Why is Mac so good?

[Mich43l777]

Hello. I transfered from Windows to Mac, in September it will be a year.
I used Windows after and I can't say why but I disliked it. What is there so good on Mac I love to use it? When people ask me what Mac does and Windows does not I don't know what reply because all job I do on Mac I can do on 400$ PC but I prefer Mac and I dislike to use any other computer since I got Mac.

I don't know why I even like it so much. I say it is just better I don't know where but it is... I don't have an argument it is better when I want to persuade people to buy it over some other laptop. I say Mac is better, it is just better... it is but can you tell me why I feel that?

 

[0128672]

Ask 100 people that question and you'll get 100 answers. For me, it's because Macs were my first love (well, except that TRS-80, sigh) even though I used Windows for years at various workplaces and sometimes at home. Plenty of members here use both regularly.

 

[casperes1996]

I could write a quintillion characters on why I love macOS. I could also do about a billion on why I love Linux... And I could do about a septillion on why I dislike Windows. And as Namara said, none of what I wrote might apply to why you like macOS. But in two words I can put forth two huge reasons why macOS is really lovely - and there are billions more, but these two are probably fairly universal for most use cases, where some of the others will depend on what you do.

Spotlight.
QuickLook.

 

[avz]

When I was looking to replace my Toshiba Satellite Pro A60 which had lines appearing on a screen in late 2008, all I knew is that I don't want a notebook made of plastic. My dislike of plastic notebooks is completely irrational but this is how I felt at a time and still do today.
When I saw a Late 2008 aluminum unibody MacBook, I was instantly sold. I still use it today and like the fact that it can effortlessly take me into the ARM era Macs.

 

[mini5apple]

its not, only item thats good from apple is iphone and in 2020 thats debatable

 

[casperes1996]

its not, only item thats good from apple is iphone and in 2020 thats debatable

Opinion.

iPhones are boring. Macs are exciting. Apple Watch is fantastic. Pretty much everything Apple makes is more interesting than iPhone. - iPhone is still a fantastic phone and I wouldn't want to switch - but it is just a phone. Every second spent with a Mac is a delight

 

[mmomega]

An item is good when it fits the purpose. If someone tries to force an item into a role where it doesn't work, then cost is completely irrelavent, build quality is irrelavent, public opinion is irrelavent.

For me, and it has taken me probably longer than some to realize and sooner than some to realize. I had to use the right tool for the job to be happy with it. 1 example being, Windows for my personal use doesn't work. macOS works perfectly for what I want.
At my offices, macOS doesn't work and Windows does, or Linux does.

 

[TETENAL]

When people ask me what Mac does and Windows does not I don't know what reply because all job I do on Mac I can do on 400$ […].

Just say that Windows can do everything that Mac can do and be done with it. There is no point in discussing something that essentially boils down to taste.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Opinion.

iPhones are boring. Macs are exciting. Apple Watch is fantastic. Pretty much everything Apple makes is more interesting than iPhone. - iPhone is still a fantastic phone and I wouldn't want to switch - but it is just a phone. Every second spent with a Mac is a delight

I love having to give every other app special permissions through a multi click process, love giving them permissions to my desktop, love how my Mac Mini crashes everytime it falls asleep, love when my MBP decides the touchbar crashes, it's real delightful.

There's nothing delightful about OS X.

 

[iDento]

Few reasons why:

- it’s Unix and Unix is amazing.
- attention to details.
- consistency, and by that I mean it’s obviously designed by teams that work together to design the hardware, software and set the guidelines for developers to make apps for the platform.

 

[casperes1996]

I love having to give every other app special permissions through a multi click process, love giving them permissions to my desktop, love how my Mac Mini crashes everytime it falls asleep, love when my MBP decides the touchbar crashes, it's real delightful.

There's nothing delightful about OS X.

Don’t want to fight about it, it’s just opinions, and your points there are certainly valid reasons to be muffed with macOS. I don’t have those issues, though I do have another recurring issue that’s a bit annoying, but

I have a Folder action that will perform an scp to my Raspberry Pi with the file inserted into the folder, a cron job that checks if my active Xcode projects have been modified And if so builds and runs all tests, basically homemade CI. I can create an animation in Motion and render it out to Final Cut all without having to think about any of the technical parts of what I’m doing, just flowing with the creativity. I can hit space bar on the output and without having to open an app, quick look will show me the file, and I can then hit cmd+F19 to quickly transcode it.
Most importantly, macOS is invisible. When I want to achieve something it just happens. Everything can be achieved fast, efficiently and intuitively; almost anyway.
Oh and to make it all even better; there’s XQUartz, so all my X11 GUIs work perfectly fine, and I can brew install anything fast and easily. macOS is home. It is comfortable and peaceful. And the APIs are wonderful. Much rather write for AppKit than Swing, JavaFX, Win32, or QT.
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consistency, and by that I mean it’s obviously designed by teams that work together to design the hardware, software and set the guidelines for developers to make apps for the platform.

A very important and often overlooked point you brought up there. macOS as a platform encourages programming in a way that’s consistent with macOS. Apple has taken the time to make tools for us to make apps that feel right and fit in with the platform. Of course you can still mess it up but the Apple developer community is wonderful and generally really cares about their software, and most of it will feel like it belongs on macOS, and not like it was developed in a vacuum and then just put on a display alongside what just so happened to be macOS. Those apps do exist, but it’s not as prevalent as on other platforms I’d say, and MacOS apps feel like macOS apps. Not just apps on macOS.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Shrug. It's not invisible to me. Especially every time I try to do anything involving split screen windows. Or hidden files. Or volume control over HDMI. Or lots of little other tasks.

I don't think it really does anything really better overall than Windows or Linux at this point. Some things are a little better, but others worse. Sometimes majorly so.

 

[decafjava]

I could write a quintillion characters on why I love macOS. I could also do about a billion on why I love Linux... And I could do about a septillion on why I dislike Windows. And as Namara said, none of what I wrote might apply to why you like macOS. But in two words I can put forth two huge reasons why macOS is really lovely - and there are billions more, but these two are probably fairly universal for most use cases, where some of the others will depend on what you do.

Spotlight.
QuickLook.

Oh man, as someone suffering with Win 8 at work on a clunky HP laptop the lockdown and move online for the rest of the semester (I work at a Study Abroad university exchange program) I was and am happier working on my iMac even if I much prefer my office in a lovely small Swiss town (Nyon). It's nice to see someone else so positive about Macs in a world of iDevices (which are great and all). Two of my colleagues are also in this bind, but one (my boss) was able to get a Mac Mini.

 

[Hoff]

On Windows I wasted multiple days of my life looking for 3rd party software to do some simple back ups and wiping hard drive I was getting rid of. Also worried if it was legit or scam software. And how much it would cost.

During my research, I saw that Mac OS had all the tools I needed natively.

I didn't have a Mac at the time. I do now.

Mac just makes things go smoother for me.