Who Gets a Mac at Work?(theregister.com)
theregister.com
Who Gets a Mac at Work?
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/11/who_gets_mac_at_work/
21 comments
What sort of ongoing support does Apple offer?
We have quintessentially corporate Dells, which retail for about the same as Macs, and they come with full corporate support contracts... they sent someone to change the motherboard in mine, for instance. Support contracts are important in corporate settings, not just cost.
And of course, very often corporate IT only knows Windows and MS in general so says they can't support anything else.
We have quintessentially corporate Dells, which retail for about the same as Macs, and they come with full corporate support contracts... they sent someone to change the motherboard in mine, for instance. Support contracts are important in corporate settings, not just cost.
And of course, very often corporate IT only knows Windows and MS in general so says they can't support anything else.
I’ve worked remotely for two companies that had Macs as an option over the past two years - Amazon (AWS) and now a smaller company. With Amazon, they shipped you a new (or one less than three years old if it still met the spec for what you should get based on your position) computer to your home, you ship the other one back and they send it off to Apple.
With the company I work for now (700 people) , they would most likely arrange a replacement shipped directly from Apple new or from their internal IT department and I ship the old one back to the IT department and they deal with Apple. When I was hired, I could have either had my computer come directly from Apple or I chose to go to the local Apple Store to pick it up. The serial number was registered to the company.
With the company I work for now (700 people) , they would most likely arrange a replacement shipped directly from Apple new or from their internal IT department and I ship the old one back to the IT department and they deal with Apple. When I was hired, I could have either had my computer come directly from Apple or I chose to go to the local Apple Store to pick it up. The serial number was registered to the company.
Seems like the main reasons why I use Macs at work are not covered by this article, so here they are:
1. At trade shows, the superior battery life and screen quality make our 1:1 demos stand out. It impresses a lot of PC-focused prospects. I can't go one day at a trade show without someone basically saying "ooh, wow, a Mac!"
2. Using a Mac with an iPhone means I can send/receive texts messages with customers/coworkers from both devices. Also, they like to see the blue bubble in Messages.
3. When used together with any Apple device, AirPods save a small but VALUABLE amount of time when a headset is desirable for meetings/calls. Seriously, AirPods are the least fiddly of any headset I've ever had to use with a computer.
4. Microphone, noise cancelling, and camera quality are quite good on Mac/iPhone. The experience has been better than any PC I've used and it's the general consensus at the company.
The benefits are so good that I would avoid working for another employer who didn't offer Mac as an option.
Also, screw Apple for their ridiculous prices, lawbreaking, gaslighting of their users, their stance on repairability, the lack of "Alt+Tab" in macOS, the lack of "Right-Click > New > Text Document" etc. in Finder, and other intentional choices made by Apple to limit functionality of their devices.
1. At trade shows, the superior battery life and screen quality make our 1:1 demos stand out. It impresses a lot of PC-focused prospects. I can't go one day at a trade show without someone basically saying "ooh, wow, a Mac!"
2. Using a Mac with an iPhone means I can send/receive texts messages with customers/coworkers from both devices. Also, they like to see the blue bubble in Messages.
3. When used together with any Apple device, AirPods save a small but VALUABLE amount of time when a headset is desirable for meetings/calls. Seriously, AirPods are the least fiddly of any headset I've ever had to use with a computer.
4. Microphone, noise cancelling, and camera quality are quite good on Mac/iPhone. The experience has been better than any PC I've used and it's the general consensus at the company.
The benefits are so good that I would avoid working for another employer who didn't offer Mac as an option.
Also, screw Apple for their ridiculous prices, lawbreaking, gaslighting of their users, their stance on repairability, the lack of "Alt+Tab" in macOS, the lack of "Right-Click > New > Text Document" etc. in Finder, and other intentional choices made by Apple to limit functionality of their devices.
> Also, screw Apple for their ridiculous prices, lawbreaking, gaslighting of their users, their stance on repairability, and intentional choices to limit functionality of their devices.
Why would I care about repairability of a work laptop? If something breaks, I talk to my IT department and since they have a business contract with Apple, I take it to the Apple Store and if they can’t repair it right then, they give me another one.
True AirPods aren’t fiddly. But neither are just plugging in wired headphones.
Why would I care about repairability of a work laptop? If something breaks, I talk to my IT department and since they have a business contract with Apple, I take it to the Apple Store and if they can’t repair it right then, they give me another one.
True AirPods aren’t fiddly. But neither are just plugging in wired headphones.
>True AirPods aren’t fiddly. But neither are just plugging in wired headphones.
Setting Apple aside, bluetooth multipoint is a game changer for how I use laptops and headsets. I agree that wired headsets are fantastic. For years I used OnePlus phones because they held on to the venreble 3.5mm jack longer than other Android phones. When traveling, however, the bluetooth multipoint headsets are considerably more convenient than wired headsets. With the work Mac and iPhone, Apple's proprietary fast switching makes this very seamless. I look forward to the day when the similar Fast Pair from Google works on non-Chromebook laptops.
>Why would I care about the repeatability of a work laptop? If something breaks, I talk to my IT department
We are a remote company, so going to the IT department is not always the most feasible option. In addition to the Mac, I have Linux and Windows computers for work. My employer lets me do things like expense M.2 drives and install them on those systems. Virtual environments are helpful and having both operating systems helps to validate our on-prem offering works with KVM and Hyper-V. Due to the soldered storage (and ARM CPU), I accept this is not feasible with today's Macs, but also recognize this was Apple's choice and it did not have to be this way.
Setting Apple aside, bluetooth multipoint is a game changer for how I use laptops and headsets. I agree that wired headsets are fantastic. For years I used OnePlus phones because they held on to the venreble 3.5mm jack longer than other Android phones. When traveling, however, the bluetooth multipoint headsets are considerably more convenient than wired headsets. With the work Mac and iPhone, Apple's proprietary fast switching makes this very seamless. I look forward to the day when the similar Fast Pair from Google works on non-Chromebook laptops.
>Why would I care about the repeatability of a work laptop? If something breaks, I talk to my IT department
We are a remote company, so going to the IT department is not always the most feasible option. In addition to the Mac, I have Linux and Windows computers for work. My employer lets me do things like expense M.2 drives and install them on those systems. Virtual environments are helpful and having both operating systems helps to validate our on-prem offering works with KVM and Hyper-V. Due to the soldered storage (and ARM CPU), I accept this is not feasible with today's Macs, but also recognize this was Apple's choice and it did not have to be this way.
I’ve worked remotely for 5 years did three companies - two of those allowed Macs. Both would just express ship me a new laptop if I had an issue.
I wouldn’t be surprised if my current company - a third party AWS consulting company - wouldn’t just buy a laptop from Apple on their corporate account and tell me to pick it up from the local Apple Store and ship my old one back to the company.
That’s how I got my original one when I first started
Amazon - the first company I worked for remotely - had me use my own personal computer and log in to corporate approved internal AWS Workspace with the same software as they image their Windows computers until my Mac shipped. They would have done the same if I needed a replacement.
As far as installing drives, Thunderbolt is more than fast enough to use any external hard drive
I wouldn’t be surprised if my current company - a third party AWS consulting company - wouldn’t just buy a laptop from Apple on their corporate account and tell me to pick it up from the local Apple Store and ship my old one back to the company.
That’s how I got my original one when I first started
Amazon - the first company I worked for remotely - had me use my own personal computer and log in to corporate approved internal AWS Workspace with the same software as they image their Windows computers until my Mac shipped. They would have done the same if I needed a replacement.
As far as installing drives, Thunderbolt is more than fast enough to use any external hard drive
Those laptop provisioning experiences sound great. I too found myself working from & deploying software to AWS Workspaces - cloud VDI seems like a great solution for a lot of businesses.
My remote work journey started with IBM in 2015. A few team members got Macs while the rest were issued beefy ThinkPads. It was one of the first large organizations I've seen that intentionally chose not to use Active Directory for their PC fleets. Unsurprisingly, IBM had IT service centers globally distributed. Despite the wider availability of service centers, I also installed extra storage and RAM myself on that ThinkPad.
It's great that remote work has taken off especially since Covid-19.
My remote work journey started with IBM in 2015. A few team members got Macs while the rest were issued beefy ThinkPads. It was one of the first large organizations I've seen that intentionally chose not to use Active Directory for their PC fleets. Unsurprisingly, IBM had IT service centers globally distributed. Despite the wider availability of service centers, I also installed extra storage and RAM myself on that ThinkPad.
It's great that remote work has taken off especially since Covid-19.
Active Directory works with Macs. Amazon used Active Directory for their employees across Macs and Windows. They also had their own MDM software. Now we use a combination of GSuite and Rippling (a YC company) for our IDP/MDM software.
Thanks for sharing about Rippling. I'll take a closer look at it: https://www.rippling.com/device-management
The other company I've worked at that chose not to use Active Directory was Tenable. They even acquired a company that specializes in AD security, but ended up deciding AD was too insecure for their IT infrastructure.
The other company I've worked at that chose not to use Active Directory was Tenable. They even acquired a company that specializes in AD security, but ended up deciding AD was too insecure for their IT infrastructure.
Rippling can also serve as a “PEO”.
https://www.rippling.com/products/hr/peo
If you work at a small company, HR, benefits, tax reporting is handled by Rippling as if you are their employee even though for everything else is handled by your employer. You are “co-employed” by both companies. As our company grew, last year we all got “terminated” by Rippling (initiated by our company) and had to “re-apply” to our company as far as new tax forms.
Nothing changed day to day. It was merely an accounting, legal, tax thing.
https://www.rippling.com/products/hr/peo
If you work at a small company, HR, benefits, tax reporting is handled by Rippling as if you are their employee even though for everything else is handled by your employer. You are “co-employed” by both companies. As our company grew, last year we all got “terminated” by Rippling (initiated by our company) and had to “re-apply” to our company as far as new tax forms.
Nothing changed day to day. It was merely an accounting, legal, tax thing.
In my company, only C-level gets Macs because IT regulations don't apply to them.
10 years ago we were a Mac-only shop, but then we exchanged our CTO for a bean counter and switched to Windows.
10 years ago we were a Mac-only shop, but then we exchanged our CTO for a bean counter and switched to Windows.
My first thought is people in position that look pretty and actually don't contribute any meaningful work... (Marketing Exec, Management, recruiters, sometime customer retention specialist (The one that are not in a call center pool, for special accounts))..
Years ago, when my vantage point was support and consulting, I had the same view of sales and marketing. I encountered too many buyers who did not know what they were buying, too many sellers who did not know what they were selling, and me in the middle having to reset everyone's expectations. The authority held by sales and marketing to steer the product into insane directions seemed like an injustice. It's an unfortunate reality that customers who already paid for something are often de-prioritized for new customers with different requirements and less expertise.
Much of my job is now customer onboarding, so I work closer with sales and solution architects. I also fill in for the solution architects when they're spread too thin for the events marketing has set up. The struggles faced by those teams are entirely different than those on the engineering and support side, and while it might not seem fair, a good corporate culture means everyone is motivated to work hard. Many of those roles are based on comission, so their financial and career prospects are worse than ours when they're not fully dedicated and producing results.
In terms of who gets what computer, it's unfortunate that the majority of users will be people who have average (or less than average) technical skills. That means a lot of them are afraid to even try macOS and will want to go back to PCs as soon as some trivial difference gives them the slightest uncertanty. Personally, I'd love to work on a rice'd hyprland system all day, but the fact that the business relies on BS like MS/Google collaboration software, our CRM has no keyboard shortcuts, etc. means technical users will always be held back.
Much of my job is now customer onboarding, so I work closer with sales and solution architects. I also fill in for the solution architects when they're spread too thin for the events marketing has set up. The struggles faced by those teams are entirely different than those on the engineering and support side, and while it might not seem fair, a good corporate culture means everyone is motivated to work hard. Many of those roles are based on comission, so their financial and career prospects are worse than ours when they're not fully dedicated and producing results.
In terms of who gets what computer, it's unfortunate that the majority of users will be people who have average (or less than average) technical skills. That means a lot of them are afraid to even try macOS and will want to go back to PCs as soon as some trivial difference gives them the slightest uncertanty. Personally, I'd love to work on a rice'd hyprland system all day, but the fact that the business relies on BS like MS/Google collaboration software, our CRM has no keyboard shortcuts, etc. means technical users will always be held back.
I also work in consulting as a staff consultant for a third party cloud consulting company. I’m in “delivery”. A statement of work doesn’t go to the client until it has been approved by someone high up (like me) from the delivery side.
Honestly that's a great control to provent client engagements from going off the rails. I hope more organizations adopt that.
I’m always amazed how people dismiss the contributions of people who actually bring in revenue so that you can get paid.
I’m not in sales. I’m what would be considered a “post sales architect” who is the first person a client talks to once the sale is closed and responsible for delivery. But I’m high enough up the funnel and work closely enough with sales and marketing to appreciate them.
I’m not in sales. I’m what would be considered a “post sales architect” who is the first person a client talks to once the sale is closed and responsible for delivery. But I’m high enough up the funnel and work closely enough with sales and marketing to appreciate them.
That's true. On the other hand it also happens that software devs, who develop software running on Linux, have to work with Dell Windows laptops while the VP who mostly deals with Teams, Zoom, and emails is able to have a Macbook... and an Apple 5k monitor.
Is working on Windows itself that bad with WsL 2.0? I had to use Windows for one year at a shitty consulting company before I left out of the 5 years since I’ve been AWS focused. My workflow wasn’t that different with VSCode, Docker and WSL than on my Mac.
And honestly before ARM based Macs, Mac laptops sucked about as bad as Windows laptops and near the end of the x86 run, they were actually worse.
And honestly before ARM based Macs, Mac laptops sucked about as bad as Windows laptops and near the end of the x86 run, they were actually worse.
What a weird take. I'm an engineer and I haven't worked at a single company that has issued windows laptops to engineers unless they asked for it. The default for a lot of dev work has been mac for a very long time. I think that's shifted in recent years, but still I'm actually kind of astonished to hear your take.
What’s “weird” about a take that’s based on both widely accepted market share numbers, that were cited in the article being the opposite of your anecdotal experience?
Apple is offering some great value for the money with the M4 chip now, the Mac Mini is $600 and the 13" MacBook Air is $1k.
The real killer is of course the corporate monitoring software and bloated endpoint security suites, we can all point to dozens of coworkers as the reason these exist, and unfortunately as far as I know of there's no corpos that do an "idiot test" to allow people who have demonstrated computer literacy and compliance with corpo security policy to be placed in a less restrictive group.
A Raspberry Pi with an SSD is much snappier than the newest and much more powerful business-grade laptops our employees are issued with all the bloatware on them.