In search of higher ground

I didn't think I'd write something like this anytime soon. I thought I'd left the Mac world and I thought I basically did that at the right time. When Marco lamented the state of Apples computers (and their software) a while back he of course focussed on what Apple themselves put into their system. Lately I've been looking at the world of computer Operating Systems more in terms of comparing ecosystems - the OS with the (3rd party) software it gives you access to. To be fair there is great software for Windows, for Linux and for the Mac. In fact as far as Windows goes I feel Microsoft these days makes great software, who'd have thought I'd ever say this 10-15 years ago.

Putting care in how things look and feel

The thing that strikes me with quite some software for the Mac (and also did in the years ~2006-2012 when I was a Mac user exclusively) is the care that a lot of the developers in that world seem to put into how their software feels. To be fair, neither Microsoft nor a lot of Linux Distributions make it easy for developers to achieve a similar amount of polish, though it's certainly possible. As somebody who enyojs using software that looks and feels good I find this rather lamentable. I'm sure there will be people who tell me I shouldn't care, just as there are people who will argue that the fact that software is maybe open-source would more than make up for any lack in the design department. However I find myself disagreeing. All these arguments for or against some piece of software exist at once and for different areas thei may be weighed diferently.

In defence of Microsoft

I cannot really blame Microsoft for any of this. Todays Microsoft creates awesome opensource software, they care more for the design of their products then at any time in their history (at least so it seems) and really try to be an inovative company.

Where to go from here?

This is a good question. I am actually considering splitting my time: I have no problem working on Windows at work and even having my main workstation at home run Windows for the forseeable future. After all my computer isn't that old and will be quite powerfull for a few years still to come. However with my Microsoft Surface Pro 4 showing itself to be rather on the weak side (granted I got a small model, so this may not be Microsofts fault) I find myself looking for something to use when I'm not at home. Right now the iPad Pro and the MacBook Pro are both in the race. The iPad would grant me the option to use a lot of software I already own by having bought it for the iPhone. The MacBook would be more of a full fledged computer.

What might right now push me more towards the mac then towards the iPad is Webdevelopment. While I know there are people who work on iOS devices in quite a productive way I feel that I am way too much of a classical computer person for that. I like having a mouse-point and love to use a terminal