Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)

I've had a few Apple machines over the years (mainly as test machines and toys). I've had two MacBooks, one MacBook Pro, an iMac and a couple of Mac Minis. I have nothing now other than a cheap second hand desktop PC (and some cash in pocket!):

I agree with the build quality - they are good quality as in good materials and good fit. However, with my EE cap on, the designs themselves are bad and are quite dangerous. When there is literally that amount of LiPoly cells sitting inside a chassis, you want to be able to isolate the power. One bit of water in it and it's effectively an incendiary device. I've seen one recent MacBook Pro (pre-thunderbolt) go up with my own eyes quite spectacularly and wouldn't want something you can't drop the cells out of rapidly if you inevitably pour your coffee in it.

With regards to the software, I found the OSX environment inconsistent and XCode absolutely terrible. The OSX environment is inconsistent from the "task focused" application designs that you see. Every shipped application has its own set of behaviours and pretty much ignores a common standard resulting in head scratching. The keyboard shortcuts system is horrid and doing anything without the trackpad is hard work. XCode was just a mismash of concepts thrown together badly. As a comparison point, Visual Studio is a lot more mature and consistent and that is saying something.

The whole Apple/OSX ecosystem is a good attempt but it's not good enough for the money on the basis that some of the fundamentals are flawed. I'd actually throw more money behind Microsoft at the moment as they are heading in what I percieve to be the right direction. Apple started at a good point and have got worse. Microsoft started at a bad point and are getting better.

TBH however, the best OS/hardware ecosystem I've come across so far was SunOS4 and Sun4 architecture in the early 90s.

I used a Mac for about 6 months and loved it, however as soon as I switched back to using Linux (Ubuntu 10.10 at the time) I forgot about it.

On Linux, I just get stuff done. It might not be as slick as OS X in some regards, but I find it a lot less distracting and much simpler and straight-forward. So unless you specifically need something from OS X, e.g. Photoshop, I'd definitely recommend giving Ubuntu or similar a try :-)

I ended up selling the Mac - annoyingly it didn't retain its value and after 6 months (and no new models coming out) I sold a £1000 iMac for £500. Ah well :-(

After two decades of Unix use, in 2000 I switched to Apple and OSX - the only reason I considered it was because of the design of the Titanium Powerbook, which I saw in those days as an amazing piece of hardware design, which - amazingly - gave me a Unix workstation in a fantastic portable package. I simply couldn't believe that Apple, of all people, were delivering what I'd wanted for years - a smart, functional, fully working Unix workstation in a portable format.

So I was very happy for a year or two, and am now on my 4th Macbook Pro. The Macbook Pro (17") has come to represent everything that I desired in the 80's and 90's for a Unix workstation.

But: only because I'm running Linux on it. Mac OSX, sure, has its time and place - but when it comes to putting the power of this amazing bit of hardware to good use, nothing beats having a proper Linux distribution onboard. Proper memory management, proper user security model, proper levels of abstraction between a user program and a system service, and so on. Its simply an amazing bit of gear, now that I've set it up right.

Oh, though .. how I wished SGI had gone a different path, and released their Indy laptop to great fanfare. How I wish they hadn't been usurped by Microsoft, it would be so, so nice to have an SGI laptop in the 21st Century ..

FWIW I had a large glass of wine spilled all over my macbook with no long-term ill effects after the drying period.