Why not spin it around the other way? What advantages does Mac now have over Windows, in a world where Microsoft is catering to developers from both sides?
My first Mac was in 1992 (a IIsi). Since then every computer I've bought (servers aside) has been a Mac.
Last week my MBP died. The battery overheated and 'burst', taking the case and trackpad with it. I'll still have a Mac desktop for development and cartography, but I need a laptop, and I simply can't justify £1250 for a MacBook.
Instead, for the first time in 25 years, I'm buying something else: a Chromebook, on which I'll install Ubuntu. It's pretty much the same weight (1.19kg vs 0.91kg) and size; it does word processing, web browsing, PDF viewing, and Ruby hacking just fine; and it costs £1,000 less. Sure, the performance is much, much worse, but for my uses that's fine.
* Generally nicer hardware even compared to things at the same price point. Don't forget that hardware is more than RAM and CPU specs. There are some notable exceptions with pretty nice hardware, like the surface pro tablets.
* More friendly UX all around. This is somewhat subjective, of course, but if you'll recall a while back there were some big corporate IT departments who explained that IT costs were much lower for Mac users. They chalked this up to a combination of increased user friendliness, lower virus risk, and increased reliability.
The only activity in my life where I actually choose to use Windows is for FPS games. However, that advantage is disappearing; over half my steam games support mac now.
So in my book the Mac is still best but I also agree that the direction Apple is going doesn't look too promising.
I remember spending time trying to figure out how to disable the animation that plays when switching OSX virtual desktops - only to find out that you literally can't without code injection or a third party app - rendering the virtual desktops on OSX entirely useless.
The fact that this a) is the default behavior and b) is not configurable, is just another in a long line of awful OSX UX and it only gets worse with every update. El Capitan changed terminal font smoothing to something woeful which was also a struggle to revert.
Honestly the only way I have found development possible on native OSX and Windows is by stretching a terminal(/putty) to the full size of the desktop and handling all window management with tmux.
Pretty minor issue though, I still love both. I'm just not sure if I'll love the new versions everyone seems to be whining about :)
To give more detail on my use case: I'm not a developer so things like terminal or unix don't really matter to me. And I don't think I've had a virus since the 90s.
That's really what it's all about though. Many developers prefer a unix environment. Windows is often neglected in open source, so getting up and running with a working dev environment can be a challenge. So, for many, Windows just isn't really an option.
That leaves macOS as the only option that's a first class citizen in all regards -- hardware support from manufacturer, support in open source projects, support for proprietary applications (I.e MS Office), etc.
For non-programmers though, there really isn't a meaningful difference. Take your pick.
If you are just starting out or you aren't in the Apple's ecosystem (e.g. you don't have Idevices) then Windows might be the place for you. I'd still go with Linux personally, but that's just me. Or if you just need more power, but I'm guessing most people here don't actually NEED that much power
- If I have sublimetext maximized on other display, my mouse cursor gets stuck at default pointer, no longer changing on context.
- If I have same sublimetext maximized on other virtual screen, my mouse cursor stucks in text select.
- Option to reorder icons in dock via drag and drop goes away randomly.
- When I plug display to my MBPro 2016, menubar has white square where tray goes.
- It gets stuck in boot -> kernel panic -> restart -> boot loop when I am starting it with display plugged in via their HDMI dongle.
- On random, finder stops showing changes in filesystem. I've had this happen to me in Mavericks on old laptop, it keeps happening in Sierra on new one.