Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?

My perspective is biased by my moving in the opposite direction. I'm just in the process of considering a transition TO Apple after being a lifelong windows user. My current build is a top of the line XPS 15 (2015). It's... disappointing. The touchpad already broke. I went through at least 3 warranty visits before the wifi finally worked halfway decent. Windows is becoming less and less what I want it to be. I use it purely for coding, but when I do jump online for a few minutes it manages to be slower than my ipad. Basically, I want a simple, fast, productivity OS that just works (sorry). I don't want it to show me ads and I'm beyond the point where I derive any satisfaction whatsoever from tinkering or configuring it to be perfect. I just want it to work well and work consistently.

Although consensus seems to be that their software is getting worse, from what I see it feels like Apple is the one making the devices that can accomplish what I'm looking for - and a big part of that is the hardware. Still, I'm interested to hear what people say about elementary OS.

I've been using my laptop a bunch in my bed though, the Surface Book is detachable, and a Razer Core could give me multiple monitors when I need it.

It's probably going to be a year before another Apple innovation, and at this point the only thing holding me back from switching is the feeling that these other options have some sort of catch. Instability that will make me throw it out a window, or being ignored by the largely Apple development community.

The LinkedIn/Slack stuff is nice, but Microsoft should just invest hundreds of millions on improving Windows dev projects like VSCode.

I will be waiting for the next model, and if pricing doesn't drop by then, it will likely be the moment I need to look elsewhere.

$2799 + tax = $3200 for my 2013 was right at the boundary of what I am willing to pay. $3499 + tax = $4000 is going too far.

To answer the OP's direct question: if it's an employer paying, then yes I am taking a MacBook over anything else.

I won't be switching yet, because all my Apple kit is But they're definitely on watch, as far as I'm concerned. It's not just that I'm disappointed by the new hardware. It's that their software - the real thing that got me to switch to Apple in the first place - is getting increasingly bad. The bundled apps, both for OS X and iOS, are a UX basket case of early 2000s Windows Media Player proportions. I wish I could go back to the skeuomorphic era; those apps were goofy but at least they didn't do shit like quietly deleting music from my phone "to free up space" when I still have 8 gigabytes to spare.

And I'm getting more and more pissed at Apple for harassing me 5+ times a day to upgrade iOS, which I am not going to do because, seriously, now is not a good time for me to do any OS upgrades and I really wish they could understand that I do not live my life by their schedule. But Microsoft sure doesn't do great on that latter point either, and I have definitely lost work when my Win 8 VM decided to reboot itself without my permission. At least Apple is polite about being a dick to me over the OS upgrades.

That said, 2 years is a while, and both companies could go either way from here. And as far as I'm concerned, Unix running Windows in a VM is no less functional than Windows running Unix in a VM.

But Microsoft is shipping hardware I care about, whereas Apple seems like it's ready to charge back into the hockey puck mouse era. I switched to Apple as my primary platform at home just after that period ended, so it'd be fitting to switch away when it starts again.

About the only thing I'm confident is unlikely to happen is that I go back to Linux as my primary OS, because, seriously, Linux as a desktop OS is like something out of a Samuel Beckett play.