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Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

Yes, compatibility with existing software is a big part of it. Unless you're exclusively developing for _nix environments you'll have to use Windows at some point.

Also, I think Windows has (or had, depending on preference) a great GUI and a dismal CLI, while _nix is mostly the other way around.

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OS X has both actually.

Apple makes it hard to run OS X on anything but Apple hardware. For anyone that doesn't want to be bound to Apple hardware, this is not really even a real option.

Why wouldn't you want to be bound to Apple hardware? I've yet to come across a laptop form-factor that even approaches the Macbook Air. The hardware is a strong selling point for Apple devices. Sure, you might be able to put together a more powerful machine for a lower price, if your time isn't worth much to you or you enjoy building computers, but have fun machining an aluminum casing for it and getting it under 3 lbs.

If you have a tight budget? If you want to play games or generally have desktop class hardware without buying a Mac Pro? If you want a higher resolution display than the MacBook Retina ones? Touchscreen?

I prefer Apple hardware, but I'm not exactly a fan of being bound to it.

The Macbook Air has had a pretty embarrassing screen resolution for some time now. There's also a dearth of peripheral connectivity for more advanced setups. That's even assuming I want an ultrabook and not something else entirely.

It seems a little arrogant to assume your specific hardware requirements are everyone's hardware requirements.

You're right, in retrospect that comment was incredibly shortsighted.

For laptops I think Apple makes fine products, but I don't really feel like dropping the money for new desktop just to get OS X

Absolutely agreed. Form factor isn't nearly as important with desktops, especially when you can put any OS you want on it. I'd happily run a Hackintosh on desktop, if I were a fan of desktops at all.

It's trickier to get OS X working on a laptop, but building a Hackintosh desktop is quite easy. A lot of motherboards are entirely compatible, while everything else (CPU, RAM, storage) works anyways.

Aside from the fact this is not strictly legal, my experience has been that this is more effort than it's worth. And if you have any hardware that's a bit non-standard, you can forget about it.

Like I said, building a Hackintosh desktop is as easy as building a Windows one. If you want to install OS X on a random PC that's laying around the house, the outcome will of course be different.

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