[nfellaby]

There is a significant community in the (biological) sciences that are reliant on the Mac platform as an intermediate between Windows based applications such as Office and, importantly, the often highly specific programs/scripts/applications created for Unix platforms for analysis. Ignoring these users would be a mistake.

Personally, after 13 years of Macs any computer I'm buying in the near future are going to be Linux based because of the current trajectories Apple have decided to take.

Just insight from a different community I guess.

[manderley]

Wouldn't running Windows 10 and the Microsoft Subsystem for Linux make way more sense for these users? Seems more like inertia that is keeping some on the Mac.

[AnonymousPlanet]

In academic environments there is often no dedicated IT department, so all support is done by the technically versed colleagues. Replacing machines with Macs has always resulted in an enormous reduction of these support calls, in my experience. Moving back to Windows would destroy all of that.

[nfellaby]

I agree, the Microsoft subsystem for Linux will draw many more users away from macOS in the future. When I was starting post-graduate studies/research there was no such support from Microsoft officially. However, now that there is I wouldn't be surprised if academics are more likely to consider Windows in the future for this reason. Good move from Microsoft.

[formercoder]

As a Mac lover of 15+ years, at least put PCs under consideration. I bought a Lenovo X1 Yoga to replace my dead MBP. It has a touchscreen, fingerprint reader with U2F support, folds into a tablet, and I do all my development in windows VSCode linked into Ubuntu on WSL. The only thing I miss is having iMessage on the desktop.

[Razengan]

> touchscreen, fingerprint reader with U2F support, folds into a tablet

None of that is a compelling enough reason to switch, when the OS is the primary reason I jumped ship to Macs in the first place.

It's not just about being able to run this or that app, but the overall comfort of my everyday work environment, while still giving me the room to occasionally step out of my comfort zone on lazy afternoons.

As long as macOS retains the ability to run emulators, I think I'll be fine with its growing number of security-based restrictions.

However, whenever I have occasionally peeked back in on the state of Windows (the last time being a year ago, to run some games), it still had many of the same annoyances, frustrations and archaic encumbrances that made me wish for a better world and try out Macs around 10 years ago, and I still don't agree with the overall philosophy of Microsoft (as I perceive it.)

Apple/macOS remains the "lesser evil", at least for me.