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Comment by whositis | Hacker News Reader

There has been a definite move.

People are buying things like Dell XPS laptops instead of macbooks - you get far faster hardware, and a better development environment.

I moved at the end of last year. I sometimes have to hop back on my macbook and it pains me when I do so - minutes of watching a rainbow spinner. Compiling things takes forever. The magsafe adapter is awful (Been through so many magsafe adapters, they all fail in exactly the same way).

The macbook was the ultimate developers laptop for a good few years there. Now it's just - I don't know - something for hipsters who think removing things makes it better? It's underpowered, overpriced, and the OS seems slower and more clunky than ever.

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How is the dell xps faster than the macbook pro? In what way is the windows dev experience superior to the mac dev experience?

There's plenty of actual things to blame apple for without inventing new ones. The issue with the new mbp is not performance.

> The issue with the new mbp is not performance.

Surely at least in part it is, when one of the major issues is the memory cap?

The xps 13, the surface book and most other "developer-friendly" laptops don't fit more than 16 gb. I use a t460p which supports 64 gb, but I just have 16 gb in there because even for hadoop development I don't need more.

The memory cap issue is a non-issue. 99% of the people who complained wouldn't pay extra to get 32 gb.

> In what way is the windows dev experience superior to the mac dev experience?

To be fair, it's dead simple to install Linux if you don't like Windows.

Its not difficult not install, but there are often a few tweaks that are needed to get everything working. Sometimes that can be quite tricky even for experienced people (I can't get both bluetooth and wireless working reliably one one machine I have, despite having tried 3 or 4 disrtos on it).

The Dell XPS laptop ships with Ubuntu, and all the hardware works flawlessly.

The only performance area that I can think of where Macbook Pros have trailed PC laptops in recent years is with discrete GPUs. CPU-wise, they've been pretty much the same.

Once you get into solid state disk I/O, PC laptops have some catching up to do.

I use Ubuntu. Can't comment on Windows. The Dell XPS+Ubuntu is staggeringly fast. Massive battery life, and no loud annoying fan etc.

For the same money as a mbp, you're getting more memory, faster CPU, better battery life, etc etc

Sorry, tell me about the better development environment. Especially if one needs xCode? What are you getting that exists on there, that doesn't exist on MacOS?

That's one of the points. Back then, using Xcode and develop for iOS were bonuses, yet another reason to buy a Mac. These days, it feels more like I am obligated to buy a Mac if I want to develop for iOS. Not the same pleasure it once was.

Isn't XCode a completely artificial barrier?

In Linux and Windows, it's always possible to compile for any platform, at the worst using a VM

Essentially Apple is exploiting its developer community by decreeing that you must use a Mac to develop for iOS giving it guaranteed sales.

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