Mac (potentially) for Engineers/Developers who use Windows.. Recommended or not? What issues did you encounter?

Many hardware doesn't like VM. Some work but are finicky. 

I run a Mac and have done so for around 24 years.  Simultaneously, for 18 of those years, I used a Windows laptop for work.  I mention that just to say that I have familiarity with both as native machines.

I have had ZERO issues with hardware attached to MacOS.  I also run a Windows VM via Parallels and I have had ZERO problems with connecting hardware to that either.  Clearly, I haven't tried everything but what I have, has been no problem.  Parallels will work with the new M3 chips Apple uses by the way, but it may not be possible to create an image of an existing Windows installation to use - you would need to research that if it was something you wanted.  If I switched to an Mx-based Apple laptop I couldn't transfer the VM I'd have to reinstall and setup from scratch.  Some software is still Windows only but it may not affect you - one example is Workshop4 by 4D Systems which is required if you want to program any of their boards.  Other things I run under the VM just for convenience of keeping them distinct to my MacOS install, but that is just a personal choice, not a technical one.  Essentially, there is no reason to not use an Apple device if you want.  It's worth bearing in mind that some software works better in Windows than MacOS (more features for example) just because that's a choice the developer has made: check out LTSpice for MacOS!!

Don't believe the mantra "they just work": they're no better (or worse) than anything from Microsoft - maybe in the past they were: I originally swapped from Windows hardware to Apple hardware back in the day because I bought a new Blu-Ray drive and a graphics card and to install the drive I had to remove the motherboard to get to screws to open up the drive bay (so I didn't bother and when the graphics card didn't work I just threw the towel in.)  In fact, in the last 14-15 years I have had more problems with MacOS than I ever had with Windows OS.  Most of them were resolvable but Apple seem to focus their efforts on the yearly new OS release rather than fixing bugs, in my opinion.  Some of the problems are just annoyances that they just can't be bothered to fix.  The other thing to bear in mind is nothing on the Laptop is user serviceable: new battery?  Apple need it for up to 10 days to replace, along with the bottom shell, keyboard and trackpad.  Effing outrageous, although the price is no more than you would pay to replace just the battery if you could do it yourself (£195 IIRC, and in that case only 7 days.)  

So here's a statement: unless you're really wedded to the idea of Apple hardware I don't think you'll find it "better" than a Windows laptop.  You'd have to be doing some serious hardcore CPU/GPU intensive work to see it and I daresay you could spec a Windows laptop accordingly.  I think this is a mistake people - not you as I know you're aware - often make.  Some of the peripheral hardware you can buy for Apple is usually good but is nearly always available to Windows as well - Apple branded hardware is ridiculously priced by the way (look at the price for speccing a MacBook with an extra 8GB of Ram or an extra 512GB of SSD.)  

And here's another statement: After 24 years I've been thinking of switching away from Apple to Windows IF I can find a reasonably priced laptop that has a properly user-serviceable battery, can support 2x5K monitors (or 1x5K and 1x4k), and has support for Thunderbolt 4 (and maybe 5 but that's probably too new.)  This is a pricing based decision, not a technical one; at the moment I haven't really looked and like you it would require some work to set up properly although I don't think I'd have the same OS switch problems.

As for switching OS and getting to grips with it.  I suspect it will be a little frustrating at first but you will get to grips with it quickly.  As usual Google and YouTube will be your friend (or here of course, I'm always happy to help.)  I can switch between MacOS and Windows without issue.

The reasons to switch to Apple/MacOS:

1. You fancy a change and like the idea of learning something new.  I think this is a perfectly valid reason by the way.
2. Errr....I don't know any more.

I am totally agnostic to hardware and OS (except I can't be bothered with Linux) and I'm not inclined one way or the other.  I just want a tool that doesn't get in the way.If you have any specific questions, fire away.  

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for the information, it's very interesting hearing about your experiences.

To be honest, I had not initially considered Mac, but a friend threw the idea out there, so I figured I would get some second opinions.

I'm going to visit an Apple store sometime this week and try to get some time exploring the Mac options in person since I'm at the point where the reviews are not helping anymore; none of them contain the important points in your response, such as that they are no better or worse, what software works, the battery costs you mention and so on.

If I can't find a compelling reason, I may end up buying a Windows machine. There doesm't seem to be anything interesting in the Windows PC world, I think manufacturers have been conservative in the past few years, maybe because of supply chain issues. Through my browsing, I have seen an HP laptop with Thunderbolt 4 that I shortlisted, but it's not cheap. Hopefully, I've got a bit of time to see if any new machines appear and also to think up some more questions before I need to decide.. before my current machine permanently dies (I've backed it up).

Look at gamers laptops.

TB4 is good for high-res external monitors, e.g. 5k, 6k, 8k and multiple monitors.  It's also good for high-bandwidth devices, e.g. external drives that you might use to host a VM, stream movies from etc.  Other than that, I've found no reason why USB 3.1 isn't good enough and in my experience most electronics devices use USB2.0, e.g. DMMs, PSUs, AWGs, dev boards etc.  Pretty much all Mac laptops use TB4 the main difference being how many: it could be as little as 2 ports!  That would mean adding a hub and TB4 hubs are really expensive but do tend to come with multiple different types of ports and the ability to support multiple monitors, provide power (so you don't need two power bricks plugged in)  It's a consideration because an extra £200+ is a fair bit of money to spend.

How do you back up a Windows machine these days?  Back in the day it was a pain because Windows locked files.  In MacOS there is Time Machine: plug in an external drive, point TM at it and it auto backs up any changes in the last hour and any file can be retrieved from any date as long as it hasn't been overwritten (TM will fill the drive and then make space by deleting oldest history.)  Works brilliantly for back up and setting up a new machine.

I've been looking, I'm impressed at their specs, particularly the GPUs. I currently know very little about gaming laptops (most of the people I know only have brand experience for typical work laptop manufacturers, so gaming machines are a complete unknown for me).

But I will definitely examine them closer. I saw some online recommendations for certain machines by Asus and MSI. 

My monitor is TB3, but definitely good to get a TB4-capable laptop as you say. I spent £200 or so on a Surface Book dock (because it didn't support TB), but maybe I can sell that and recover a bit of money.

How do you back up a Windows machine these days?

I don't know either! : ) I have this uncivilized approach! Drag-and-drop all folders except the Windows ones onto USB storage : ) There's a bit of redundancy in there too. All the important stuff is on the larger SSDs not the Flash keys.

I have a Synology drive but I only use that as a network drive that I don't back up everything to. Also some stuff is on OneDrive, but not a lot.

 shabaz Hi mate, why not use Linux, try what I use Debian 12 -64bit with Cinnamon, for the desktop! I have been using this a long time I started with Mint which comes with Cinnamon but Mint updates were a pain.  You have to remember that if you go with Apple it is a PC that you can't change modify, or upgrade, shall I go on? My Desktop Currently:

OS- Debian 12 bookworm x64
Cinnamon 6.1.0-13-amd64
CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5500 x 6
Memory 31.1Gb

HD 4 or 5 one of them is a dedicated boot  500Mb now 1G /export/home/username is on another drive. 

Graphics AMD RV770 Radeon HD 4780 which I will swap out for a beast from MSI (my buddy donated it) 

Try this with the freekeh MAC I dare you!!

My Server BTW is an OLD AMD Phenom with maybe 8Gb of RAM But I have a 3 x 3TB Raid 5  this may have Debian 10?

I will have a new server when I finish building it ( this came from my buddy as well)  This thing has 2 Zenons and a crap load of memory.. and all I have to do is put the drives in and hit boot!  ~~ Cris

In 1998 I went to Linux full time. Then, in 2003, I switched to OSX. I stayed there until 2019 when I built a Windows machine for video editing. Because I was still heavily traveling at the time, I needed a Windows-based laptop to make moving between travel/home projects easier. But I still keep my MacPro around and use it remotely (via PiKVM) today.

There has not been a single day since 2019 that I haven't cursed Windows for being such a operating system.

Most interesting Windows software has a native OSX / macOS binary. I found anything that ran on Linux probably ran on OSX. I kept a VM for finicky Windows-only programs when I ran OSX full-time. I'm less sure how a VM would work in the Apple-Silicon era, though.

I switched to Windows because I needed far more powerful hardware than what Apple was offering at the time. Now that I'm not traveling 200 days a year, I will probably go back to a MacBook Pro for a laptop and decide later what to do on my desktop editing machine.

Hi Cris,

Nice machine, an impressive number of CPUs!  And very decent amount of memory! I bought a dual-chip server motherboard a while back, then discovered it didn't fit my PC : ( Nor was my PSU up to the task. And now that board is pretty obsolete : (

Hehe friends are what's needed!  A friend gave me a huge server (_lots_ of cores) but it sounds like a rocket when powered up, so I've been unable to do anything with it for now. I might donate that to sibling, he has a tiny production floor he could stick it on if he needs it, and curse me later for the sound: ) 

For a laptop I'm OK with not modifying it, I'll just buy it with enough RAM/disk space, but I just want it to be reliable : ( and this time around I'm definitely going to consider warranty/insurance or similar, because it's just too big an expense when they fail. 

I use Linux a lot (I have two Intel NUCs ready for logging-in, they are pretty rock-solid (and spares are available for them) but almost always just using a shell, and never liked any desktop well enough to stick with it. But never say never, who knows, one day I might wipe the OS and stick Linux desktop on the machine (I did that with a Surface Tablet, and it's running beautifully:  Low-Cost Linux: Re-purposing a Microsoft Surface Pro Tablet!