> > lack of commercial software like Adobe CS / MS Office
> Usually inconsequential for developers
I agree that most developers view it this way, but I find this perspective hard to understand. Why would a developer, whose craft is software, go out of there way to not understand and use the software most people use? Including of course their own coworkers? I understand that a lot of developers are content, and able to function, in a bubble of their own creating, but I would find that incredibly limiting, both from a productivity perspective, and in an understanding software as whole (and by extension the world) perspective.
> I fully understand why people want to use Apple for their consuming needs.
You do qualify this as being only about developers a bit later, but statements like this seem fundamentally out of touch with creative work on computers (i.e., illustrating my point from the previous paragraph). Logic, Final Cut, Media Composer, Pro Tools, Cinema 4D, the Adobe Creative Suite, Max/MSP, Reaktor are just a small sampling of important creative software that run on Mac but not Linux. Saying it's about "consuming" is patently ridiculous.
I understand the viewpoint the way you're expressing it here completely. What I don't understand is when I see developers on Linux expressing confusion about why anyone would use macOS, as if there aren't obvious trade-offs to each platform.
Saying you'd rather spend less money, or just prioritizing other advantages of Linux over macOS, makes sense. But pretending it's not a big deal to give up most of the industry-defining creative and productivity software (notably excluding most developer tools) just doesn't make much sense to me.
I think it's because most software most people use works fine on Linux. E.g. browsers, email, steam, websites, etc.
The ones that don't aren't necessarily widely used software. They're just specialized software for specific fields. Another example is CAD, not necessarily something everyone uses.
I also wouldn't mind using my Mac as my main computer, the problem is that my 1080p 23inch monitors don't work well with them due to pixel density.
Because as a developer, none of the software packages you listed matter to me. They are as far removed from my line of work as is notepad.exe.
You have to realize, that a lot of the software you listed is only relevant in the creative / media production industry. So, it is really not software that most people use.
That's because I was responding to replying to this comment:
> I fully understand why people want to use Apple for their consuming needs.
So I listed creative apps in contrast to their point about "consuming", but I could have listed Microsoft Office, or the iWork Suite.
I also think you're discounting how popular these apps actually are. Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, GarageBand, and iMovie are all in the top ten charts for the Mac App Store (an interesting tangential point here is about how mobile eating so many consumer software use cases has shifted laptops and desktops more towards creative use cases).
But the point is, familiarity with these apps is useful for software developers for a couple of reasons:
1. While they may not be developer tools, they are certainly related: User-facing apps all have a UI, and most involve media of some sort, whether it's photos, videos, icons, etc... Being able to work with those file formats is a great supporting skill for a software developer.
2. As a software developer, whose "art" is software, it's good to be able to use applications that other users prefer to use, just like, say, an interior designer might be interested in how people decorate their homes. As a software developer, I'm extremely interested in the what and why of the software people like to use.
> Usually inconsequential for developers
I agree that most developers view it this way, but I find this perspective hard to understand. Why would a developer, whose craft is software, go out of there way to not understand and use the software most people use? Including of course their own coworkers? I understand that a lot of developers are content, and able to function, in a bubble of their own creating, but I would find that incredibly limiting, both from a productivity perspective, and in an understanding software as whole (and by extension the world) perspective.
> I fully understand why people want to use Apple for their consuming needs.
You do qualify this as being only about developers a bit later, but statements like this seem fundamentally out of touch with creative work on computers (i.e., illustrating my point from the previous paragraph). Logic, Final Cut, Media Composer, Pro Tools, Cinema 4D, the Adobe Creative Suite, Max/MSP, Reaktor are just a small sampling of important creative software that run on Mac but not Linux. Saying it's about "consuming" is patently ridiculous.