This is a content-free comment. You claim ThinkPads have better ergonomics, but you say nothing about why. You say they are more robust (more robust than a solid aluminum shell? Not in my experience), but you don't back it up. You claim better performance and say something vague about RAM, which is similarly unsubstantiated.

The IBM has a vastly inferior, smaller, less responsive trackpad, inferior display, inferior overall fit and finish of the case, inferior trackpad buttons.

You'll have to do better than this.

In my list, generally preferring Thinkpad over Mac:

Better keyboard feel and layout. Especially if you're used to PC/Unix keyboards.

Trackpoint. I vastly prefer this to a trackpad (and generally disable trackpads in BIOS).

Cooling/airflow. Mac's sealed design is nice, Lenovo's gets the heat out (and the dust in, sigh).

Thinklight.

To Mac's benefit:

Magnetic breakaway power connector. Sheer genius.

Illuminated keyboard. Kind of neat.

CD slot (not on Airs, obviously). I'm always accidentally opening my CD drive on my Thinkpad. Some way to lock the damned thing would be nice.

Displays -- I've been consistently impressed by the brightness of Apple displays, if not the aspect ratios (I prefer Thinkpads generally here, though they're converging on Apple's standards).

And in 10+ years of lugging Thinkpads around, I've had few if any hardware/robustness issues. One screen that pixilated badly after a fall onto the street in my satchel, replaced by IBM. Otherwise, nada.

On the authors point anyway, there ARE laptop makers who make hardware of that quality. I bought a HP Envy 14 last March, solid metal with a high quality screen, huge multi-touch touchpad, no fans on the bottom, no stickers all over the place, switchable graphics. Wonderful backlit island-style keyboard. It's the PC Macbook. I sold it last month for more than half of what I bought it for, still in perfect condition.

Not saying this is what the author thinks, but a lot of people I know complain that their PC laptops are low quality and end up switching to Mac because they refuse to buy high quality laptops. My Envy was $900 with an i5, 4GB of RAM and a Radeon 5650. Spec a Macbook at that price.

Honestly, contrary to this article, I think you'd find that most developers using Macs use them more for the OS than for the hardware.

If I could build a seriously beefy desktop machine and run OSX properly on it, I would. For laptops the nice hardware (as others have said, especially the trackpad, but there are plenty of other reasons) is a definite plus, but OSX is just great.

Wanting some specific hardware for a desktop machine recently (I was actually in a similar position to the author, it seems, I wanted to run basic stuff + dev tools + a lot of VMs) I spec'd and built a Ubuntu box. I lasted for about 8 months being annoyed and decided to use the box as the VM host and a Macbook Air to access them.

You can, it's called a Hackintosh.

Tried it several times over the years. Unfortunately it doesn't meet the 'properly' criteria :)

I can think of a few reasons:

1) MacBooks are pleasing to the eye. ThinkPads are well-designed functionally but ugly. Aesthetics don't matter to everyone, but to those for whom they do matter, they are not a frivolous concern. Working in an elegant environment (including hardware) can have a positive effect on one's state of mind.

2) A lot of people are interested in developing iOS apps. This is much easier on a Mac.

3) MacBooks are status items like designer clothing and may make people feel more attractive / successful. Obviously this is not universal but neither do I think it's a negligible effect.

Depends on the person. I find many business notebooks pleasing to the eye.

Do they still ship with unusable trackpads (that requires you to carry a mouse everywhere if you ever going to use your ThinkPad) or has that improved in recent years? It's the only pain point against ThinkPad for me.

If you're a programmer using Emacs/Vim you really don't care for trackpad or mouse for the great majority of your computer needs.

The problem is, even with how little I use the mouse (I use Vimperator back then) it's still annoying when I have to.

That's not true. Trackpad gestures are pretty awesome and it's easier to switch between applications using them as opposed to command-tab.

I think the trackpads are good (I mainly use the keyboard so I prefer the smaller ones over Apple's, because the keys are reachable more easily) What is it you don't like?

(I'm judging the T510, T60 was also ok)

It's hard to describe why Apple's trackpads are better, they simply are. If you are used to them, every other one simply feels clumsy. It must be a combination of the surface (friction), the sensor (precision) and the software drivers that makes them special. I think it was when they introduced the unibody Macbooks that the trackpads became so good. The old plastic Macbook trackpads where vastly inferior in comparison.

Too small (I have fat fingers) and low sensitivity compared to the one in PowerBook (back then). This is from a company-issued laptop four or five years ago, however, I don't know if it has seen any improvements over the past years. (Especially the "too small" part.)

I've got some stubby little fingers, so much that my guitar coach in high school told me I should quit and become a bassist (a few years later I invited him to a show so he could eat his words). I use a T61 and I love the tiny trackpad. Granted I use a trackball with it, but on my home laptop with a giant touchpad, I have to move my hand to get all the way across. On the T61, I just move my finger. It feels more precise, I think. I feel like a surgeon with a scalpel.

Granted, this is just my opinion, and when I put it down into words I realize how ridiculous it sounds. But I still prefer it.

I've got a MBP and a Thinkpad and though the TP is by far the best PC (win/lx) notebook it's nowhere near the MBP if you compare build quality and ergonomics.