I’ve been using a Mac almost exclusively for the last 7/8 years. However, Windows is looking very appealing especially with introduction of bash.
If you had to buy a new computer today would you buy one of the new Macs?
I’m a Mac user, so yes, I would buy one of the ones announced today if I needed one 
If I was ever going to switch to something else, it would probably be Linux…
Btw, if you can wait another year or so, they are working on new Mac Pros 
(if you need that kind of power).
Was a heavy Mac user for most of the last 10 years but I switched to Fedora in January and won’t go back.
I got tired of having hardware decisions made for me, especially when they started going out of their way to make opening up laptops to make upgrades yourself such a pain. Still recommend them for my non-techie friends though.
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Yep. Nice screens decent specs. 27" 5k iMac costs same as a stand alone Dell 5k monitor so computer is free 
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I would attribute that to “the grass looking greener on the other side” - and in this particular case I would suggest “don’t waste your time”.
Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc. can always be relied on to do what is best for them - not what is best for you - but the leadership behind these companies constantly changes making it sometimes hard to pin down what the company vision actually is and how firmly they are actually committed to it. In contrast I find that it is typically much easier to gauge what is going on with (and get behind) the various OSS communities (and the BDFLs) - in short if you are bailing on Apple start looking at the various community supported *nixes and pick one where the community makes sense to you.
I currently maintain the Microsoft platform in the past has held me back as a developer. Pre-1992 I had the opportunity to work with a variety *nix flavours, starting with Xenix (yes, a Microsoft product) on a TRS-80 on a summer job, later DEC Ultrix (System V), and SunOS and always enjoyed it - but starting in 1992 it was OS/2 and then Windows NT (and it’s successors) for me from then on in. It was probably due to my own laziness that I ignored Linux and Apple’s prices kept me away from OS X. Lots of developers like Microsoft because there was typically only ever one product-line for a solution domain that was supported at any one time (Code Editor/IDE → Visual Studio, Web Technology → ASP-whatever, etc.) so there was no need to make any choice and possibly spread yourself thin by having to master multiple competing technologies - but I also maintain that the products were rarely beacons of excellence. Yes, Microsoft has and had excellent people working for them but I would argue that their output is typically more subject to Microsoft’s day-to-day business demands rather than the various individuals passionate drive to excellence.
Then finally early 2015 I decided to investigate the MEAN platform - on Windows 7. By the time July came around I was finally fed up with the Windows related (non-Microsoft technology) development hurdles - while I acquiesced to Microsoft’s push for Windows 10 I also took the opportunity to drop an SSD into my laptop AND set it up for dual boot with Arch Linux. At that point I had moved on to Clojure and the development experience on Arch was a lot better than what I had to put up with on Windows 7.
However while the development experience was positive I didn’t use Arch for my other day-to-day stuff - primarily because I was getting a bit concerned with the rise of malware and because I didn’t want administrating Arch to become yet another full-time job. So last November I took the plunge and got a 2016 MacBook Pro (in retrospect I wish I would have just gotten the previous model in the previous year but I was hoping for more of a spec bump - but I guess the Arch experience was valuable in it’s own way). Now granted 25% of the drive is dedicated to Boot Camp with Windows 10 - but that doesn’t see the light of day very often. I live on the command line (and in (Spac)Emacs) so I really don’t use much of the OS X GUI stuff - for email I still use Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Office for Mac to access my old documents.
While I’m not ranting against developing for Windows primarily as a consumer-based platform - I really don’t understand why any passionate developer would limit him or herself to working on a Microsoft platform (much less put up with the shenanigans necessary for non-Microsoft technologies on the platform).
So if you can put up with Apple (and it’s prices) OS X still isn’t bad for a *nix flavour OS with consumer support - otherwise you better be prepared to brush up on your sysadmin skills and find a *nix that suits you.
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I now have to use a Mac for more then a month at work.(company policy).
coming from Windows, Linux and BSD user… I do not get how these things get sold outside of companies that want to control the thing like the PC.
50% of the basic stuff i need is not here without paying an additional extension, the hardware is super shitty, the thing blows up all alone easily, the wifi and printer support is abysmal… honestly outside of the fact the terminal emulators are a bit nicer than on windows and that brew is a bit better than nugget, i still have a hard time finding a nice thing to say about it.
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It’s standard PC parts what is specifically shitty about them :)?
^^ Plus, in my experience at least, they are very reliable.
The high price point and lack of upgradeability is imo offset by the resale value. I bought my Mac Pro for £1600 in 2009 and sold it a few years later for just under £700, I bought my MBA for around £1000 and can sell it for £350 to £400. I could never do that with any of the PCs I’ve had.
I guess it’s swings and roundabouts - on balance I think I would prefer to get a new machine every few years than to upgrade an older one.
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I can’t get what I want out of a new machine either.
I like 17 inch screens and space for multiple hard drives. (Just as an example)
Worked on Windows until 2010 (I was forced by my employer). Then switched to linux, I loved it since the os was proper build (something I would have been proud of if it was my work). Loved the apt package manager, not forced to go download every single shitty utility and get a new browser bar and a new virus with it.
I really like working on Ubuntu, but the UI had a couple of flaws, so switched to MacBook(s) 2 years ago. I really like the hardware and so OS is nice. UI is much butter than Ubuntu and OS core not worse than linux as far as I can tell.
I’ve been a mac user for the last 10 years, similar to @brightball, and keep trying to make the switch to linux but just can’t stick with it for a desktop. I’m increasingly disappointed with the direction Apple is going with both hardware and software, so every year I go through the process of installing Ubuntu/Fedora/Arch but every single time I have annoying issues.
I built my first PC in over 10 years recently (Intel 6800k, Nvidia 1080 e.t.c.) to be used for gaming and development inside virtual machines but again I was having constant issues with linux desktop environments. I actually ended up liking windows 10 way more than I expected so decided to go all in on c#. As much as I like the language, .net core and xamarin is just not ready and neither is the tooling. I gave it 6 months but I’ve had enough.
So now I’m back to macOS on my MacBook Pro 2015 still feeling pretty unhappy. It’s the best middle ground right now, I have no doubt about that, but the feeling of having nowhere to go has me concerned. I refuse to buy another Apple hardware product after owning an iMac, MacBook Air, Mac Mini, New Mac Pro, MacBook Pro and many iPads and iPhones.
On a positive note, I’m now heavily invested into elixir for my next project so at least I have that.
Maybe on your next Linux swing, give Solus a try. I use it as a daily driver; the community is AWESOME; and it is truly built “from scratch.”
I’m still trying to tease out why they convinced me to buy a 38" curved monitor last year and then tried to sell me on the machine I want built in to a 27" flat screen this year. Also - what I want are those specs in a MacBook Pro so I can stop staring so longingly at Alienware and Razor.
That said - it’s pretty obvious I’m no longer part of the target market for Apple. There is a real good this Mid 2015 MBP is probably my going to be my last Mac.
I’ve had great experiences with my MacBooks. I switched in 2008 and haven’t looked back or regretted it. My 2008 MacBook still runs really well and has no issues, same goes for my mid 2012 model. The price is high but when I can get 10 years or more of usability I’m ok with it.
If you want to go the Ubuntu route with (hopefully) fewer annoying issues you may want to look into System76 laptops. They are designed specifically to have excellent hardware compatibility with Ubuntu and have many options from 13" to 17". I don’t have one but one of my good developer friends swears by it.
For my part, I understand the concerns with the direction Apple is going but not it’s not enough to push me away for now. Nice to see they are actually paying some attention to “pro” consumers again finally. Looking forward to the 15" MBP with Cannonlake which should enable 32GB of LPDDR4 RAM (need that for virtualization) in the same power envelope. Hopefully that will be out 1Q18 since Intel confirmed again today they are on track to mass produce 2H17. Also I’d say the compile times and OTP performance on the 18-core iMac Pro would be pretty bad-ass! Sigh… better get some 
ready.
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I have had hardware problems with 2 Macbook Pros. Family members have had issues with glitchy black screens with iPhones. I’m actually irritated with the short lifespan of their hardware. It’s almost as if they’re programmed to fail post Apple Care.
I have NEVER had a hardware problem on PC laptops. NEVER. Software, yes. A billion times. But luckily I can duel boot Linux and not deal with BSODs.
Apple shines in software on the backs of giants. But, their cute hardware is a little too cute. I just want an ugly beast that doesn’t leave me at the climax.
I do enjoy my iPad Pro. No issues with 3 generations of iPad.
Been a mac user for more than 20 years, switched to Windows a few months back, never been happier.
I wrote more here: https://medium.com/the-missing-bit/leaving-macos-part-1-motivations-b10accc10889
Now that you know that, my actual opinion on the new hardware.
I think the MacBook Pro is a superb machine, it’s really beautiful and well made and the OS works well on it. Now the issues I have with it:
- Price (more than 1000$ more expensive than a equivalent dell XPS that can go up to 32GB ram)
- No option for 32GB
- Battery cannot be changed easily
- Hard/impossible to upgrade, most PC laptop uses M.2 keys for SSD and some have socketed CPU or even GPU that you can upgrade.
- Touchbar is useless (at least for me)
- Can be very noisy very quickly. The thing is, with Apple you have no choice, you cannot buy a super bulky-but-silent notbook.
- Service is super expensive and you have to go the apple store. Many other manufacturer has on site support that are cheaper.
About the regular iMac, I think those are really good desktops for the mid user. Perfect for a secretary or my mom (non joke here). It still share most of the MacBook pro downside except for the price, you cannot have a display with this quality (5k) for much cheaper.
Now the iMac pro. If you read my post above, you will notice that the lack of a real pro machine (something I can throw PCI cards into, like labview interface or shit like that) is one of the reason (if not THE reason) that made me switch to windows.
I think the iMac pro is a good machine too, but here I really don’t know who will buy it. If you are a graphic pro, you want your NEC or other high end calibrated display and you won’t trust Apple on this (and if it’s the same display as the iMac, you shouldn’t). Of course you can plug your NEC display on the iMac pro, but that’s still super weird to buy an all in one for that. If you are a developer (like me) and need some kick and multiple displays (I work with 4 27’ monitors now, using 2 to work, and 2 to place things like music player or some log tails), you will prefer a fast 8 core consumer CPU over a xeon. And you don’t care about ECC memory. If you are in a lab, and actually need xeon, like my brother, you want to be able to throw those exotic PCI cards for lab view and laser controls. I also think a xeon should be able to get a lot more memory, my brother has 1TB on his workstation that is used for matlab.
So, except for some final cut pro users (and even here, you can mount 4k movies with a 2000$ PC), I really don’t see who would buy a 5000$ iMac.
Give it a few more months 
When I was using Windows I found that I had to reformat the machine every 6 months to a year because it started to feel sluggish. Not sure if things have changed much since then but I have not experienced the same with my Macs.
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