Ramblings of a Mac user

Hi, my names Corey and I'm a long time Mac user......... kinda feels like I'm some sort of addict speaking at a support meeting which, I suppose maybe accurate on some levels!

My Mac Journey

I've happily been a Mac user for perhaps 15 years and have had a number of different devices over that time including: 15" Macbook Pro, 11" Macbook Air", 13" Macbook Pro, and the 14" Macbook Pro (M1 Pro) on which I writing this blog.  While I loved the form factor of the 11" Macbook Air* this new M1 pro is my favourite of all time! It's truely a beast of a device and is a dream to work with! It's fast, has a beautify screen along with a great keyboard, fantastic trackpad and of course great battery life. My first Mac with Apple silicon has been a joy to work with, did I mention its quiet as well, I don't think I've even heard the fans spin up yet! From a performance perspective the Apple M1 and now M2 processor packages have been leading the way over Intels offerings with rave reviews all over the internets.

The SoC architecture of the M1 Pro processor in my Mac probably deserves its own blog but I'll settle on saying its a great package with performance and efficiency cores along with an integrated GPU, unified memory, incredible power efficiency and impressive memory bandwidth.

Let's talk the Apple ecosystem. I love the integration between my iPhone and my Mac. Having a single identity that unifies your experience over mulitple devices is awesome. It's only a small thing but, being able to have imessage/txt conversations from my Mac (or my iPhone obviously) is something I'd struggle to go without. The same is true of the notes app which I use extensively across both devices. That ecosystem extends to include ipads, the Apple watch, and other devices and is based around your Apple ID and it's iCloud offering. The unified identity helps to enable a seemless experience across all devices which I think is part of the appeal. 💻🤓

High Costs and Application support?

But what about the high cost of Macs and the lack of enterprise applications I hear you ask .........really, have you looked into this lately? I think its past time to question these perceptions a little. Obviously the devils in the detail but on a cost front, it really comes back to individual use case and what do you need your laptop to do. A simple comparison between the base versions of a Dell XPS 13" laptop and an Apple Macbook Air M1 has them both coming in under $2000 which doesn't seem all that bad 🤷🏼‍♂️

Now, I'm not saying Macs are cheap and cost can absolutely balloon without too much effort, but comparing the base versions of these two I'd argue the Mac is clearly better value. I'd also be willing to bet that most businesses/Enterprises are probably not purchasing entry level models for their devices at any rate. Ever thought about resale value...... I think you'll find your Mac will hold its value substantially better than a Windows laptop.

For me, my Mac's essentially an access device with a good mail client, calendar and web browser (or three)! Seriously, pretty much all the apps I use these days are web apps or maybe SaaS apps and these tend to be OS agnostic. Browsers for everything ...... and while we (Mac users) don't have Internet Exporer at our fingertips I don't think anyone's loosing any sleep over that (and won't for much longer with its days numbered)! And if your not a fan of the native apps from Apple, then drop on the Office 365 suite from our friends @ Microsoft and go crazy 😵‍💫🔫

Having said that, the number of apps that natively run on Apple silicon is growing quickly and I doubt you'd have any real challenges finding what you need. I certainly haven't had any issues in this space. There is always Rossetta 2 for apps looking for an intel processor if you need it.

In the Workplace

Now, opinions on Mac's can be divisive in the workplace but really don't need to be. Here at Softsource vBridge we tend to be a Windows shop by and large with only a few Mac's dotted around. Sure, this creates the odd bit of office banter from time to time but its all in good fun! We all manage to work colaboratively towards shared end goals without differences in user devices being a problem.  If fact, there's a security arguement out there that having a non uniform device pool mitigates the risk of a single malware event crippling the business. It doesn't even have to  be malware, the chances of a bad Windows update taking down a fleet of devices isn't that hard to imagine! Particularly, if the almost daily wailing I hear due to updates or WSUS doing its thing is anything to go by 🤭

Just to poke the bear a little, does anyone remember Apple's hilarious add campaign Mac vs PC  - good times 🤣?!

Back to malware 👺- on the security front Macs are a pretty good option. I won't say anything as outrageous as "they don't get viruses" or "there is no malware for MacOS" but I will say Windows tends to get hit harder by both these. Yep, there's a massive target pool of Windows devices which make them attractive to bad actors. Thats good for MacOS and bad for Windows....simple.  From a TCO perspective, what sort of additional costs go into maintaning a securing a Windows fleet.....I'd guess it's not insignificant.

Macs are certainly not be impenetrable, but they do offer a good of protection out of the box with the likes of  Touch ID, FileVault 2, and Gatekeeper all contributing to device security.

Wrapping up

At the end of the day I think it's all about personal choice. If you can be productive and secure with your device be it MacOS, Windows, the Linux or something else then thats what really matters. Your device should be an enabler for you and the business, and if its doing that then everyone should be happy. I know I certainly am.

It's a good time to be a Mac user 😎

* _{I can unfortunately confirm that a steaming cup of coffee ☕️ can kill a Mac 😱}