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Comment by teddyh | Hacker News Reader

I see a lot of comments here wondering why Apple seems to not care about software quality anymore. I don’t know if that’s true, but there’s a perfectly obvious answer: They don’t have to.

Software quality in macOS was important back when they were trying to get people to switch from Windows-based PCs to Macs. Nowadays, most people who were going to switch have already switched, so Apple has no incentive to keep up the same level of software quality anymore. They just have to keep people locked into their ecosystem (with iPhone etc.) enough that the barrier to switch out again is high enough.

There is no reason for Apple to improve macOS, since doing so won’t make anyone switch to Macs who hasn’t already switched, and not improving macOS won’t make anyone upset enough to switch back. Ergo, Apple leaves macOS to stagnate, and they will keep macOS at this bad-but-not-horrible-enough-to-switch level for the foreseeable future.

That’s my theory, anyway.

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These days, where is the lock-in?

The core applications that I use (Firefox, Docker, VSCode, vim, ...) all work just as well on Linux, MacOS and Windows.

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.)

The software has definitely declined in quality, but not enough to massively annoy me.

If there is lock-in, it's on the hardware side. 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.

My workplace uses Dell XPS hardware, and that's good, but it still doesn't feel as solid to me. It's good, but it's not as good.

I think the hardware is the laurel Apple has really been resting on.

I could meet my main use cases on Linux quite happily, and dual-boot Windows for the rest. Right now the premium on Mac hardware, which only happily runs an increasingly decrepit operating system, isn't looking worth it. Previously, it was.

While you don't believe you are locked in, I don't believe that you as a programmer "power user" are the majority that Apple cares about.

I believe not only that for the majority of users there is a level of software lock-in, but further there is a high level of psychological lock-in, where users get used to and comfortable with Apple's design strength, which is Apple's main offering.

As people get more comfortable and more older it is easy to say that people get more resistant to change.

The lock in is definitely less, but for me:

- Large iPhoto library - Easy syncing with multiple iPhones (notes, photos etc) - Xcode for iOS development

I second this. The only feature that I can immediately think of that locks me in the mac eco-system is the convenience of airdropping files with my wife. Apart from this, with most of my stuff on the cloud, there won't even be a migration process if I decide to switch to Windows.

The lock-in is Messages, at least for a lot of people.

I'd wager the number of people using Messages on macOS is really not that high. Most people are content to message using their phone.

iMessage absolutely is a lock-in for iOS, though.

Why's iMessage a lock-in? I have an iPhone but I wasn't aware I'd lose anything (significant) by switching to Android (or whatever).

The biggest thing I lost in a similar switch was ANY old conversation with somebody who was an iMessage user. Where they reply to a conversation and think they are just texting you, but actually they are sending iMessages that you just aren’t receiving. Especially on, for example, family group texts, people just find the old conversation and continue it from the previous year or whatever. Lots of times when I was on windows phone or had iMessage switched off, I’d only get the parts of the conversation coming from non-iMessage users. A good example is random family members who use android texting me reactions to an original text or picture I didn’t get. It’s really dumb. Maybe there’s something I could have done about it in my own settings, but instead I ended up switching back to iPhone recently. Not just for that reason but it sure was nice to get messages properly again. But also more sensitive stuff like somebody sharing pictures of items related to planning a funeral.

I have also heard that if you complain and drill down enough in the support funnel on this issue that eventually the best answer will be "change your phone number". Now that's what you call lock in.

It's not well publicised but, if you know anyone who's moved away from iOS they can remove their phone number from iMessage here;

https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/

Thanks, that is really interesting. I hadn’t read that page, but I had disabled iMessage from the phone settings, which is how I first noticed the issue. Maybe I was not thorough enough, (it says to disable FaceTime too, which I didn’t/don’t want to disable) because it never corrected itself.

It's a mental lock in now a days.

Most people don't realize but the vast majority of Video Editing was Windows based till about 2010 when Final Cut was considered best in class (I can't stand Final Cut myself but to each their own...) The vast majority of video editing is now Premier due to Apple's handling of Final Cut Pro and the lack of support for the Mac Pro (They usually sit in back rooms as expensive file servers) Also most people mentally think that somehow Apple is better for design but the software runs just as well on Windows.

The iPhone and the money spent on software is what is keeping people these days. But whenever I talk with my friends they are certainly not thrilled and zealots of Macs anymore. The vast majority of my video editing friends are getting really frustrated with what they call the ceiling. Do you really want to be editing full time on a lap top? The Mac Pro isn't a real solution for full time editors.

It's also display quality. If you're doing design work you can use a MacBook pro and be pretty sure that the color is accurate with no calibration. If you switch platforms you have to sort out the enterprise and gaming displays, which have totally different selling points (price and responsiveness, respectively). Getting a good display and accurate color on a Windows machine requires a lot more knowledge and effort. This is definitely less true since Apple abandoned their display line (one more bit of evidence that Apple doesn't care about the professionals that established their brand anymore).

Those Apple mirrors (err, thunderbolt displays) were definitely not close to color accurate. The macbooks are okay I guess?

When I worked at a major printing company, they were not using Macs because people would THINK they were color accurate when they were very much not, and we had a bunch of calibrated Dell monitors around specifically for that purpose.

So definitely more of an urban legend than anything. Apple displays are reasonable, they're decent IPS panels, but they're middle of the road if anything.

I own my own calibrator. I calibrate every monitor I use for Video. I have never seen a accurate monitor in the wild yet. The funny thing is I can get a horrible cheap monitor to be calibrated in a dark room and it is better than anything not calibrated.

People need to buy calibrators. I use the open source ColorHug it runs on Linux so I actually use a live cd and do the calibration. http://www.hughski.com/

My partner does photography and has a Datacolor Spyder 4, which I of course borrow to calibrate all my monitors. At work I have a 30" IPS and next to it vertically an old 24" tn-film. After calibration, they are very close color-wise and they both are very enjoyable for reading code. The tn panel has worse viewing angles and about ~80% of sRGB, but after calibration it is absolutely much nicer even for development.

I calibrate my monitors with DisplayCAL[0] on Linux.

There should be one calibrator in every office, the difference it makes is enormous.

[0] https://displaycal.net/

I'm not sure I agree with this. Or at least it goes too far to say that it's a mental lock in.

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.

One key advantage Macs have over Windows is that they run Unix. 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. No VMs and all the hassle they bring to take into account, mostly at least.

One key advantage Macs have over Linuxes is the availability of good quality graphical software. If you like a GUI for Git, the best are available on Mac. It has OmniGraffle, which many regard as amongst the best diagramming software out there. It runs a very decent version of Microsoft Office. Many would argue that - especially for developers - the software ecosystem for Macs is even superior to Windows. And add on top of that is that this also runs on a still mostly flawless out-of-the-box experience.

Sure, I bet most people could switch to Linux or Windows if they wanted to go through some effort. But it's more than a mental lock-in, you give too little credit to the Mac ecosystem. It might not be the obvious best place to be anymore, but it's still great value. As was pointed out before, this seems to be something that Apple is okay with.

I really hope Apple feels this security incident steps up their game - they deserve all the hate they get for this. But the Mac value proposition will barely change for most people, as sad as that may be.

Please note as disclaimer that although I do use Macs sometimes, I spend most of my time on Windows and Linux systems.

> One key advantage Macs have over Windows is that they run Unix. 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. No VMs and all the hassle they bring to take into account, mostly at least.

Thankfully we are getting there with "Windows Subsystem for Linux." I am using the OpenSUSE subsystem which you can install in the Windows 10 store. It isn't perfect but it sure is getting closer.

> Thankfully we are getting there with "Windows Subsystem for Linux."

But then you have to run Windows. I still prefer MacOS by a large margin. I would move to Linux, but I want Photoshop and more of that without having to start a Windows VM.

Windows 10 and Windows 8 have really moved the OS forward in my opinion.

> Also most people mentally think that somehow Apple is better for design but the software runs just as well on Windows.

Back in the PowerPC days, a large part of every keynote was getting Phil on to press the spacebar so we could all see how much slower Photoshop was at making the poster for Inspector Gadget. Can't help but feel like this was where a lot of people cut their teeth on this opinion. While Mac OS 9 and its users (niners) are a tiny minority now, I suspect a lot of those shops moved to Mac OS X.

> PowerPC days

But that was all a lie about the speed of Macs. It was absolutely smoke and mirrors. Intel CPU blew the doors off the Power PC. Case in point, Apple switched from Power PC to Intel and saw a huge speed increase. The "Cult of Mac" was 100% anti-Intel and people would tell me that the G5 Power PC was the fastest personal computer you could buy. All lies and dishonesty. Apple for years caused huge animosity of "Apple Fanboys" vs Intel.

Without directly disagreeing with your post, I think there is a slight OS lock-in, in the fact that the MS alternative is a horrible piece of burning wreckage. Anybody that had to put up with the autoupdate experience in Windows 10 (oh, you were doing something important? Never mind, I'll just hog your network in random intervals for like an hour without you having a way to stop me and then I'll take 2 hours to apply the patches before the reboot), can understand that Apple was playing without serious competition for some years now.

There are many lock-ins, first there is iMessage, second there are some apps that still work only on Mac OS X I don't remember the name of the software but I once was sent a design file and was only able to open it on a Mac OS X software (there was a windows alternative but it didn't allow me to edit the file as needed). Another example is XCode, you need a Mac to properly create iPhone apps. For programming, there are also issues with symbolic links on Windows.

I personally prefer Windows, but as a software developer I had to buy a Mac, I grew tired of having to always power-on a Mac OS X virtual machine. My job is so much easier now then it was on windows.

iMessage is a huge lock-in for non-technical users. They are just obsessed with it on iOS. You can find tons of forum posts with people throwing fits that XYZ Android phone doesn't have iMessage.

This might me valid for the US. Anecdotally, where I live (Switzerland/central Europe) almost nobody uses iMessage, and WhatsApp is the big dominator.

I used WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger and Skype on my phone in the past two hours. Obviously no iMessage because I'm on Android. Maybe my friends with an iPhone use only iMessage between them (I doubt it) but the network effect is all for WhatsApp and Messenger where I live (Italy). Probably nobody switches to Apple because of iMessage here, but it could be a lock in if you really use it.

I honestly don't think most iPhone owners in Europe even understand that iMessage is not SMS.

I'm not sure the correlation is technical proficiency by itself, I think it's based upon a critical mass of your social circles using iMessage or not using iMessage. If you choose to, you can probably make a correlation between "technical savviness" and a user's choice between Android and Apple, but I don't think that is a deciding factor in who uses iMessage.

The reason people throw fits is because the experience between a group messaging together on iMessage is exceptional - this experience breaks down when even one of your friends in the chat doesn't have an Apple product. They aren't able to send or receive the majority of the "chat add ons" iMessage provides. I'm sure making the bubbles green vs. blue only helps to stoke the "us vs. them" fire.

I consider myself to be a reasonably technical user and still prefer to message with iMessage since I know the experience will be the same for everyone I'm chatting with. Yes, we _could_ all start using WhatsApp et al, but if 8/9 of our group message is on iMessage, why would we?

There are a few "quality of life" tools on OSX that I use, like Alfred that I haven't seen a Linux equivalent.

But you're right, I could probably switch to Linux and be fairly happy.

As for Alfred replacement... How about [Albert](https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert)?

iMessages is the lock-in. It is the primary reason why I switched to the iPhone.

I have the macbook pro, iphone, watch, airpods, and they all work pretty great together. It's a cohesive experience that is going to be really hard for me to break out of it.

For photography on Linux you gotta check out Darktable. It's actually very very good as a Lightroom replacement for RAW workflow.

Mac is also easier to use for non technical users. I bought my mom a Mac and she can plays with the "system preferences." Good luck showing her Control Panel on windows.

The Apple Store is a huge deal for non-technical users as well.

Apple's sales per square foot in their stores is really high. Having some place to take your computer to when you need help is extremely valuable for a lot of people. Why don't Samsung, Dell, Lenovo, and HP all have their own stores in every neighborhood that has an Apple store? Is the Apple store only successful because of the iPhone?

>These days, where is the lock-in?

Photos, apps purchased, and iMessage are overwhelmingly the reasons I don't see people switch. All their kids photos, etc, are stored away and they'd have to figure out how to nicely export them. iMessage is seemless for them across devices while an alternative like Hangouts doesn't have the market penetration—it isn't ubiquitously used even among just Android users. Apps purchased I added to the list because often people don't think about it, but if you mention "re-buying all your apps" you see the frown appear on their face.

I have a lot of software I bought on the App Stores for Mac and iOS, hundreds, maybe even over a thousand dollars' worth. If I switch platforms, I can't use that software any more.

While your theory is interesting, if deeply cynical, the thing I find most interesting is that it's the top comment on an 800+ comment discussion when it was less than a minute old. Do new comments start at the top? I've never noticed that before.

Edit: By the way, regarding the vulnerability, ANY password you use when you first attempt to login as root BECOMES root's new password. (Blank is a red herring.)

So if you're going to test this, maybe use something non-obvious. In a terminal, setting a strong password for root with "sudo passwd" is the quickest mitigation.

Ill-advised, but in a pinch, you can apparently 'secure' a machine you don't otherwise have access to by attempting to log in as root with a long random password you fail to remember. An admin on that machine can later change root's password with a "sudo passwd".

Also, it appears the "dseneableroot -d" command suggested elsewhere here fails in preventing root login.

I think new comments do get a slight boost initially. But I also think people are venting their frustrations at the very noticeable decline in software quality from Apple over the last 3 years.

The higher the poster's karma, the higher her comment will be upon posting. This user has almost 6k karma, so it can rise high. Once the comment is at the top for a minute or so, it can stay there if enough people keep upvoting it.

Try it and post a top level comment now. I'm pretty sure it won't be at the top initially because you don't have enough karma for that.

Ah thanks, now it makes sense. I always wondered why sometimes my comments went straight to the top. I've lost too much productivity here, clearly! ;)

Yeah I only know because I‘ve watched my posts gain better positions when I hit 1k karma (iirc).

I have also seen new comments spring to the top of the conversation, but always assumed they were selected randomly, as some of them were from posters who were fairly new or had a low karma count.

I guess this happens if the other posters are of low karma, or if the other comments are quite old.

Yes new comments get a bit of time near the top. The amount of time varies based on the amount and quality of other comments.

I really hope that's not true and this is just some extended blip.

That said, between this, the disk encryption bug, not being able to type "I" on an iphone you have to wonder what is going on. I recently upgrade my MacBook Pro to High Sierra and it's been plagued with problems (Weird red flash when displaying menus, hangs/crashes with external monitors etc.)

Then I look at switching away, and I lose all the OSX software I own, all the easy iOS integration, all those Pages documents etc.

Maybe I just need to build a cheap but upgradable Linux box and start trying to switch.

I've been actively investigating that for over a year:

https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/10/29/2240

I have to use Windows for work, though (I'm at a Microsoft subsidiary, and all we get are Windows machines), and I can live OK inside WSL.

Maybe. But this particular bug happened precisely because Apple has changed _something_ in macOS. Also this something was probably quite profound since it has impacted a part of software that, at least from the outside, haven't changed much since a long time.

A lot of macOS users would actually prefer Apple to do less with it than what they are currently doing.

> this particular bug happened precisely because Apple has changed _something_ in macOS

I don't know much about this bug but I have seen several reports that the bug has actually existed quite some time and is not new, only the publicity surrounding it is now shining a bright light on it.

I thought it was confirmed that it is new to High Sierra, it was indeed lingering on forums as a "administrator hint" though.

I think you are right, but it's still been in the wild for several months, despite that Apple just realized a comment claiming they discovered the problem yesterday.

I kind of love how you frame it as "everyone who has switched has switched" as if the job is done. As if there would be no market to capture. Which isn't true. And doesn't even consider the reality that there are young computer buyers who they need to capture because existing users don't buy new machines or won't last in the long run (people die).

There is always more market to capture, but the cost of capturing those few additional users might not be worth it (to Apple, currently). And new users don’t look to the quality of the OS to pick their platforms, they look to existing user bases. And Apple now has a sizable existing user base, especially if you also count iPhones.

I was going to comment the same thing. Most people are always open to switching if the evidence is there to support a better workflow or experience. The realm of endless marketing to all the demographics will never stop.

> not improving macOS won’t make anyone upset enough to switch back

I’m not so sure about this — although it may be due more to the hardware side of their business: after the recent, disappointing iteration of their MacBook Pros I’ve heard a lot of people considering to switch (and actually switching).

Taken together with software quality issues, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least a subgroup of users are leaving Apple gradually. That subgroup being professional users, of course: Apple is still unassailed as a status symbol, and casual (+ mobile) users seem more than happy.

Nobody cares about what developers like in their computers, developers will go wherever the users are. And Apple now has a sizable chunk of computer users and an even larger chunk of smartphone users.

This only holds true if you consider lock-in IMO, e.g. you need a mac to develop iOS or mac apps, or you need a windows machine to develop windows apps.

Otherwise I don't care which browser you are using to look at my pages, or which Desktop to run my qt app.

There was a massive influx of developers switchting to mac laptops before it was popular with a majority of users (around 2008).

There's a big difference between a developer grudgingly keeping a cheap headless mini-computer under a stack of papers somewhere that gets used only as needed, and a developer using your system as their "home base" and buying into your entire ecosystem.

That’s not a big difference for Apple. They’ve got their user base now, they don’t need developers to spread the word anymore.

I think it's more that desktop machines make them a fraction of the money that their iOS devices do. Development goes towards the profit centre.

Remember that back when Apple made only computers, right before the iPod, they were on the verge of bankruptcy and barely profitable.

Since then their laptops have taken off, of course, and I have no idea how much money they make off them. But compared to the huge torrent of cash Apple makes off iPhones I can't imagine the beancounters see a huge amount of value in investing heavily in the parts of OS X that aren't shared with iOS.

Whether or not most potential apple users have already switched, security is surely vital to keeping their customers with them.

Much like the importance of feeling safe in our own house, if the computer that houses our information suddenly makes us feel unsafe or exposed, we'll naturally seek other options unless the issue is, shall I say, swiftly fixed or easily fixable.

Not to excuse the bug, but I think it has more to do with the annual upgrade cycle for the iPhone. Everything else Apple does has to tie into this, which is a pretty tight cycle for an OS with new "regular" OS features, plus the integrations with iOS.

They can't afford to wait 2 years (or whatever) to update the phones, and Mac OS gets pulled along for the ride.

Their QA department has been in a downward spiral since 2014. I would love to name some people who were doing a fantastic job running the place until then, but I'll spare the embarrassment. This really isn't about some mega company not caring as much as one of their cornerstone departments being unable to function effectively.

I really don't think that to be the case. Quality on OS X was a priority in its own right and fundamental to everything at Apple, not just a by-product of a strategy to get people to move from Windows.

Of course all that changed when its only priority became to shift more iPhones, and everything became secondary to that.

Surely they havent used up the pool of people that might/want switch to macOS. How can anyone make even such statement?

Some years ago, I was hearing about people switching from PCs to Macs all the time. Later, not so much, but macOS was still getting praise. Maybe Apple looked at the conversion numbers at that time and decided that the cost of keeping up the quality of macOS wasn’t worth the few PC converts they were still getting, and they figured that not enough people would switch back to PCs since the iOS system lock-in effects, etc. would present enough of a barrier.

So it’s not that there aren’t still people who could conceivably switch to Macs, it’s that Apple decided they didn’t need more converts quite as badly anymore.

Still, only my theory of course.

This goes against basically every corporate strategy ever, which is to always increase growth.

At this state in the company's life there is a disconnect between those who make the software and those who make the business decisions.

I don't think it's likely that Apple's board just decided to give up attracting new customers, and any apparent decline in quality is likely attributed to bad management; ineptitude, rather than purpose.

Occam's Razor supports this hypothesis.

Increase growth, yes, but not at any cost. My point is that Apple may have decided that at this time they don’t need the growth as much as they need internal developers to work on other things than macOS.

Old school corps - DEC, HP, even IBM to an extent - weren't about increasing growth irrespective of consequences.

The DEC Employee Handbook made a big deal out of Doing the Right Thing. Obviously that was subjective, frequently debatable, and sometimes just a pain in the ass - but it was a guiding principle for engineers of that generation, and for engineers who became managers.

And it produced some outstanding engineering and innovation.

Because it actually means "Do the best work you can, for your own self-respect, and also because you respect your users."

That's light years away from "Screw as much money out of your customers as you can, as many overtime hours out of your developers as you can, and if the product is broken - who cares if the money keeps coming in?"

You're right. I was being a bit hyperbolic.

I do see people switching to Linux for this reason, Apple the new MS, Ubuntu the new Apple?

While I think there's a chance you might be right, I don't think it's logical in the long run. I think changes in perception like this are accumulated over time and will in the end hurt the product.

For some examples, look at the impression of Microsoft and Windows when it comes to quality. It is only now starting to improve, with gigantic efforts from Microsofts side. Another example is Linux and usability, which have constantly gotten better (maybe still not good enough, but that's better left for another thread) but still many see Linux as "advanced" and only for power users. These are not perfect examples, of course.

What I mean is that I think it's bad strategy on Apple's part (if they're doing this deliberately), especially considering the resources they have at their hands. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple could increase it's desktop market share further by positioning themselves as high quality. However, it's a reputation they are losing fast.

>It is only now starting to improve, with gigantic efforts from Microsofts side.

Is it? They axed their internal QA and definitely aren't catching all the bugs with the "Insiders Program."

After the Fall Creator's Update I've had to log in twice (after the first one I just get sent back to the login screen).

The workaround is disabling a setting: "Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device after an update or restart."

I'm also getting repeated alerts that a restart is required to complete installing an audio driver, but restarting doesn't finish it. I probably need to track down the responsible driver, uninstall it, and reinstall manually or hope Windows does it.

Obviously that's not as serious an issue as unauthenticated root access, but in day-to-day use of my Windows computer I don't have a very positive impression of their software quality.

Maybe not quality wise in all areas (I agree with you there) but at least in giving a professional and modern impression compared to let's say Windows XP/7. Maybe operating systems are declining in quality in general, even though organizations sometimes try to improve them. I guess legacy plays a big role here.

Saw this on the Windows 10 subreddit and got a sad chuckle out of it: https://i.redd.it/dvzzftkyzyiz.png

They definitely have a more modern design language going, but they're not exactly consistent about it.

But customer retention is still important.

I've heard of a lot of people switching away from Macs to Linux and Windows, especially with Windows building up their own official Linux subsystem now.

PC hardware is cheaper than Apple's, and hardware (even the "good stuff") becomes obsolete after 5 years anyway. Besides, most software is cross platform these days.

The only real good retention plan Apple has is that we can't release iOS apps without owning Apple hardware; there's a few Mac-specific software titles that certain professionals rely on; and a little bit of "it's overall higher quality than PCs" mindshare that some people still have either from the 80s and early 2000s, but that can't last long if Apple keeps this up.

Nah. At this rate people will simply abandon the ship sooner or later. There's definitely some deterioration going on instead of only a cynical strategy shift.

The new MBP isn't attractive anymore. The software stagnates. The only reason I keep using Mac for usual use cases is just its wonderful collection of dictionaries (I like to constantly learn new languages). I wonder why no publisher ever bothered coming up with a decent dictionary software on Windows/Linux yet instead of making do with crappy online versions. If they did I'd happily just use a Windows + Linux dual boot machine.

Surely they should care about the security of their _own_ developers, who surely program in macOS. I believe we are being too harsh on Apple unnecessarily.

> There is no reason for Apple to improve macOS, since doing so won’t make anyone switch to Macs who hasn’t already switched, and not improving macOS won’t make anyone upset enough to switch back.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. There are a lot of "about to switch" people out there, in both directions, who are just waiting for either the extra nudge or the extra reason to not switch.

It reminds me of the Windows 95/98 login.

At the logon screen, just pressing ESC got you to the desktop.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAH2j9mRgUM

It's kind of similar, but that was intentional. There was even a "Cancel" button in the GUI that did the same thing.

Saying that you only care about existing users via lockin and don't expect switchers is a sure path to doom in the long run. Surely that cannot really be it.

Incompetence seems to be a more likely fit here than that.

There are probably a lot of people like me on HN who _need_ a unix box to do their work, and the various Macs are still far and away the best general purpose unix boxes available (best chassis, best peripheral compatibility, best (o|O)ffice software compatibility).

Now that Google Docs and Office 365 are "good enough" for most things, I would probably be happy to go back to Linux if there was a Linux machine that had comparable build quality yet was a bit cheaper than a Mac.

Can't agree more. The main thing that keeps me using OSX is Adobe Creative Cloud.

I'd mention aesthetics, but the current Linux distros look quite good, plus they're customisable.

Dell XPS 15 on Linux is pretty glorious you guys. My 2011 version is still kicking amazingly well with a 1TB SSD, and the newer models are way sleek. I also have a 2013 Sony vaio with dual boot linix/windows. Haven't booted to windows for anything but updating it for years.

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