One key advantage Macs have over Linuxes is the availability of good quality graphical software. No VMs and all the hassle they bring to take into account, mostly at least. You can open a terminal and be involved with most of the Linux/Unix monoculture that exists and have access to much the same tools. One key advantage Macs have over Windows is that they run Unix. Yeah Apple is making some very bad mistakes in their software quality, but there are two things that are very essential to the Mac experience that still make it the most straightforward choice. Or at least it goes too far to say that it's a mental lock in. Right now the premium on Mac hardware, which only happily runs an increasingly decrepit operating system, isn't looking worth it. I could meet my main use cases on Linux quite happily, and dual-boot Windows for the rest.

I think the hardware is the laurel Apple has really been resting on. My workplace uses Dell XPS hardware, and that's good, but it still doesn't feel as solid to me. I've got an early 2013 MBP, still going strong, a bit dented but it's been around the world with me a few times, so that's understandable. If there is lock-in, it's on the hardware side. The software has definitely declined in quality, but not enough to massively annoy me. I have a Mac, because it's (at least previously) been pretty secure by default, doesn't require me to invest a lot of time sysadmining my own box, and lets me dip into a healthy ecosystem of commercial software useful to my hobbies (like photography.) ) all work just as well on Linux, MacOS and Windows. The core applications that I use (Firefox, Docker, VSCode, vim.

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