MacBook Pro: are they really worth it?

nick_scheu
Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:05:16 +0000

One more minor point… Mac hardware gives you the freedom to use software for all three major platforms in a fully supported way. Running Windows through Boot Camp is no different from using it on a regular PC, and Apple provides Windows drivers for all their hardware (well, all since 2006). You can run UNIX software on OS X itself, or install a Linux distro through Boot Camp if you choose. And, of course, you can run nearly any x86 operating system through VMWare over OS X.

This is one reason, aside from software like Coda, that web developers tend to prefer Macs. With one machine, they can test on every major OS. A Windows machine lets you use every major platform except Mac OS X which, like it or not, has a fairly large installed base.