the power button from a separate area to the "eject" button location on the keyboard (and making it look like a regular key), everything they've done with keyboards (flat, overlay spaced keys with no surface indentation and less and less travel). The ridiculously sharp edges of the body chassis which cut into your when you rest your hands there (seen at least one video of someone just filing a bevel into the machine to fix it).
They look great, but that's all they've ever seemed to me: in usability details they've always felt terrible (even MagSafe, which seems like it should be great, feels great, and yet has seemed pretty lacklustre when I've had to use it with a work machine).
Two thoughts here. The first is that this comments is totally valid and mostly the inverse of everything I think, really shows that we all value different things so thank god for a free market.
The two things I agree on for the 2016-2022 laptops are the sharp edges and terrible keyboards. Maybe take a look at the new laptops next time you get a chance, the edges on my MBAir and 16MBPro from 2022 are waaaay more comfortable than my previous two MacBooks and the keyboard feels much nicer too.
Back to point one though, to me the trackpads are well sized, the hinges are smooth and just right and the power button being where it is is a none issue, I even quite liked the touchbar.
Oh, I don't know about that. Admittedly there were some awful choices made between 2015 and the emergence of M1 architecture, but Apple's reputation for making well engineered hardware goes at least as far back as to when they started milling Macs out of aluminum. I'm thinking back specifically to the PowerMac G5 in 2006. It was designed well, felt solid, and when you opened it up, it continued to look well made. I recently popped open my 2015 Macbook Pro because I'm finally having hard drive issues, and for as much as I have railed against Apple fanboyism over the decades, it looked so nice inside I wanted to take a picture. (Why?! Who cares!? What would I even do with that picture?)
I got tons of mileage out of various Dell desktops and self-built machines over the last couple of decades. It was better bang for the buck, I didn't have to fuss over proprietary connectors and a locked down operating system. When the company I worked for made a big shift away from (it's okay to chuckle) Coldfusion and MS SQL Server to Ruby on Rails and MongoDB in 2013, though they offered to let me continue running on Windows, I asked for a Macbook because that's what everyone else was using. Might as well learn. Didn't much like OSX but the hardware was better than any Windows laptop I'd used. Later I bumped up to a 2015 MBP, which I only just retired this year.
While I was Windows at home and MacOS at work, last month I snagged a Macbook Pro w/ 64gb of RAM from B&H for $2400 - the first Apple computer I've ever paid for myself - and it's replaced my Dell desktop and that 2015 Macbook that my old job let me keep.
I effectively skipped the bad Macbooks, so my perspective is tinted by that. But even during the bad years, even my friends who continued to operate in the MS domain were buying Macbooks and dual booting them into Windows.
I had access to a Surface tablet through work early on. It was really nice! Just like a Zune. The Surface Pros looked pretty great too, but anecdotally, I never saw them outside the context of visiting a business that was a strictly MS shop.
I still like Windows as an OS better. But Apple's new architecture (which importantly doesn't have me carrying dongles around, or even needing them at home) was compelling enough for me to take the plunge.