Seriously though, that's the main reason I use OSX... It's usually compatible with the random toolsets my clients use without any additional tweaking.
So, anecdotal stories are yarns, yo.
(I say this as an Ubuntu and macOS developer, thus user: its functionally a point where Ubuntu could un-seat macOS in terms of ease of use, on .. admittedly a very much wider range of hardware.)
As for the MacBook hegemony, I point my wavy hands at things like the GPD Pocket, and its future off-spring.
But I'd go one step further and argue that, as a developer, Linux can give you a unique experience if you stick to its strengths:
* Use a minimal distribution with few moving parts -> Things rarely break, and if something does it's usually easy to fix
* Try functional package management and administration (NixOS) -> Easy to reproduce setups, trivial to rollback, no dependency hell
* Try a simple keyboard-driven desktop -> A tiling window manager (XMonad), a web browser (Firefox) and Emacs (with Org, Magit, Eshell, Dired, Notmuch...) work incredibly well
I do agree that the freedom of choice that you are mentioning is a great benefit of Linux and FOSS software in general, though.
On the other hand I never had any serious issue with my XPS running Ubuntu, or my desktop PCs (running Linux exclusively since 2003). So YMMV, and the plural of anecdote isn't statistics. On my book, Linux works largely better and more predictably than MacOS by a large margin.
And this is in turn is seriously un-true.
* With my Macbook, I can be almost ironclad certain that if I close the lid to sleep, it will wake up. With Ubuntu (or any Linux really) you have 99,5% certainty, which is great, until it isn't and you lose work.
* Battery life if still miles behind macOS+Macbook levels unless you compromise somewhere (resolution, portability, etc.)
* Apple is quite a heavy-handed overlord that pushes changes through, and developers have to adapt or die to them. Ubuntu has no such power.
* Most macOS developers also 'naturally' stick to platform conventions, so all applications feel at home and look and work as expected
* The ease-of-use of Apple's 'global menu' cannot be overstated. It may not matter much to techies, but for my mother or grandma the fact that 'Print' is always under 'File' and 'File' is in the menu bar regardless of which application is being used is magic. Same goes for 'Edit', 'View', etc. They never have to hunt for these things again[1]
That's not to mention Touchpad gestures, Spaces (best implementation of virtual desktops), scaling, font rendering, updates that rarely if ever bork everything, ecosystem integration with your phone and tablet (Continuity, shared copy-paste and remotely-triggered tethering are a godsend), etc. etc.
Now if you were touting that Linux is much easier to tweak exactly to your liking, I'd heartily agree. But even today, I'd much rather recommend someone a Macbook than have them deal with the headache that Linux desktop _can_ be.
[1] Yes I know Ubuntu had a global menu. They nixed it, and the Gnome extension is a hack that doesn't work for everything
Oh man, how? Virtual desktops where alt+tab doesn't cycle through windows only on the current desktop are completely broken (they're just a large virtual screen), and last I used Spaces there was no option to change this.
As far as your point goes: it depends on if you see your Spaces as isolated desktops, or just 'more desktop space' which you can then loosely thematically organise. I fall into the latter category, and I suspect as Apple has chosen that cmd-tab style because most people do.
If you just want more desktop space, why not alt-tab between programs? They're all going to show on the same screen, anyway. Even disregarding all this, the fact that Apple didn't even give me the simple option of hiding programs on other spaces from alt-tab was one of the main reasons that made me switch to Linux.
As far as Apple not giving you the simple switch.. that’s just how Apple is. Again, I like it, because it means any Mac or iPhone I pick up I can instantly work on.. with Linux, the shortcuts differ even between Ubuntu and Fedora! That unified ‘foundation’ gives developers a solid base they can bolt stuff onto. For example, Spectacle. Its a sort-of window manager that would never work if it had to keep dozens of key configurations in mind.
On a sidenote, you needn't have switch to Linux. Command-Tab-Plus[1] has the feature you want ('Isolate applications in Spaces').
Thanks for the command-tab-plus shoutout, I later found Witch (IIRC) that did the same, but it was a bunch of annoyances that drove me to switch (no "Cut" in the Finder, homebrew didn't exist, the Spaces thing, etc). I do miss Photoshop and Lightroom, but I have a second Windows partition I use for those.
Of course it doesn't prove anything, but simply reminds that YMMV.
Updates are always breaking something, to the point I had to convince her to update to (High) Sierra, so I could install new Xcode, because she didn't want to.
Font rendering is ugly, too bold, I can't look at it. Touchpad is somewhat acceptable - I've used both better and worse. Spaces aren't really useful. But those of course are up to personal taste.
I had some contact with OS X somewhere around Tiger and Yosemite. I had some contact with iOS somewhere around 7.0. I do remember them as quite stable and problem-free, although not really the most usable nor exciting for me personally. Recently I started to have contact with newest macOS and newest iOS, and damn, it feels like every mention of "not having to deal with headaches" regarding those OSes is as poor joke. There are so many of small glitches and annoyances, bugs and poor UX decisions, that I really feel like my Arch is more polished, and that's something. Not even speaking about phones.
For the last two years I've found Ubuntu Studio a superlative OS to be running on both MacBooks and generic PC workstation/laptop hardware, and I've found the condition and quality - and overall user experience - of both MacOS and Windows to have gone rapidly downhill by comparison.
So, I dunno. You say tomato, I say Ubuntu is awesome.
But I still have my Macbook pro at the office, it never leaves the desk there.
My ambulatory laptop is a Thinkpad X260 running Fedora.
I have none of the issues described in the article
But you do raise valid points. I work in an organisation that loves Microsoft and store-bought solutions like Skype for Business.
My answer is to use a tablet for video conference calls, a Pixel C in my case but any modern tablet will work.
So with that solved the only major gripe I have with using Linux professionally is all the enterprise VPN solutions that in one way or another require Windows.
Juniper JunOS pulse for example, I haven't been able to get that working on Linux. They do have an official Linux client but like you said, it requires some finagling.
Other than that though I think Linux has come a very long way from the old mentality that you had to spend long nights getting everything to work.
I used to do that, but the last 5-6 years I've been too busy with work to bother. So I was using mostly Apple until about 4 years ago when I bought a Thinkpad X230 and started using Fedora.
Another issue that doesn't come up often but is quite debilitating is when I need to screencast to someone. Wayland isn't supported anywhere so I have to logout and log back in with X just to screencast.
None of the other issues you mentioned affect me, projectors and hdmi screen sharing works just fine.
"Can you please share your screen?"
Not to mention that you won't be able to share if you're using a tablet.
Obviously it's not for everyone but I've made it work for my situation.
By applications I can only remember trying Google screencasting, through hangouts to youtube for example.
But I think I tried one more that I lost the name to.
Since you're running Fedora, you can probably do something like:
sudo dnf install openconnect NetworkManager-openconnect
The official PulseSecure client for linux manages to install but then fails to launch with ubuntu 16.04...
So I was lead down a path where I needed a script that would answer host checker.
But couldn't get that working and gave up, only gave it one evening so far.
I loaded Fedora 26 and 27 on my new X270 and things went flawlessly. I won't say there are never any issues but it's pretty plug and play these days.
Is the situation any better elsewhere? On windows at work we constantly have issues with desktop sharing over skype freezing and have to fall back to WebEx and deal with it's sound not working properly, we'll often end up with a hybrid of voice calls on skype and screen sharing with webex and all the wasted time dealing with that. I had an hour long meeting on WebEx yesterday where I could barely hear anyone.
These aren't things I've tried to do on linux so I can't comment on how well supported they are, but let's not pretend they work seamlessly in the microsoft world either.
I do now have a MacBook Air, which I got for testing a program I'd written on a real machine. I like the form factor - it's lightweight and fine for basic web browsing, similar to a chromebook.
I have a macbook pro that I use exclusively for music (Ableton Live) and it's been far more hassle.