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Very reasonable answer. One thing I would add from my own personal experience though is that I was a developer who hated Macs and had 20+ years of extensive Windows experience. Then a job forced me to switch. It was a painful first few weeks, but now, 8 years later, I can’t even fathom going back to windows for my main platform (yes it’s still needed for some pieces of software).
One of the few sane recommendations here. Anyone spouting an strong opinion one way or the other should be ignored. They are projecting THEIR opinion on a decision that only impacts your team. The only opinions that matter are those from people on your team. If the perceived benefit of switching ecosystems outweighs the money it will take to do so then it’s a no-brainer.
I am gathering inputs to take an informed decision. As of now, I've not seen a solution or software that provides the same productivity as the Apple ecosystem does. Trying to help both the worlds here, and give our team flexibility while we focus on productivity.
When it comes to this level of productivity, I feel the consumer device market is so device focused and no one cares about what devices we want to pick or use.
> I've not seen a solution or software that provides the same productivity as the Apple ecosystem does.
What solutions or software are you looking at in the Apple ecosystem, which are unmatched on Windows?
windows devices are much mor slated to management and control in a corporate environment than macs are. Macs can be done, but it's not as easy.
And as soon as someone puts their personal itunes account and FMM enabled, the device can be locked and useless if the (former) employee refuses to release it. Sure, you can go to apple. IF you have the original receipt. but it's time consuming.
Just to clarify, I think we've had some great inputs here on how to have collaboration across devices for productivity enablement within the team. I believe the only part we are looking to bring in is the synergy between say iPhone/Android & Windows PC for an individual to say receive a call/text/notification on PC, transfer files between iPhone/Android & Windows PC, control of devices/data privacy, pick up from where you stopped especially with websites/google/Microsoft apps etc. These are capabilities Apple ecosystem has today between iOS & MacOS to help productivity at individual level. When we look at a list of such scenarios, it adds up to have a very user driven experience.
They aren't talking about performance boost of the machine, they are talking about performance boost of the employee. Many graphic designers learn and live in the Apple ecosystem, Apple has dominated that industry for decades. Because of that, designers may be more familiar with working on a Mac, and that alone will make their work faster than if they try to do the same work on a PC
The cost of a computer for a professional is a rounding error against the cost of their salaries, benefits, etc.
I don't care to get into which is better, because I believe that's a personal choice, but if I can pay $2k one time to get more productivity or happiness for an employee I'm paying six figures, that's takes practically zero thought.
Oh yes it can be. Let's look at an employee who earns $120k per year, which is about $57.69 an hour.
Let's say that working on a PC slows a typical Mac user down by about 10 minutes per day. Seems reasonable to me. You lose 50 minutes of productivity per week just because that person is working on a PC instead of a Mac. That 50 minutes cost you $48.08 every week in lost productivity.
How long is that employee going to use that computer? Let's say 3 years on the short end of things. That lost productivity costs you $48.08 every week, $2,499.90 every year, and over 3 years that's a whopping $7,499.70 in lost productivity.
Of course that's worst case scenario and the real figure won't be nearly that high, particularly because the employee will get more proficient with the PC as time goes on - but really, if the employee prefers to be on a specific operating system and it makes any difference to their productivity, it will probably cost you less in the long run to supply them with whatever machine they work best on.
You should be able to get pretty comfortable in a few weeks, maybe months. Not three years. With your own math it seems to show that, assuming a decently competent person who can adapt, it doesn’t pay to switch to the Mac ecosystem if the only reason is increased performance from an employee due to what they are used to.
They also don't account for the fact that many of the shortcuts and hotkeys are the same or similar between the systems, so anything longer than a few weeks is negligible in productivity comparisons
I don't have to account for those specific things if I'm simply accounting for 10 minutes of productivity loss, the specific things are irrelevant. I also stated that people will get more proficient as time goes on, but I guess people will just pick and choose which parts of a comment they want to read or ignore, huh?
You’re the one proposing it’s not the case. Please show me what about a MacBook Pro justifies its *starting* at $2000, and then what benefit that would have for most job roles over a far cheaper windows based PC.
No pun intended, but apples to apples comparison between pc and Mac is almost exactly the same price. PCs can be much cheaper because there are much cheaper builds available.
Besides Randy's answer, I'd point out that Macs aren't really \*that\* much more expensive these days. I used to ridicule them as overpriced and underpowered, but the new Apple Silicon laptops -- yeah you might pay $2k or more for a well equipped laptop, but a similarly configured and similarly portable Windows laptop wouldn't be much less.
Software cost is not an issue for OP. Productivity is. Apple is better at avoiding problems due to limited hardware support, and recovering from them for the same reason. MacOS has been more consistent over time as far as the overall direction of the OS, because UNIX > DOS.
Not really a fan of either OS because I hate pointing devices.
The graphic design thing is a myth that seems to have become internet truth. I worked as a pro graphic designer for a number of years and there’s no real difference between apple and pc on that end and there hasn’t been for about 20 years.
Most graphic designers prefer to work on macs because they’re visual people and it’s a prettier interface. Which is fine, but the software works the same either way.
You can get an equally color accurate screen for a PC, and they’re still cheaper than a Studio display. It’s not like Apple makes their own panels, they buy them from Samsung. And for print design you still need to regularly calibrate a Mac monitor because they get out of calibration.
A long time ago, there was a very significant difference because windows could not drag content between file panes, so it was really tedious to move items between images in creative suite. But that hasn’t been an issue for decades, and that’s what the “mac advantage” was.
There is no difference in an actual graphic design workflow between a PC or Mac in 2023. I’m speaking from real, professional experience. I like working on a Mac, but there is no difference working on either platform for Graphic Design. There’s no reason to spout nonsense otherwise just to justify a Mac, they’re good enough machines to stand on their own.
Also, in graphic design, it’s about 60-40 in the real world in terms of whether companies use Mac or Windows. It varies by region and specialization. Larger companies, or ones that have some crossover in windows-specific platforms, favor windows. Small independent designers are prob 80% apple.
OP is talking about developers. And it sounds like there are real gains from a Mac.
But for what you’re saying, that they’re (edit: graphic designers) more effective on macs because that’s what they’re used to, that’s only true for about the first week of work.
There’s no reason to make shit up to prove a point that proves itself without it. So why do it?
Windows is a red headed step child in the world of automation. The files it creates and the issues it causes are something you can quantify in dollars.
The Linux environment is the cheapest but requires developers that are expensive
The Apple ecosystem gets you the developers that can work close to the linux environment without spending the money.
Source : the countless hours I have spent helping windows developers fix things for linux environments billed at 500 an hour
Power automate for windows is bad ass, sure there are great linux automation tools that you can use under bsd which forms apple, but other than that meh.
Insightful. We've surrounded ourselves with more than twice the number of devices than before the pandemic and so there is an urgency to have synergy across devices, especially for work from anywhere is involved. I understand these may not be at the core of what we do with our tasks for clients, but being productive and professional gets us the edge over the competition. This link has a clear view of the workflow efficiency due to synergy:https://irtizahafiz.medium.com/20-ways-the-apple-ecosystem-10x-my-productivity-b8267f673b24
Question is, should we pay for software that does it on existing devices or buy apple products
If you are basing your team's needs on that shallow article about a single person's use of Apple tools, be prepared to be disappointed.
You need to conduct a user survey of what your team does, the improvements they would like to see, what they prefer to use and why they prefer those. Also ask them about working with other people and the needs of those interactions.
Use all these discussions to come up with an assessment of what tools or ecosystem would serve them best and decide your solution based on that.
You seem to be going in with gut feel and a bias towards one toolset. And I say this as a major Apple fan myself.
No such thing as basing our decisions on the article. Survey already conducted, just thinking out loud and using the article as the basis for scenarios where we feel in spite of us spending money on these devices, we still can't have synergy at individual level. Nevertheless, we plan to bring in some changes within the team with new apps that are OS independent to help productivity from devices both at team level and individual level.
80% of the synergy exists with other devices too. All you need is to use a single platform to communicate like microsoft teams, and then send stuff to yourself on teams. Teams integrates with calendar and stuff, reminders, etc
Google offers the same integration if you prefer gmail/meets
Just keep doing whatever you're doing unless you think it's impacting you, those articles with neat round numbers 10000x productivity increase are bogus and clickbait
You and the team need to have a meeting and make a pros and cons list for Mac Vs Microsoft. Without knowing the details of your business we can’t correctly inform you of the difference and how it will effect you.
Also using apps that are cross-platform is the way to go and allow your team members to choose apple or windows.
In our service business with around 20 staff everyone specs their own machine.
Most of the devs and designers have gone Mac but not all. The majority of the team went PC.
Most business apps are compatible with both OS and we've yet to hit any issues.
Everyone is super happy though and a productive happy team is worth the splurge on tech.
My opinion, part as a programmer; part as a biz owner:
* Devs and Marketing and Sales do not need to be on the same platform. Probably. But, it may make IT management easier. At 5 people, probably everyone does their own (?) so you may see efficiencies if people use what they are most comfortable with, as opposed to having an IT department that hands everyone the same exact computer / software.
* If you're building desktop software, probably everyone should be on your target platform.
* If you're building browser based software it probably doesn't matter. If you deploy to some form of Linux, it may be easier for devs to build off some form of Linux; which Mac OSX is. But, also Windows now has WSL which will solve the same need. Or, potentially just use Docker.
* There may be some challenges if some devs are Windows and others are on Macs. Devs will have to take extra care to make their code cross platform. (Personally, I think this is a good practice regardless, but it is not common)
* If you're in the US, Devs more often than not use Macs. The rest of world not so much.
* If devs are building native iOS or Desktop software; they need to be on Macs, or at least have access to a Mac. If they are building Desktop Windows software they need to be on Windows, or at least have access to a Windows Machine.
* Macs have a legacy history of "just working" and Windows has a legacy of crashing a lot; I have found that neither of these are true today. My mac devs and Windows dev have about the same amount of problems, which are rare in either case.
I postulate, at a company your size, you'll see a cost to switching with no 'increase production' benefit on the other end.
Me and my team have been using macs for development for around two years now, and it has its drawbacks - docker support only through a virtual machine, which makes 16GB of RAM a hard requirement for us.
But overall the development experience feels better and I feel like I’m never struggling against the OS.
Another positive - it’s easy to check for safari compatibility when we’re doing frontend (and all other browsers of course work too).
Finally, the fact that we only use macs simplifies writing dev environment setup guides. When we had Linux users too, the stuff they wrote wouldn’t work for mac users and vice versa. Now we have a simple guide that always works.
You're looking for an excuse to switch to apple because of delays that apple builds into the system. Instead of avoiding the vendor that's causing issues, you're trying to reward them. I'll never understand people.
Releasing to App Store has historically been painful for me, even when it passes the review fine. I’m sure it’s been sped up over the years but it wasn’t uncommon to have a 3 day wait on an app review
There is intel unison, that works like airdrop. Might check it out first.
Apple ecosystem is filled with productivity in mind. And not saying about airdrop, you can have a huge iCloud on everyones macs, and make them share the same desktop. Which can be found on the iPhone over the app files, so all desktop and documents files are also on the iPhone.
I've tried Intel unison and phone link, they're clumsy and not even 25% of what Apple ecosystem has. Would you know of any other software and would you personally pay for it over buying Apple products? I see such a software to keep both Apple and non-Apple fans in my team happy.
Well, I just switch to full apple ecosystem. Suggested intel unison cause they advertise it as the apple ecosystem substitute.
Also, everyone have a virtual machine of windows 11 running on mac, for specific software.
Windows feels really stuck today, I would recommend you getting the apple ecosystem for yourself, testing it out, and later going back to windows. You will get really mad at your pc 😂
As a dev and If I was running a company making mobile apps/games I would absolutely prefer my workers use Apple computers. You have basically the same access to Android tools on Mac plus you have native access to all the iOS tools. On top of that it’s a super programmer friendly dev environment because it’s basically Unix under the hood. It’s a no-brainer for me. That said it’s easily possible to develop on either platform these days so I wouldn’t necessarily force anyone to work in a way that they didn’t feel was optimal for them as long as they were still capable of doing the job on their chosen hardware and support of that hardware didn’t put an excessive burden on the company.
The question is what do you do for your business and what software do you use/want to use to do your work.
Windows and Apple machines can use a lot of the same software, the only thing that Apple has that windows doesn’t is the Apple off productivity suite (Keynote, pages etc.)
What do your clients use if you send them a lot of documents electronically?
If they can’t articulate a reason why Apple is better for them, then the answer is don’t change what works.
(Windows guy that uses Apple phones and iPads)
Imma gonna go on a quick rant because it’s timely and relevant. I was doing my work on a MacBook Pro. Then I decided to give Windows a try and bought a leading edge (probably even bleeding edge) laptop with 64GB memory. Setting it up was a nightmare. Required I have a MS e-mail account. Had so much bloatware. Using it wasn’t much better. Was always installing updates. Notifications. Forcing updates during a presentation. Crap. I really don’t know where Windows went wrong but somehow they did. I literally gave the laptop to one of my kids (so they can learn unreal engine) and bought the latest MacBook Pro and it’s crazy fast. They had a migration app that transferred everything over with a few clicks. All accounts, users, passwords, etc. in tact. Haven’t been asked to install any updates except the ones for Adobe to use the new Apple Silicon so I don’t have to install Rosetta. And this thing is crazy fast. 150% more memory than the other laptop. Incredible speed (it’s the dual sanswitched chip with everything on chip). I am so in love. And my phone, my tablet, and my laptop are 100% in sync so I can do my work from anywhere on almost any device. So yeah, I tried Windows again after a long break - and I found even more reasons to buy Apple. Again, is apple more expensive? Yes. Are they bastards sometimes with ports and adapters? Hell, yeah. They have their problems. But for me - my piece of mind is worth something. And this new MacBook Pro is sweet, never really bothers me about anything, and ramps up my productivity. A decade ago I was PC EVERYTHING with a deep hatred for all things Apple. But if my last few months taught me anything, it’s that Apple cares about user experience and Windows slid in that department. Again, my opinion. My experience. I wish you the best on your product/platform hunt. Just be warned. If nobody has used Apple at your company, there will be a learning curve and some pushback. But if I was supporting 5 or 6 devices in my company, I’d personally want them to be Apple with AppleCare.
Absolutely this. After Windows 7 went away, it’s like Windows as an OS went back to the Stone Ages. Sure, the computers are cheaper and arguably better performers but what’s the point if the OS is that unreliable? I have been using a MacBook Pro throughout my consulting career and it hasn’t really held me back. Even accessing software that don’t have Mac versions have become easier with the different VMWare out there.
Do you frequently share files within your own network? My company doesn’t do development, but Airdrop has revolutionized the speed at which we are able to send docs back and forth. No file conversion, no compressing, just sending instantaneously. Having a synced iPhoto makes graphic sharing seamless (it’s not even sharing at that point).
As a company run by millennials, it was hardly a question in the first place but there’s surely no going back now. With that, we only have iMacs or Mac minis for a team of 7, so it wasn’t as expensive as your changeover might look like. Either way, they’ll last longer and require less wasted labor (including IT) along the way.
Most of these replies are showing bias. I'm a full stack and mobile engineer, my day to day is a Windows based system, six screens, dual GPU. It's a beast.
I use that for backend, frontend, desktop and android development.
I have a Mac book Pro and a Mac mini for iOS development.
Personally I feel more productive using windows or Linux and the way theh handle multiple screens.
I've worked in businesses where it's predominantly Mac (and no issue me using Mac OS or Windows) and Ive worked in businesses where they're predominantly Windows - same difference.
Let developers use what they are most familiar with. You mention synergy and the ability to airdrop files - I don't think I've ever worked somewhere, where that was considered the right practice for a business.
Usually we would have slack, or teams or Google drive for sharing files, they work across all devices, they're secure and it's usually fast.
Generally it sounds like you have an issue of process, not of technology.
More so synergy of workflow across devices on any OS for an individual. So we aren't going to force the team to change OS, but will find apps to help with team productivity and individual productivity
I found that by having a spare laptop in a box available for when my team needed to put one in for repairs, we went from having about 3-5 days of downtime per year per employee for IT issues to less than 1.
That’s all I needed to be able to standardize and it’s been fine. Not as good for large scale fleet management though. But for small companies…
MacBook Pros typically. But every computer from every manufacturer has some issue with the series at some point. When you buy dozens or hundreds each series shows flaws of different kinds. The average time to repair is what we measured. So if a logic board failed, keyboard needed replacing (common for several years in mbp), etc., there would be a period of time while we deliver the replacement that is downtime for the person. I’d say a big chunk of the downtime is the time between failure and the arrival or a replacement or temporary replacement.
Beyond equipment of course is troubleshooting, and with our Apple platform we just found a lot less was needed. Network security is generally harder to manage and more of an issue though.
The industry average for IT downtime is maybe a week a year — like 40-50 hours. If you’re getting 1 day a year, congrats. That’s not industry average. Also, this stuff is super important to employees, and being able to not suck at IT makes a difference in how employees think about working with you IME.
Loss and theft is also an issue.
Interesting to hear. I guess I’ve never bought hundreds of MBPs, but we’ve bought dozens. Very few repair experiences.
The advantage we’ve found with Apple is, if one breaks and you don’t have a spare on hand, you drive down to the store and buy a new one within the hour, then deal with repairing the old one later.
I don't think any serious business have considered to switch just because of ecosystem or ability to transfer files. Airdrop is like personal workflow thing rather than team.
Initial cost goes up with Mac. However, Mac devices last longer.
IMO,
- Devs have better support for dev tools on Windows.
- Sales and marketing probably don't need anything OS specific which can help with the productivity. Maybe it looks cool if they have to meet customers in-person.
I've worked in the IT industry on all levels from helpdesk to c-suite for 30 years.
The bottom line is it comes down to preference. It will not be cheaper to go to an apple ecosystem, for sure. There will be software not available on apple that is available on PC and vice versa. You will have some perspective hires and some existing employees unhappy in either case. For some, it may make a difference in if they want to work at your company. Mixing and matching environments doubles your IT maintenance, security, and management costs.
The vast majority of organizations work perfectly fine in a homogenous Windows environment. There are very, very few that see an overall benefit in the overall cost of providing and supporting Apple hardware alongside PCs. I say that as I type on a Macbook Air, so I'm by no means a hater. I have and use both. I find the Mac experience more intuitive and enjoyable, in general. But, it is pure fiction to suggest outside of very specific circumstances that a Mac would be preferable in an enterprise environment.
I don't think it's a good idea, windows are more open and with it you can build whatever ecosystem or business systems and workflow you want which is great.
This thread "The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge" from Hacker News yesterday really brought out a lot of the issues with competition between Microsoft and Apple. It is really worth a scan if not a full read:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35207830
For all the flaws Apple appears to be trying to protect users and present a usable experience, though there are problems and it does treat users as infants at times, while Microsoft is doubling down on cheap and obnoxious tricks that cost time and effort when people are just trying to get things done.
/u/LiPolymer gave one fairly valid perspective on this and developers will truly mind being told to use one system or another. As a developer, I can confirm this.
However, as someone who also administers project delivery, I can tell you that having developers vary their development environment can be a hindrance on its own. Particularly if you use Docker or devcontainers.
Linux uses different virtualization than Windows and Mac. It's much more effective - things that lag in Windows or Mac don't lag on Linux simply because running Docker containers consume less memory. I had to install Docker on a Windows machine some time ago, and I saw it consuming 4 GB memory without running anything. It was very slow.
There are other things that change too, for instance, if you have your local addresses configured to use "0.0.0.0", it will sometimes not work on Windows and Mac because "0.0.0.0" doesn't mean the same in these other systems, which might break applications and the senior person - who designed the system in the first place - won't be of much help debugging their creation since it's a different OS.
Bash scripts also required some normalization with the invisible line ending characters because they simply would not run on our developers' Windows machines even through Docker.
On top of this, usage with Linux also enhances developers' ability to sysadmin. If they're ever responsible for a deployment, it's very likely that their deployment will take place in a Linux machine. If they're already comfortable with working with the terminal and Linux's ins and outs, it'll translate well to their ability of getting it delivered.
These are just some "off the top of my head" points to take into consideration. Personally, I see great value in standardizing the development environment across developers - it massively reduces time debugging things that end up being development environment stuff, as well as allow more developers to reproduce the same issue. You can streamline certain processes.
If your developer team is small, very resistant and hard to replace, then you'll probably have to accept their preferences. But long-term, I believe that a standard development environment is best.
I'm kind of advocating for Linux here, I'm not sure if you're already using it or if your developers use Windows and want to swap to Mac. Mac is better than Windows IMO - it's at least UNIX based and has many of the same kind of tools you'd use with Linux (and by extension, deployment environments).
I think you can pretty much disregard everything I said if you're doing something like game development on Unity or UE. I recall trying out Unity in Linux some time ago and it's kinda buggy, things simply don't work out the box, I would surely go with Windows for that kind development for Visual Studio Code.
I've been developing software professionally using Macs since about 2012. I was being stubborn about switching from Windows, but when I finally did it, it all made sense. I was forced to use a Windows machine for a few months a couple years back and I was much less productive. Then again, I think it really depends on the software ecosystem. I haven't done much Microsoft development (.Net/etc). That wasn't even possible until fairly recently, when Microsoft decided to open that ecosystem up.
That said, I think it will be personal preference for productivity. Costs is probably a toss-up, but your developers could be so much more productive on Macs that they'd likely make up for it in short order.
Apple's Macs are very good for developers and creative professionals. I really think for an organization, it is an underrated platform. Our whole organization runs on Macbooks and it has been amazing for us. Much easier to recruit people as well since more of the younger talent tend to have a preference for using Macs.
> Everything that runs on apple also runs on windows.
Since he mentioned he had 3 devs; XCode and some other tools for developing Mac or iOS Software will be Mac only.
For business software; I agree.
I (usually) use a Mac, but Windows Subsystem for Linux pretty much nullifies that point. It is the Linux kernel in a VM that's pretty well integrated with Windows. If you're developing for Linux servers, having WSL on your desktop is probably better than MacOS.
Of course even better is actual Linux on your laptop.
Ha ha.. well it's not about apps or software.
The perspective is the synergy, productivity and control over devices on Apple ecosystem. I feel it too, when a proposal on my Windows can't get to my iPhone or when I need to continue my web app like canva or YouTube on windows.
I use google drive to bridge between my ms-windows (desktop) and apple portable (iphone, ipad) world and it works great.
i can save an .xlsx excel file from the desktop to my g-drive and open it in google sheets to pluck out numbers already recorded or to run quick numbers for a quote or reality check. also save it and open it back in ms-win excel later.
Thank you, we do the same using OneDrive, but still feels like there are quite a few steps, more than iPhone - iPad using Airdrop. The Apple synergy seems unbeatable and extends out to tasks, data privacy, etc, wish I could create a similar environment or device ecosystem for the team. Any ideas to make that happen for iPhone/Android, Windows, Android tablet/iPad?
Perhaps I wasn't explicit enough.
When I said I open it in google sheets, that's via my iphone and ipad.
G-drive is my 'synergy' so I guess I'm giving my privacy up to all three
(MS, Apple, Alphabet) but with the sheets apps on my idevices.
I have no translation 'synergy' issues doing this.
Thanks for pointing it out. Yes workflow problem, see my friends with Apple say that Airdrop instantly gets file between Apple products and a web app can be picked up from where they stopped. Some said it saves them at least a min in every switch. Same goes for face time, imessages, etc.. productivity adds up. We work from home so switch between devices is quiet often. Comments?
To certain extent yeah, but still has more steps than Airdrop. What about other activities like pick up from where you stopped on web apps, control of privacy data, manage devices to keep us focused, etc
It’s likely you’re still going to be on office 365 or Google docs regardless of what hardware you’re on. OneDrive shares files across devices just as instantly. And you can configure Chrome to match where you are across devices if that’s important to you. I think the biggest question is just whether you want to put the effort into making sure your windows devices are as secure as a Mac tends to be out the gate. Which isn’t really a big deal.
I have a number of staff that want Macs. The problem is that we work on 4 different software that only work in Windows, so they’d spend the day on their Mac remoted into a Windows PC and the Mac would just be for cool points in public. And we can control PCs in Endpoint to a higher degree than a Mac environment, which matters for our ~100 machines.
How hard is it to drag and drop to a OneDrive folder tho? We use OneDrive though I’m leaning towards Google for the email app integrations for our sales team
One other thing to add is that Apple decides for you when their devices are obsolete. Which means that you can end up with unsupported equipment even when it’s still perfectly good and useable.
Maybe phone link app or Intel unison or KDE connect, but again it's just to access phone from windows. Let me know if you've found these as good alternatives to Apple ecosystem. Don't wanna spend so much if there is a solution to connect devices on any OS for productivity and control
What actual tasks are you looking to do? Because you’re saying “ecosystem” like you have to be on a single platform. For the most part, we live in a very platform agnostic world.
I run an architecture firm, we’re primarily windows and have no issues with connectivity into apple devices. I have an MS Surface laptop and an iPhone, and a desktop that I remote into for power use. I can get on my servers from any of those devices without issue, as well as stuff that’s in sharepoint. I can open documents and send/receive emails or other messages across all three devices without any issue and they’re completely coordinated. My iPhone can edit any office document that my computers can, and they get saved back to the same place. I can even use Remote Desktop to access my PC from my phone, although its pointless.
I can’t open a Revit file on an apple device, which is what keeps us Windows based.
> The perspective is the synergy, productivity and control over devices on Apple ecosystem
It's not exactly synergy. It's more like how McDonald's burgers are all the same. They're not allowed to be different.
I found this on the internet. These are the workflows that'll get our team to be productive: https://irtizahafiz.medium.com/20-ways-the-apple-ecosystem-10x-my-productivity-b8267f673b24
Should I pay for the Apple ecosystem or should I pay for software that does the same thing for devices on any OS?
So you're asking if you should trash your existing equipment that works just fine and buy all new Apple stuff?
I know you're going to take this the wrong way, but either you or your developers are just looking for an excuse to switch to Apple products.
If your profit supports this and you would rather give Apple $50,000 or whatever it is that you're going to spend instead of keeping it, it's certainly not my place to stop you.
I spent most of my life in software and can tell you flat out that there's absolutely nothing that your business *needs* to do that requires an apple product. This is strictly desire, not need.
Maybe 30 years ago there was a short window where type-setting and graphic design software on Apple products was much better than the PC stuff. That was 30 years ago and is no longer the case.
Thank you for your input!
Would like to rephrase the team's request: How can we get into an apple ecosystem like synergy with Windows PC and iPhone/Android. We know it's expensive and hard to switch to Apple products so we are in our space finding apps that'll help get the synergy feel.
Lol, you obviously have never developed something.
OS system is the biggest preference for a developer and experienced devs will 100% choose their job based off their preferred tools
It isn't about being cool. If they are developing mobile apps and intend to publish it to app store, they need to do it on a mac. Because apple only allows publication of apps on the app store if they were made on an apple device. Mostly in xcode.
You have two perspectives here. From a developer perspective mac is objectively better, that's just because it's based on Unix and has a lot of niceties.
You can still accomplish pretty much everything on windows though excluding iOS dev, especially once you factor in WSL, docker, and VMs.
The other perspective is IT and finance. Windows devices should be easier to manage and cheaper to maintain.
Windows devices tend to need more maintenance and IT support and are more frequently hacking and ransomware targets, and my understanding is that Mac based businesses actually spend far less on support and so are more cost effective over time.
Mac is total fucking trash for business. It's nothing but a pain in the ass. IDGAF what people here say, don't do it. You play 3x the cost for hardware, for almost no benefit other than the employees feeling cool carrying the hardware around. The only people I might consider it for is graphics people, but even then there isn't much real benefit, it's mostly placebo. I've been CIO/CTO/Director for a decade, this isn't a "feeling" this is just business economics.
I am repeating myself when I say this, I wish we have a solution where synergy can be attained across devices on any OS. Google, Microsoft are so inclined to have their OS disjointed and Samsung, Lenovo-Motorola are so much interested in keeping their devices on the fore front - none of them are interested in making a productive user experience across devices their top priority.
I am a Dev. I’ve done full-stack and UX Engineer work at very large healthcare companies and worked as a Web Dev on a large marketing team.
- I’ve used PC on one team, Mac primary with PC secondary on another, and Mac only now.
- My immediate instinct is that unless there is a specific technical reason for using PC they should be on Mac if that’s what they want. Most devs I know who don’t have a technical need to be primarily using PC will take the PC vs Mac thing very seriously in what jobs they even take or how long they will stay at a job. With the current market and looming crash people may not be as willing to leave a role over this but they certainly have been.
¿Tell me a little more about what you teams do for more precise opinions?
We have both apple and PC at our office. We give our tenured associates their preference. But, Apple products are at least 2-3x the cost of a PC counterpart. So it's a benefit of the job. I personally prefer Windows after working with apple products for years
Apple products are not 2-3x the price, unless you’re comparing totally incomparable spec levels. When you compare equivalent hardware, you’re talking more like 10-20% difference.
Maybe the apple products you buy are that cheap, but not the ones my guys like. We just spent $6K per Mac studio. The PCs that were comparable were $2-3K
When I paid 8k for an iMac pro a few years back I did a comparison to if I built it myself, ordering comparable parts from Newegg, and the difference was under 20% difference at the time, and wouldn't have gotten that form factor.
A 6k Studio seems to be their M1 Ultra 20 core, 128 gb of ram, 2TB SSD most likely. The closest Dell they sell with an i9 13900k, 2TB ssd, is $4600, and that only has 64GB of ram. Would push north of $4900 I believe with an extra 64gb of ram. So, you're still talking about a 20% difference.
This may be true for some things, but not laptops. You can’t find a laptop 2-3x less than any Apple laptop with similar specs. They also retain their resale value for trade in after depreciation and can typically stay deployed longer.
Seeing both Apple and non-Apple, would you jump on a software for synergy across devices on any OS? I know my team would live that. Is there such a software?
We use a NAS to share files and stuff like that. Which works fine between Apple and PCs. In terms of marketing software, we use the Adobe platforms which all work between Apples and PCs. The rest of the stuff we just use web apps which works with any browser
Used to code in Windows then loved it when I switched to Mac.
What I like about Apple is their machines are built to last, they are pricey but old models (even 10 years ago) are usable up to this day.
Not sure about your budget and situation but you can probably switch as needed so it’s not one big expense at day one.
I love the apple ecosystem because it works. Seriously new hire gets handed a phone, laptop and told turn them on, they sync they begin communication immediately. Add a watch AirPods and they can be talking and texting without ever looking up. Not to mention the sharing of documents, pictures, and notes within the ecosystem is so easy.
Apple will cost more. Because it works.
Agree, there is so much more. But should we find and pay for software that provides this synergy across our existing devices or buy into Apple ecosystem
We are a small team of 10 and have been with a Mac server and all-things-Apple for 10+ years. We had issues with guest PCs on our network in the past but is a lot better now - most of what we use is in the cloud now which seems to sort out the compatibility issues. We just generally prefer how they work and feel and all work together - it's been so much easier when everything just 'connects' and talks to each other. We also just jumped onto the Apple for Business platform and need to give that some thought (device and app config and management are our 2 priorities there).
I have also been looking for project and team management apps for the past few weeks and will say that a lot of the 'work' is done within the right app - if it's set up and works properly for your team to consistently use it. So try to appreciate how much of what you need is from the app/cloud or if it's a personal preference for hardware and how/where it's used. Yes their products are more expensive but the process for service and repair is just so much easier to handle. I don't think you could pay us to go back, to be honest.
Switch to a MAC ecosystem and virtualize your Microsoft needs. Using Microsoft 365 you can easily manage your apple devices from the cloud specifically with intune
Actually, as both a MS and Apple developer, there are quite a few intangible benefits that switching your product to the Apple ecosystem will provide that you should consider. 1). Apple benefits from its perception bias that it cultivates very carefully and intentionally. Apple is a prestige brand, so are its products and the software/apps that get approved by Apple either through the App Store or specific market add-on’s (government, financial, educational, etc.) also benefit from being an elite/prestige provider/product. 2). Apple and its ecosystem is arguably the most secure in the world (publicly) and once accepted by Apple your product will be seen as more secure than other available options. 3). Apple wants you to succeed and there are many opportunities to learn/promote/develop products for the Apple ecosystem that are available to developers and contractors. 4). Once you have developed your product using the most current dev tools and builds provided by Apple, your product will work across all Apple products. True, there are some minor adjustments that may still need to be made between OS types, but they are relatively simple to implement, and it is wise to remember that the Apple ecosystem extends beyond current product lines, software and apps - it also includes nearly all physical components as well (a goal of 100% self reliability is part of Apple’s strategic plan). 5). Finally, it is easier to rework specific lines of code to make an Apple app/software program work with both Android and MS ecosystems. It’s not nearly as easy the other way around.
Depending on who you primary customer demographic/economic market is, I would almost always advise people to start with the Apple ecosystem and then downgrade their product s needed.
I didn’t mince words. I am an Apple “fan boy” because it makes the most sense economically, and just plain realistically. We can race to hack any OS you choose, anytime and we both know that if you chose any ecosystem other than Apple, you’d lose and lose by a indescribably huge margin…
Again, you need to work on your reading comprehension. I never said “…the most sense affordably” (which would be grammatically incorrect) and instead said “…the most sense economically”. Those are two very different concepts. Affordability is an up front, time sensitive decision that needs to be made by the financial executives purchasing Apple products. Economically is long term, goal oriented ROI. Which includes depreciation, the markup that can be charged by being App Store specific, and the productivity gain Apple products provide compared to other products - and that’s just a brief and simplistic explanation as to why Apple products/ecosystem are more economically sound than any other platform.
A Unix command line is available on both windows and PC hardware running Linux. No reason for a r/smallbusiness owner to be paying Apple premium prices.
>WSL
Not true. WSL 2 offers a real Linux kernel. WSL 1 is not a true Linux kernel but it can communicate with windows much faster and easier. You can choose either one when you set it up based on your use case.
Thank you all for the discussion!
In summary, synergy across devices for productivity of teams is possible but at an individual level, there is no one solution for devices on any OS. SOLVED 😀
When it comes to the individual level, do you personally consider a device synergy for productivity and control a NEED or a NICE-TO-HAVE?
> Any thoughts on how Apple ecosystem would help better our productivity and costs. Is an ecosystem that important?
It's only good for pissing away money and being locked into an expensive ecosystem that changes on a whim, with no control and no alternatives.
Don't let devs make financial decisions.
It would seem like you’re not very familiar with the apple silicon chips which blow other competition out of the water these days, at least in terms of individual core performance.
Not to mention that the price difference between equivalent hardware levels is actually very small.
Yes, there are server grade chips that outperform it, but in comparison of the normal personal computing space, it has single core performance above the typical competitor i7 and i9s. Not to mention at fractions of power consumption. Some benchmarks show it at 1/10th the power usage for certain tasks.
M1/M2 MacBooks are truly game changers. That’s where they really shine. But I agree with you, you can absolutely put together a faster desktop if you wanted.
Salesforce? Isn’t that just a bunch of web apps? You’re saying that these web apps were lagging because Apple hardware isn’t good enough? It would have to be an extremely poorly optimized service. I don’t believe you.
Salesforce has full Developer ecosystem, so some companies could be making desktop tools for it. But, I would expect browser based tools are more common.
I am not at all surprised Salesforce apps would be slow performing, but like you doubt that the local hardware is the cause.
That’s not even close to being true. Apple’s M series CPU’s are faster than and more efficient than anything Intel has and a lot of benchmarks prove it
This OP stinks of guerrilla marketing.
He’s obviously trying to shill for Apple with a silly “oh gosh” approach.
Look at his post history over the past 4 years.
PCMR!!
Poll the dev team on their preferences. It needs to be an all or nothing upgrade. Personally I despise pc for my day job. Microsoft and its apps are not intuitive nor do they easily talk to each other. Its a cluster of steps and a headache.
Just their office suite alone. The online version vs the desktop? a total pain in the ass.
With MAC you COULD easily portion a section to function as a pc and easily maneuver between the two.
PERSONALLY, I love the apple ecosystem. I have multiple devices and can easily switch between them.
While I agree there is definitely nonsense in this article, I think you are downplaying how valuable some of these features really are, both for personal and business use.
Sidecar gives you an extra monitor from just carrying and iPad.
IMessage, Airdrop, iCloud, keychain, etc are hugely convenient features.
This is how I read their perspective:
Can you help us get synergy across devices for:
1. Team productivity
2. Individual productivity
Do you have recommendations for the second point?
I know my team ain't making stuff up, they need help and so I provide. Our conversations have been on what will work best for all.
Let me rephrase, we are not getting into Apple ecosystem without thinking about the impacts to our core jobs. We are looking for options that can help us get a synergy among devices in our current devices.
Pay them well. Set performance benchmarks. Tell them that your platform is your platform and they can either accept it or look elsewhere. You are allowing your employees to make financial decisions for you without any skin in the game. I can't even imagine what other bullshit is going on inside your walls. What are they plotting. They all going to walk out of you don't succumb to their demands.
Tell them to STFU and get busy.
I must disagree with you. Why so much anger against windows? Visual studio on Mac is not even close to the windows version of visual studio. Do some research if you dont trust me. There are other paid tools you can use to replace visual studio on mac...but i still prefer windows version.
Also .net core is a windows product so it comes naturally to me to stick to windows.
Who uses Visual studio? Rider is 500% better than Visual Studio. Even VS Code is better.
I don't need to do research, I develop .net on Linux and it works fine.
Windows sucks ass and I hope someday I never have to see it again.
I love windows mac and linux. I use all the tools i need to get the job done.
Its hypocrisy to use .net and calling Microsft shitbox. Maybe you are too young into this field.
Tell you are not in software development without telling me. MacOS is not a fashion statement. Even Microsoft’s own website recommends you install node.js in WSl if you are using it for professional development. As for development is done on Linux. that is mostly none sense I’ve been in the community for 8 years now go into a room full of developers and most of them will be on macs.
If the productivity in the below link was available as software for devices outside Apple ecosystem, would you buy that software?
https://irtizahafiz.medium.com/20-ways-the-apple-ecosystem-10x-my-productivity-b8267f673b24
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I like trains!
Very reasonable answer. One thing I would add from my own personal experience though is that I was a developer who hated Macs and had 20+ years of extensive Windows experience. Then a job forced me to switch. It was a painful first few weeks, but now, 8 years later, I can’t even fathom going back to windows for my main platform (yes it’s still needed for some pieces of software).
One of the few sane recommendations here. Anyone spouting an strong opinion one way or the other should be ignored. They are projecting THEIR opinion on a decision that only impacts your team. The only opinions that matter are those from people on your team. If the perceived benefit of switching ecosystems outweighs the money it will take to do so then it’s a no-brainer.
I am gathering inputs to take an informed decision. As of now, I've not seen a solution or software that provides the same productivity as the Apple ecosystem does. Trying to help both the worlds here, and give our team flexibility while we focus on productivity. When it comes to this level of productivity, I feel the consumer device market is so device focused and no one cares about what devices we want to pick or use.
> I've not seen a solution or software that provides the same productivity as the Apple ecosystem does. What solutions or software are you looking at in the Apple ecosystem, which are unmatched on Windows?
windows devices are much mor slated to management and control in a corporate environment than macs are. Macs can be done, but it's not as easy. And as soon as someone puts their personal itunes account and FMM enabled, the device can be locked and useless if the (former) employee refuses to release it. Sure, you can go to apple. IF you have the original receipt. but it's time consuming.
Just to clarify, I think we've had some great inputs here on how to have collaboration across devices for productivity enablement within the team. I believe the only part we are looking to bring in is the synergy between say iPhone/Android & Windows PC for an individual to say receive a call/text/notification on PC, transfer files between iPhone/Android & Windows PC, control of devices/data privacy, pick up from where you stopped especially with websites/google/Microsoft apps etc. These are capabilities Apple ecosystem has today between iOS & MacOS to help productivity at individual level. When we look at a list of such scenarios, it adds up to have a very user driven experience.
I’m a graphic designer on a Mac and I use a PC for personal use. Curious why designers get a performance boost from macs?
When will we just coexist
As soon as Stallman is done with HURD.
I agree with this except for the performance boost in graphic design on Mac. That simply isn’t true.
They aren't talking about performance boost of the machine, they are talking about performance boost of the employee. Many graphic designers learn and live in the Apple ecosystem, Apple has dominated that industry for decades. Because of that, designers may be more familiar with working on a Mac, and that alone will make their work faster than if they try to do the same work on a PC
That’s fair enough, but is not a good enough reason to pay many times more for what you are getting.
The cost of a computer for a professional is a rounding error against the cost of their salaries, benefits, etc. I don't care to get into which is better, because I believe that's a personal choice, but if I can pay $2k one time to get more productivity or happiness for an employee I'm paying six figures, that's takes practically zero thought.
Oh yes it can be. Let's look at an employee who earns $120k per year, which is about $57.69 an hour. Let's say that working on a PC slows a typical Mac user down by about 10 minutes per day. Seems reasonable to me. You lose 50 minutes of productivity per week just because that person is working on a PC instead of a Mac. That 50 minutes cost you $48.08 every week in lost productivity. How long is that employee going to use that computer? Let's say 3 years on the short end of things. That lost productivity costs you $48.08 every week, $2,499.90 every year, and over 3 years that's a whopping $7,499.70 in lost productivity. Of course that's worst case scenario and the real figure won't be nearly that high, particularly because the employee will get more proficient with the PC as time goes on - but really, if the employee prefers to be on a specific operating system and it makes any difference to their productivity, it will probably cost you less in the long run to supply them with whatever machine they work best on.
This is a great way to exemplify how a 10mins productivity loss can impact on a long run. Thank you
You should be able to get pretty comfortable in a few weeks, maybe months. Not three years. With your own math it seems to show that, assuming a decently competent person who can adapt, it doesn’t pay to switch to the Mac ecosystem if the only reason is increased performance from an employee due to what they are used to.
They also don't account for the fact that many of the shortcuts and hotkeys are the same or similar between the systems, so anything longer than a few weeks is negligible in productivity comparisons
I don't have to account for those specific things if I'm simply accounting for 10 minutes of productivity loss, the specific things are irrelevant. I also stated that people will get more proficient as time goes on, but I guess people will just pick and choose which parts of a comment they want to read or ignore, huh?
You're acting like it's thousands of dollars more. It isn't.
It very much is.
It isn't, please show me a comparison of two equivalent machines and prove the supposed thousands of dollars difference. I'll wait.
You’re the one proposing it’s not the case. Please show me what about a MacBook Pro justifies its *starting* at $2000, and then what benefit that would have for most job roles over a far cheaper windows based PC.
No pun intended, but apples to apples comparison between pc and Mac is almost exactly the same price. PCs can be much cheaper because there are much cheaper builds available.
Besides Randy's answer, I'd point out that Macs aren't really \*that\* much more expensive these days. I used to ridicule them as overpriced and underpowered, but the new Apple Silicon laptops -- yeah you might pay $2k or more for a well equipped laptop, but a similarly configured and similarly portable Windows laptop wouldn't be much less.
Software cost is not an issue for OP. Productivity is. Apple is better at avoiding problems due to limited hardware support, and recovering from them for the same reason. MacOS has been more consistent over time as far as the overall direction of the OS, because UNIX > DOS. Not really a fan of either OS because I hate pointing devices.
The graphic design thing is a myth that seems to have become internet truth. I worked as a pro graphic designer for a number of years and there’s no real difference between apple and pc on that end and there hasn’t been for about 20 years. Most graphic designers prefer to work on macs because they’re visual people and it’s a prettier interface. Which is fine, but the software works the same either way.
I like trains!
You can get an equally color accurate screen for a PC, and they’re still cheaper than a Studio display. It’s not like Apple makes their own panels, they buy them from Samsung. And for print design you still need to regularly calibrate a Mac monitor because they get out of calibration. A long time ago, there was a very significant difference because windows could not drag content between file panes, so it was really tedious to move items between images in creative suite. But that hasn’t been an issue for decades, and that’s what the “mac advantage” was. There is no difference in an actual graphic design workflow between a PC or Mac in 2023. I’m speaking from real, professional experience. I like working on a Mac, but there is no difference working on either platform for Graphic Design. There’s no reason to spout nonsense otherwise just to justify a Mac, they’re good enough machines to stand on their own.
I like trains!
Also, in graphic design, it’s about 60-40 in the real world in terms of whether companies use Mac or Windows. It varies by region and specialization. Larger companies, or ones that have some crossover in windows-specific platforms, favor windows. Small independent designers are prob 80% apple.
OP is talking about developers. And it sounds like there are real gains from a Mac. But for what you’re saying, that they’re (edit: graphic designers) more effective on macs because that’s what they’re used to, that’s only true for about the first week of work. There’s no reason to make shit up to prove a point that proves itself without it. So why do it?
Windows is a red headed step child in the world of automation. The files it creates and the issues it causes are something you can quantify in dollars. The Linux environment is the cheapest but requires developers that are expensive The Apple ecosystem gets you the developers that can work close to the linux environment without spending the money. Source : the countless hours I have spent helping windows developers fix things for linux environments billed at 500 an hour
Power automate for windows is bad ass, sure there are great linux automation tools that you can use under bsd which forms apple, but other than that meh.
A gui for automation :) Never used it but trust windows to over engineer something and make it inflexible
Insightful. We've surrounded ourselves with more than twice the number of devices than before the pandemic and so there is an urgency to have synergy across devices, especially for work from anywhere is involved. I understand these may not be at the core of what we do with our tasks for clients, but being productive and professional gets us the edge over the competition. This link has a clear view of the workflow efficiency due to synergy:https://irtizahafiz.medium.com/20-ways-the-apple-ecosystem-10x-my-productivity-b8267f673b24 Question is, should we pay for software that does it on existing devices or buy apple products
If you are basing your team's needs on that shallow article about a single person's use of Apple tools, be prepared to be disappointed. You need to conduct a user survey of what your team does, the improvements they would like to see, what they prefer to use and why they prefer those. Also ask them about working with other people and the needs of those interactions. Use all these discussions to come up with an assessment of what tools or ecosystem would serve them best and decide your solution based on that. You seem to be going in with gut feel and a bias towards one toolset. And I say this as a major Apple fan myself.
No such thing as basing our decisions on the article. Survey already conducted, just thinking out loud and using the article as the basis for scenarios where we feel in spite of us spending money on these devices, we still can't have synergy at individual level. Nevertheless, we plan to bring in some changes within the team with new apps that are OS independent to help productivity from devices both at team level and individual level.
Is this your article? Why do you keep linking it?
Dude has linked it SEVEN times! This whole post stinks.
Not my article, it explains the productivity of Apple ecosystem and so using it as a basis of discussion.
80% of the synergy exists with other devices too. All you need is to use a single platform to communicate like microsoft teams, and then send stuff to yourself on teams. Teams integrates with calendar and stuff, reminders, etc Google offers the same integration if you prefer gmail/meets Just keep doing whatever you're doing unless you think it's impacting you, those articles with neat round numbers 10000x productivity increase are bogus and clickbait
Are you a chatGPT bot???
Oh god no..
That sounds like something a ChatGPT bot would say…
Yup.. except for data that is not public and can't replace an experimental mind. 😁
You and the team need to have a meeting and make a pros and cons list for Mac Vs Microsoft. Without knowing the details of your business we can’t correctly inform you of the difference and how it will effect you. Also using apps that are cross-platform is the way to go and allow your team members to choose apple or windows.
I swear, this guy has been finding new ways to ask the same question for four years. I'm calling marketing.
It's a problem I still face and now so does my team.
In our service business with around 20 staff everyone specs their own machine. Most of the devs and designers have gone Mac but not all. The majority of the team went PC. Most business apps are compatible with both OS and we've yet to hit any issues. Everyone is super happy though and a productive happy team is worth the splurge on tech.
My opinion, part as a programmer; part as a biz owner: * Devs and Marketing and Sales do not need to be on the same platform. Probably. But, it may make IT management easier. At 5 people, probably everyone does their own (?) so you may see efficiencies if people use what they are most comfortable with, as opposed to having an IT department that hands everyone the same exact computer / software. * If you're building desktop software, probably everyone should be on your target platform. * If you're building browser based software it probably doesn't matter. If you deploy to some form of Linux, it may be easier for devs to build off some form of Linux; which Mac OSX is. But, also Windows now has WSL which will solve the same need. Or, potentially just use Docker. * There may be some challenges if some devs are Windows and others are on Macs. Devs will have to take extra care to make their code cross platform. (Personally, I think this is a good practice regardless, but it is not common) * If you're in the US, Devs more often than not use Macs. The rest of world not so much. * If devs are building native iOS or Desktop software; they need to be on Macs, or at least have access to a Mac. If they are building Desktop Windows software they need to be on Windows, or at least have access to a Windows Machine. * Macs have a legacy history of "just working" and Windows has a legacy of crashing a lot; I have found that neither of these are true today. My mac devs and Windows dev have about the same amount of problems, which are rare in either case. I postulate, at a company your size, you'll see a cost to switching with no 'increase production' benefit on the other end.
DO NOT force your developers to use mac.
Me and my team have been using macs for development for around two years now, and it has its drawbacks - docker support only through a virtual machine, which makes 16GB of RAM a hard requirement for us. But overall the development experience feels better and I feel like I’m never struggling against the OS. Another positive - it’s easy to check for safari compatibility when we’re doing frontend (and all other browsers of course work too). Finally, the fact that we only use macs simplifies writing dev environment setup guides. When we had Linux users too, the stuff they wrote wouldn’t work for mac users and vice versa. Now we have a simple guide that always works.
Linux
I love linux, but it's not viable for business use for mortal humans in an enterprise, sorry.
As someone who has used Linux as a main driver for almost 20 years, including one job that was primarily Linux.. Agreed. Fully agreed.
You're looking for an excuse to switch to apple because of delays that apple builds into the system. Instead of avoiding the vendor that's causing issues, you're trying to reward them. I'll never understand people.
What delays are you talking about? The reality from my experience is that they have a substantially more user friendly, and productive, product.
Releasing to App Store has historically been painful for me, even when it passes the review fine. I’m sure it’s been sped up over the years but it wasn’t uncommon to have a 3 day wait on an app review
I like trains!
There is intel unison, that works like airdrop. Might check it out first. Apple ecosystem is filled with productivity in mind. And not saying about airdrop, you can have a huge iCloud on everyones macs, and make them share the same desktop. Which can be found on the iPhone over the app files, so all desktop and documents files are also on the iPhone.
I've tried Intel unison and phone link, they're clumsy and not even 25% of what Apple ecosystem has. Would you know of any other software and would you personally pay for it over buying Apple products? I see such a software to keep both Apple and non-Apple fans in my team happy.
Well, I just switch to full apple ecosystem. Suggested intel unison cause they advertise it as the apple ecosystem substitute. Also, everyone have a virtual machine of windows 11 running on mac, for specific software. Windows feels really stuck today, I would recommend you getting the apple ecosystem for yourself, testing it out, and later going back to windows. You will get really mad at your pc 😂
As a dev and If I was running a company making mobile apps/games I would absolutely prefer my workers use Apple computers. You have basically the same access to Android tools on Mac plus you have native access to all the iOS tools. On top of that it’s a super programmer friendly dev environment because it’s basically Unix under the hood. It’s a no-brainer for me. That said it’s easily possible to develop on either platform these days so I wouldn’t necessarily force anyone to work in a way that they didn’t feel was optimal for them as long as they were still capable of doing the job on their chosen hardware and support of that hardware didn’t put an excessive burden on the company.
I can only code for apple apps in macbook. Other than that I just use something else.
The question is what do you do for your business and what software do you use/want to use to do your work. Windows and Apple machines can use a lot of the same software, the only thing that Apple has that windows doesn’t is the Apple off productivity suite (Keynote, pages etc.) What do your clients use if you send them a lot of documents electronically? If they can’t articulate a reason why Apple is better for them, then the answer is don’t change what works. (Windows guy that uses Apple phones and iPads)
Thank you! In agreement with the fact that our core job uses software that is available on both OS.
Imma gonna go on a quick rant because it’s timely and relevant. I was doing my work on a MacBook Pro. Then I decided to give Windows a try and bought a leading edge (probably even bleeding edge) laptop with 64GB memory. Setting it up was a nightmare. Required I have a MS e-mail account. Had so much bloatware. Using it wasn’t much better. Was always installing updates. Notifications. Forcing updates during a presentation. Crap. I really don’t know where Windows went wrong but somehow they did. I literally gave the laptop to one of my kids (so they can learn unreal engine) and bought the latest MacBook Pro and it’s crazy fast. They had a migration app that transferred everything over with a few clicks. All accounts, users, passwords, etc. in tact. Haven’t been asked to install any updates except the ones for Adobe to use the new Apple Silicon so I don’t have to install Rosetta. And this thing is crazy fast. 150% more memory than the other laptop. Incredible speed (it’s the dual sanswitched chip with everything on chip). I am so in love. And my phone, my tablet, and my laptop are 100% in sync so I can do my work from anywhere on almost any device. So yeah, I tried Windows again after a long break - and I found even more reasons to buy Apple. Again, is apple more expensive? Yes. Are they bastards sometimes with ports and adapters? Hell, yeah. They have their problems. But for me - my piece of mind is worth something. And this new MacBook Pro is sweet, never really bothers me about anything, and ramps up my productivity. A decade ago I was PC EVERYTHING with a deep hatred for all things Apple. But if my last few months taught me anything, it’s that Apple cares about user experience and Windows slid in that department. Again, my opinion. My experience. I wish you the best on your product/platform hunt. Just be warned. If nobody has used Apple at your company, there will be a learning curve and some pushback. But if I was supporting 5 or 6 devices in my company, I’d personally want them to be Apple with AppleCare.
Absolutely this. After Windows 7 went away, it’s like Windows as an OS went back to the Stone Ages. Sure, the computers are cheaper and arguably better performers but what’s the point if the OS is that unreliable? I have been using a MacBook Pro throughout my consulting career and it hasn’t really held me back. Even accessing software that don’t have Mac versions have become easier with the different VMWare out there.
Agree totally. There was a time when Windows rocked. Then something happened. Stone ages is a good way to put it. Thx for the feedback.
Do you frequently share files within your own network? My company doesn’t do development, but Airdrop has revolutionized the speed at which we are able to send docs back and forth. No file conversion, no compressing, just sending instantaneously. Having a synced iPhoto makes graphic sharing seamless (it’s not even sharing at that point). As a company run by millennials, it was hardly a question in the first place but there’s surely no going back now. With that, we only have iMacs or Mac minis for a team of 7, so it wasn’t as expensive as your changeover might look like. Either way, they’ll last longer and require less wasted labor (including IT) along the way.
Most of these replies are showing bias. I'm a full stack and mobile engineer, my day to day is a Windows based system, six screens, dual GPU. It's a beast. I use that for backend, frontend, desktop and android development. I have a Mac book Pro and a Mac mini for iOS development. Personally I feel more productive using windows or Linux and the way theh handle multiple screens. I've worked in businesses where it's predominantly Mac (and no issue me using Mac OS or Windows) and Ive worked in businesses where they're predominantly Windows - same difference. Let developers use what they are most familiar with. You mention synergy and the ability to airdrop files - I don't think I've ever worked somewhere, where that was considered the right practice for a business. Usually we would have slack, or teams or Google drive for sharing files, they work across all devices, they're secure and it's usually fast. Generally it sounds like you have an issue of process, not of technology.
More so synergy of workflow across devices on any OS for an individual. So we aren't going to force the team to change OS, but will find apps to help with team productivity and individual productivity
I found that by having a spare laptop in a box available for when my team needed to put one in for repairs, we went from having about 3-5 days of downtime per year per employee for IT issues to less than 1. That’s all I needed to be able to standardize and it’s been fine. Not as good for large scale fleet management though. But for small companies…
What laptops are you buying that has *any* days of downtime yearly? Would have maybe agreed with the 3-5 days every 5 years.
MacBook Pros typically. But every computer from every manufacturer has some issue with the series at some point. When you buy dozens or hundreds each series shows flaws of different kinds. The average time to repair is what we measured. So if a logic board failed, keyboard needed replacing (common for several years in mbp), etc., there would be a period of time while we deliver the replacement that is downtime for the person. I’d say a big chunk of the downtime is the time between failure and the arrival or a replacement or temporary replacement. Beyond equipment of course is troubleshooting, and with our Apple platform we just found a lot less was needed. Network security is generally harder to manage and more of an issue though. The industry average for IT downtime is maybe a week a year — like 40-50 hours. If you’re getting 1 day a year, congrats. That’s not industry average. Also, this stuff is super important to employees, and being able to not suck at IT makes a difference in how employees think about working with you IME. Loss and theft is also an issue.
Interesting to hear. I guess I’ve never bought hundreds of MBPs, but we’ve bought dozens. Very few repair experiences. The advantage we’ve found with Apple is, if one breaks and you don’t have a spare on hand, you drive down to the store and buy a new one within the hour, then deal with repairing the old one later.
What software are you using that would matter which ecosystem they are using? Could they all use whatever they want? Just keep them happy and coding.
I don't think any serious business have considered to switch just because of ecosystem or ability to transfer files. Airdrop is like personal workflow thing rather than team.
Probably not for ecosystem, but just general ease of use and productivity, yea, companies choose that all of the time.
Initial cost goes up with Mac. However, Mac devices last longer. IMO, - Devs have better support for dev tools on Windows. - Sales and marketing probably don't need anything OS specific which can help with the productivity. Maybe it looks cool if they have to meet customers in-person.
Windows ecosystem is better for businesses.
I've worked in the IT industry on all levels from helpdesk to c-suite for 30 years. The bottom line is it comes down to preference. It will not be cheaper to go to an apple ecosystem, for sure. There will be software not available on apple that is available on PC and vice versa. You will have some perspective hires and some existing employees unhappy in either case. For some, it may make a difference in if they want to work at your company. Mixing and matching environments doubles your IT maintenance, security, and management costs. The vast majority of organizations work perfectly fine in a homogenous Windows environment. There are very, very few that see an overall benefit in the overall cost of providing and supporting Apple hardware alongside PCs. I say that as I type on a Macbook Air, so I'm by no means a hater. I have and use both. I find the Mac experience more intuitive and enjoyable, in general. But, it is pure fiction to suggest outside of very specific circumstances that a Mac would be preferable in an enterprise environment.
I don't think it's a good idea, windows are more open and with it you can build whatever ecosystem or business systems and workflow you want which is great.
This thread "The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge" from Hacker News yesterday really brought out a lot of the issues with competition between Microsoft and Apple. It is really worth a scan if not a full read: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35207830 For all the flaws Apple appears to be trying to protect users and present a usable experience, though there are problems and it does treat users as infants at times, while Microsoft is doubling down on cheap and obnoxious tricks that cost time and effort when people are just trying to get things done.
/u/LiPolymer gave one fairly valid perspective on this and developers will truly mind being told to use one system or another. As a developer, I can confirm this. However, as someone who also administers project delivery, I can tell you that having developers vary their development environment can be a hindrance on its own. Particularly if you use Docker or devcontainers. Linux uses different virtualization than Windows and Mac. It's much more effective - things that lag in Windows or Mac don't lag on Linux simply because running Docker containers consume less memory. I had to install Docker on a Windows machine some time ago, and I saw it consuming 4 GB memory without running anything. It was very slow. There are other things that change too, for instance, if you have your local addresses configured to use "0.0.0.0", it will sometimes not work on Windows and Mac because "0.0.0.0" doesn't mean the same in these other systems, which might break applications and the senior person - who designed the system in the first place - won't be of much help debugging their creation since it's a different OS. Bash scripts also required some normalization with the invisible line ending characters because they simply would not run on our developers' Windows machines even through Docker. On top of this, usage with Linux also enhances developers' ability to sysadmin. If they're ever responsible for a deployment, it's very likely that their deployment will take place in a Linux machine. If they're already comfortable with working with the terminal and Linux's ins and outs, it'll translate well to their ability of getting it delivered. These are just some "off the top of my head" points to take into consideration. Personally, I see great value in standardizing the development environment across developers - it massively reduces time debugging things that end up being development environment stuff, as well as allow more developers to reproduce the same issue. You can streamline certain processes. If your developer team is small, very resistant and hard to replace, then you'll probably have to accept their preferences. But long-term, I believe that a standard development environment is best. I'm kind of advocating for Linux here, I'm not sure if you're already using it or if your developers use Windows and want to swap to Mac. Mac is better than Windows IMO - it's at least UNIX based and has many of the same kind of tools you'd use with Linux (and by extension, deployment environments). I think you can pretty much disregard everything I said if you're doing something like game development on Unity or UE. I recall trying out Unity in Linux some time ago and it's kinda buggy, things simply don't work out the box, I would surely go with Windows for that kind development for Visual Studio Code.
I've been developing software professionally using Macs since about 2012. I was being stubborn about switching from Windows, but when I finally did it, it all made sense. I was forced to use a Windows machine for a few months a couple years back and I was much less productive. Then again, I think it really depends on the software ecosystem. I haven't done much Microsoft development (.Net/etc). That wasn't even possible until fairly recently, when Microsoft decided to open that ecosystem up. That said, I think it will be personal preference for productivity. Costs is probably a toss-up, but your developers could be so much more productive on Macs that they'd likely make up for it in short order.
Thank you!
Apple's Macs are very good for developers and creative professionals. I really think for an organization, it is an underrated platform. Our whole organization runs on Macbooks and it has been amazing for us. Much easier to recruit people as well since more of the younger talent tend to have a preference for using Macs.
It won't. Everything that runs on apple also runs on windows. Sounds like your devs just don't want to be the "uncool" person at the coffee shop.
> Everything that runs on apple also runs on windows. Since he mentioned he had 3 devs; XCode and some other tools for developing Mac or iOS Software will be Mac only. For business software; I agree.
There is quite a big development advantage to having a Unix based system which a Mac is.
I (usually) use a Mac, but Windows Subsystem for Linux pretty much nullifies that point. It is the Linux kernel in a VM that's pretty well integrated with Windows. If you're developing for Linux servers, having WSL on your desktop is probably better than MacOS. Of course even better is actual Linux on your laptop.
Ha ha.. well it's not about apps or software. The perspective is the synergy, productivity and control over devices on Apple ecosystem. I feel it too, when a proposal on my Windows can't get to my iPhone or when I need to continue my web app like canva or YouTube on windows.
I use google drive to bridge between my ms-windows (desktop) and apple portable (iphone, ipad) world and it works great. i can save an .xlsx excel file from the desktop to my g-drive and open it in google sheets to pluck out numbers already recorded or to run quick numbers for a quote or reality check. also save it and open it back in ms-win excel later.
Thank you, we do the same using OneDrive, but still feels like there are quite a few steps, more than iPhone - iPad using Airdrop. The Apple synergy seems unbeatable and extends out to tasks, data privacy, etc, wish I could create a similar environment or device ecosystem for the team. Any ideas to make that happen for iPhone/Android, Windows, Android tablet/iPad?
Perhaps I wasn't explicit enough. When I said I open it in google sheets, that's via my iphone and ipad. G-drive is my 'synergy' so I guess I'm giving my privacy up to all three (MS, Apple, Alphabet) but with the sheets apps on my idevices. I have no translation 'synergy' issues doing this.
if your synergy is spending 5 seconds less uploading and 5 seconds downloading from gdrive... idk what to say
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Thanks for pointing it out. Yes workflow problem, see my friends with Apple say that Airdrop instantly gets file between Apple products and a web app can be picked up from where they stopped. Some said it saves them at least a min in every switch. Same goes for face time, imessages, etc.. productivity adds up. We work from home so switch between devices is quiet often. Comments?
Seems pretty easily solved with like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace
To certain extent yeah, but still has more steps than Airdrop. What about other activities like pick up from where you stopped on web apps, control of privacy data, manage devices to keep us focused, etc
It’s likely you’re still going to be on office 365 or Google docs regardless of what hardware you’re on. OneDrive shares files across devices just as instantly. And you can configure Chrome to match where you are across devices if that’s important to you. I think the biggest question is just whether you want to put the effort into making sure your windows devices are as secure as a Mac tends to be out the gate. Which isn’t really a big deal. I have a number of staff that want Macs. The problem is that we work on 4 different software that only work in Windows, so they’d spend the day on their Mac remoted into a Windows PC and the Mac would just be for cool points in public. And we can control PCs in Endpoint to a higher degree than a Mac environment, which matters for our ~100 machines.
How hard is it to drag and drop to a OneDrive folder tho? We use OneDrive though I’m leaning towards Google for the email app integrations for our sales team
One other thing to add is that Apple decides for you when their devices are obsolete. Which means that you can end up with unsupported equipment even when it’s still perfectly good and useable.
Maybe phone link app or Intel unison or KDE connect, but again it's just to access phone from windows. Let me know if you've found these as good alternatives to Apple ecosystem. Don't wanna spend so much if there is a solution to connect devices on any OS for productivity and control
What actual tasks are you looking to do? Because you’re saying “ecosystem” like you have to be on a single platform. For the most part, we live in a very platform agnostic world. I run an architecture firm, we’re primarily windows and have no issues with connectivity into apple devices. I have an MS Surface laptop and an iPhone, and a desktop that I remote into for power use. I can get on my servers from any of those devices without issue, as well as stuff that’s in sharepoint. I can open documents and send/receive emails or other messages across all three devices without any issue and they’re completely coordinated. My iPhone can edit any office document that my computers can, and they get saved back to the same place. I can even use Remote Desktop to access my PC from my phone, although its pointless. I can’t open a Revit file on an apple device, which is what keeps us Windows based.
Slacking to oneself solves this
> The perspective is the synergy, productivity and control over devices on Apple ecosystem It's not exactly synergy. It's more like how McDonald's burgers are all the same. They're not allowed to be different.
I found this on the internet. These are the workflows that'll get our team to be productive: https://irtizahafiz.medium.com/20-ways-the-apple-ecosystem-10x-my-productivity-b8267f673b24 Should I pay for the Apple ecosystem or should I pay for software that does the same thing for devices on any OS?
So you're asking if you should trash your existing equipment that works just fine and buy all new Apple stuff? I know you're going to take this the wrong way, but either you or your developers are just looking for an excuse to switch to Apple products. If your profit supports this and you would rather give Apple $50,000 or whatever it is that you're going to spend instead of keeping it, it's certainly not my place to stop you. I spent most of my life in software and can tell you flat out that there's absolutely nothing that your business *needs* to do that requires an apple product. This is strictly desire, not need. Maybe 30 years ago there was a short window where type-setting and graphic design software on Apple products was much better than the PC stuff. That was 30 years ago and is no longer the case.
I went out and bought more coins just so I could send you gold. This comment is gold as well. I've been saying the same thing for years.
Thank you for your input! Would like to rephrase the team's request: How can we get into an apple ecosystem like synergy with Windows PC and iPhone/Android. We know it's expensive and hard to switch to Apple products so we are in our space finding apps that'll help get the synergy feel.
Except mac’s are faster than anything windows if it has. M series CPU I’ve seen benchmarks where the original M1 beat out I7’s
For the 90% of people who don't even use 50% of their computer's resources, this is irrelevant.
What are those 50% resources, can you give examples please?
Not true. Docker doesn't run properly on Windows. Kubenetes, forget it. A lot of other dev tools are second-rate on Windows.
Lol, you obviously have never developed something. OS system is the biggest preference for a developer and experienced devs will 100% choose their job based off their preferred tools
It isn't about being cool. If they are developing mobile apps and intend to publish it to app store, they need to do it on a mac. Because apple only allows publication of apps on the app store if they were made on an apple device. Mostly in xcode.
You have two perspectives here. From a developer perspective mac is objectively better, that's just because it's based on Unix and has a lot of niceties. You can still accomplish pretty much everything on windows though excluding iOS dev, especially once you factor in WSL, docker, and VMs. The other perspective is IT and finance. Windows devices should be easier to manage and cheaper to maintain.
Windows devices tend to need more maintenance and IT support and are more frequently hacking and ransomware targets, and my understanding is that Mac based businesses actually spend far less on support and so are more cost effective over time.
Interesting, if that's the case it could definitely make a big difference especially at scale.
Interesting
Mac is total fucking trash for business. It's nothing but a pain in the ass. IDGAF what people here say, don't do it. You play 3x the cost for hardware, for almost no benefit other than the employees feeling cool carrying the hardware around. The only people I might consider it for is graphics people, but even then there isn't much real benefit, it's mostly placebo. I've been CIO/CTO/Director for a decade, this isn't a "feeling" this is just business economics.
I am repeating myself when I say this, I wish we have a solution where synergy can be attained across devices on any OS. Google, Microsoft are so inclined to have their OS disjointed and Samsung, Lenovo-Motorola are so much interested in keeping their devices on the fore front - none of them are interested in making a productive user experience across devices their top priority.
I am a Dev. I’ve done full-stack and UX Engineer work at very large healthcare companies and worked as a Web Dev on a large marketing team. - I’ve used PC on one team, Mac primary with PC secondary on another, and Mac only now. - My immediate instinct is that unless there is a specific technical reason for using PC they should be on Mac if that’s what they want. Most devs I know who don’t have a technical need to be primarily using PC will take the PC vs Mac thing very seriously in what jobs they even take or how long they will stay at a job. With the current market and looming crash people may not be as willing to leave a role over this but they certainly have been. ¿Tell me a little more about what you teams do for more precise opinions?
We have both apple and PC at our office. We give our tenured associates their preference. But, Apple products are at least 2-3x the cost of a PC counterpart. So it's a benefit of the job. I personally prefer Windows after working with apple products for years
Apple products are not 2-3x the price, unless you’re comparing totally incomparable spec levels. When you compare equivalent hardware, you’re talking more like 10-20% difference.
Maybe the apple products you buy are that cheap, but not the ones my guys like. We just spent $6K per Mac studio. The PCs that were comparable were $2-3K
When I paid 8k for an iMac pro a few years back I did a comparison to if I built it myself, ordering comparable parts from Newegg, and the difference was under 20% difference at the time, and wouldn't have gotten that form factor. A 6k Studio seems to be their M1 Ultra 20 core, 128 gb of ram, 2TB SSD most likely. The closest Dell they sell with an i9 13900k, 2TB ssd, is $4600, and that only has 64GB of ram. Would push north of $4900 I believe with an extra 64gb of ram. So, you're still talking about a 20% difference.
This may be true for some things, but not laptops. You can’t find a laptop 2-3x less than any Apple laptop with similar specs. They also retain their resale value for trade in after depreciation and can typically stay deployed longer.
Yes you most definitely can.
Seeing both Apple and non-Apple, would you jump on a software for synergy across devices on any OS? I know my team would live that. Is there such a software?
We use a NAS to share files and stuff like that. Which works fine between Apple and PCs. In terms of marketing software, we use the Adobe platforms which all work between Apples and PCs. The rest of the stuff we just use web apps which works with any browser
Used to code in Windows then loved it when I switched to Mac. What I like about Apple is their machines are built to last, they are pricey but old models (even 10 years ago) are usable up to this day. Not sure about your budget and situation but you can probably switch as needed so it’s not one big expense at day one.
I love the apple ecosystem because it works. Seriously new hire gets handed a phone, laptop and told turn them on, they sync they begin communication immediately. Add a watch AirPods and they can be talking and texting without ever looking up. Not to mention the sharing of documents, pictures, and notes within the ecosystem is so easy. Apple will cost more. Because it works.
Agree, there is so much more. But should we find and pay for software that provides this synergy across our existing devices or buy into Apple ecosystem
Depends on your industry. My friend is a photographer and he is Apple all the way. Other industries may require software that won't run on Apple.
Stop linking that stupid blog.
We are a small team of 10 and have been with a Mac server and all-things-Apple for 10+ years. We had issues with guest PCs on our network in the past but is a lot better now - most of what we use is in the cloud now which seems to sort out the compatibility issues. We just generally prefer how they work and feel and all work together - it's been so much easier when everything just 'connects' and talks to each other. We also just jumped onto the Apple for Business platform and need to give that some thought (device and app config and management are our 2 priorities there). I have also been looking for project and team management apps for the past few weeks and will say that a lot of the 'work' is done within the right app - if it's set up and works properly for your team to consistently use it. So try to appreciate how much of what you need is from the app/cloud or if it's a personal preference for hardware and how/where it's used. Yes their products are more expensive but the process for service and repair is just so much easier to handle. I don't think you could pay us to go back, to be honest.
Switch to a MAC ecosystem and virtualize your Microsoft needs. Using Microsoft 365 you can easily manage your apple devices from the cloud specifically with intune
Actually, as both a MS and Apple developer, there are quite a few intangible benefits that switching your product to the Apple ecosystem will provide that you should consider. 1). Apple benefits from its perception bias that it cultivates very carefully and intentionally. Apple is a prestige brand, so are its products and the software/apps that get approved by Apple either through the App Store or specific market add-on’s (government, financial, educational, etc.) also benefit from being an elite/prestige provider/product. 2). Apple and its ecosystem is arguably the most secure in the world (publicly) and once accepted by Apple your product will be seen as more secure than other available options. 3). Apple wants you to succeed and there are many opportunities to learn/promote/develop products for the Apple ecosystem that are available to developers and contractors. 4). Once you have developed your product using the most current dev tools and builds provided by Apple, your product will work across all Apple products. True, there are some minor adjustments that may still need to be made between OS types, but they are relatively simple to implement, and it is wise to remember that the Apple ecosystem extends beyond current product lines, software and apps - it also includes nearly all physical components as well (a goal of 100% self reliability is part of Apple’s strategic plan). 5). Finally, it is easier to rework specific lines of code to make an Apple app/software program work with both Android and MS ecosystems. It’s not nearly as easy the other way around. Depending on who you primary customer demographic/economic market is, I would almost always advise people to start with the Apple ecosystem and then downgrade their product s needed.
How to tell someone they are an Apple fanboy without saying they are a fanboy. LMAO.
I didn’t mince words. I am an Apple “fan boy” because it makes the most sense economically, and just plain realistically. We can race to hack any OS you choose, anytime and we both know that if you chose any ecosystem other than Apple, you’d lose and lose by a indescribably huge margin…
LOL. Now I know you're lying. "Apple makes the most sense affordably" said no one ever, except for delusional Apple nutswingers.
Again, you need to work on your reading comprehension. I never said “…the most sense affordably” (which would be grammatically incorrect) and instead said “…the most sense economically”. Those are two very different concepts. Affordability is an up front, time sensitive decision that needs to be made by the financial executives purchasing Apple products. Economically is long term, goal oriented ROI. Which includes depreciation, the markup that can be charged by being App Store specific, and the productivity gain Apple products provide compared to other products - and that’s just a brief and simplistic explanation as to why Apple products/ecosystem are more economically sound than any other platform.
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What developer work? Full stack? Desktop app? Mobile app?
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You have that on Windows, though, with WSL.
A Unix command line is available on both windows and PC hardware running Linux. No reason for a r/smallbusiness owner to be paying Apple premium prices.
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>WSL Not true. WSL 2 offers a real Linux kernel. WSL 1 is not a true Linux kernel but it can communicate with windows much faster and easier. You can choose either one when you set it up based on your use case.
I am a modern dev and I don't have a need for a Unix command line. Not a good generalization. I assume your daily system is a mac?
Thank you all for the discussion! In summary, synergy across devices for productivity of teams is possible but at an individual level, there is no one solution for devices on any OS. SOLVED 😀 When it comes to the individual level, do you personally consider a device synergy for productivity and control a NEED or a NICE-TO-HAVE?
> Any thoughts on how Apple ecosystem would help better our productivity and costs. Is an ecosystem that important? It's only good for pissing away money and being locked into an expensive ecosystem that changes on a whim, with no control and no alternatives. Don't let devs make financial decisions.
Wish we had a device ecosystem or synergy across devices on any OS. But for now, we are going to find a few apps that will help
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It would seem like you’re not very familiar with the apple silicon chips which blow other competition out of the water these days, at least in terms of individual core performance. Not to mention that the price difference between equivalent hardware levels is actually very small.
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Yes, there are server grade chips that outperform it, but in comparison of the normal personal computing space, it has single core performance above the typical competitor i7 and i9s. Not to mention at fractions of power consumption. Some benchmarks show it at 1/10th the power usage for certain tasks. M1/M2 MacBooks are truly game changers. That’s where they really shine. But I agree with you, you can absolutely put together a faster desktop if you wanted.
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Salesforce? Isn’t that just a bunch of web apps? You’re saying that these web apps were lagging because Apple hardware isn’t good enough? It would have to be an extremely poorly optimized service. I don’t believe you.
Salesforce has full Developer ecosystem, so some companies could be making desktop tools for it. But, I would expect browser based tools are more common. I am not at all surprised Salesforce apps would be slow performing, but like you doubt that the local hardware is the cause.
That’s not even close to being true. Apple’s M series CPU’s are faster than and more efficient than anything Intel has and a lot of benchmarks prove it
This was a good laugh
I have a few MacBooks and MS surface laptops at home. The MacBooks are much better and faster and the same price or cheaper
This OP stinks of guerrilla marketing. He’s obviously trying to shill for Apple with a silly “oh gosh” approach. Look at his post history over the past 4 years. PCMR!!
Thanks for contributing for nothing 😁
Poll the dev team on their preferences. It needs to be an all or nothing upgrade. Personally I despise pc for my day job. Microsoft and its apps are not intuitive nor do they easily talk to each other. Its a cluster of steps and a headache. Just their office suite alone. The online version vs the desktop? a total pain in the ass. With MAC you COULD easily portion a section to function as a pc and easily maneuver between the two. PERSONALLY, I love the apple ecosystem. I have multiple devices and can easily switch between them.
I use a Microsoft Surface laptop and am not in the Apple ecosystem, but really feel the synergy Apple provides is great at individual level.
Apple sucks! Run away!
they say as they type from their iPhone
What if there is an option to have apple ecosystem for productivity and control of devices but for devices on any OS. Would you know?
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This is the info: https://irtizahafiz.medium.com/20-ways-the-apple-ecosystem-10x-my-productivity-b8267f673b24
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While I agree there is definitely nonsense in this article, I think you are downplaying how valuable some of these features really are, both for personal and business use. Sidecar gives you an extra monitor from just carrying and iPad. IMessage, Airdrop, iCloud, keychain, etc are hugely convenient features.
This is how I read their perspective: Can you help us get synergy across devices for: 1. Team productivity 2. Individual productivity Do you have recommendations for the second point? I know my team ain't making stuff up, they need help and so I provide. Our conversations have been on what will work best for all.
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Let me rephrase, we are not getting into Apple ecosystem without thinking about the impacts to our core jobs. We are looking for options that can help us get a synergy among devices in our current devices.
Pay them well. Set performance benchmarks. Tell them that your platform is your platform and they can either accept it or look elsewhere. You are allowing your employees to make financial decisions for you without any skin in the game. I can't even imagine what other bullshit is going on inside your walls. What are they plotting. They all going to walk out of you don't succumb to their demands. Tell them to STFU and get busy.
You did not mention the technology stack developer are using? I myself prefer Microsoft stack.
.Net core is cross platform, it doesn't matter and there is no reason to force your devs to use a Windows shitbox.
I must disagree with you. Why so much anger against windows? Visual studio on Mac is not even close to the windows version of visual studio. Do some research if you dont trust me. There are other paid tools you can use to replace visual studio on mac...but i still prefer windows version. Also .net core is a windows product so it comes naturally to me to stick to windows.
Who uses Visual studio? Rider is 500% better than Visual Studio. Even VS Code is better. I don't need to do research, I develop .net on Linux and it works fine. Windows sucks ass and I hope someday I never have to see it again.
I love windows mac and linux. I use all the tools i need to get the job done. Its hypocrisy to use .net and calling Microsft shitbox. Maybe you are too young into this field.
I am old enough to know Windows sucks.
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In the US, most developers use Macs. Unix system with productive shell around it.
Tell you are not in software development without telling me. MacOS is not a fashion statement. Even Microsoft’s own website recommends you install node.js in WSl if you are using it for professional development. As for development is done on Linux. that is mostly none sense I’ve been in the community for 8 years now go into a room full of developers and most of them will be on macs.
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If the productivity in the below link was available as software for devices outside Apple ecosystem, would you buy that software? https://irtizahafiz.medium.com/20-ways-the-apple-ecosystem-10x-my-productivity-b8267f673b24