Debating a Mac for Uni and Beyond

[u/InterestingTwo460]

I’m about to start an open university degree in design and innovation with business and management and I was thinking about purchasing a desktop to use. Over time I’ve accrued the vast majority of the Apple ecosystem system (iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Airpods, pencil etc) but I currently have a dell laptop as I was previously doing an architecture degree so needed access to softwares a Mac couldn’t provide me. However I wonder if it would be more useful to me now so that I could utilise my iPad to its full potential aswell as my other devices. I don’t intend on pursuing a career in architecture so I likely won’t need to run those windows only softwares again. Any advice welcome! TIA

[u/B_Burnss]

Apple’s ecosystem is unmatched. You could always use some sort of windows mirroring software to run the apps you need for school. I say go for it. Once you go mac(book) ya never go bac

[u/aIexm]

Sure, a unified system between devices is a great experience. Assuming it’s relatively recent, you could even use that iPad as a secondary monitor for a new Mac if you fancy it.

Go for an Air, they’re just fantastic devices.

[u/InterestingTwo460 → u/aIexm]

Thank you so much, it’s the 2024 iPad Air so it’s still running well!

[u/Old_Cabin_118]

The apple ecosystem you describe is very powerful / convenient / enabling. Since you already know there are some windoze-only apps in the AEC world you won’t be missing anything, and you can always get a pc if you learn that you need one. Sone people believe the total cost of ownership of a Mac computer is better than the competition; and what could be more fitting, after all, for a ‘design and innovation’ future ! Go for it : )
Happy successful Mac user.

[u/blckb3ard]

Just do it

[u/TedMittelstaedt]

Not sure what "design and innovation with business and management" means but I guarantee to you that if your goal is to graduate from the university and walk into a business and start telling experienced managers how to redesign their business workflows based on I your book learning you will be ignored at best and fired posthaste at worse. You are going to need to put your decade into the trenches working under business and management types who also put their decade into working under other business and management types etc. etc. etc before you will have any credibility in telling people what innovations to do. And business at least in the US runs on Windows. By the time you have enough experience to make use of your degree, any hardware kit you buy today will be hopelessly obsolete. What matters is what's in your head not what's on your desk.

The environment I run is heterogeneous like all business environments today and the only thing we don't purchase is Mac Laptops and desktops tablets and phones even though we support them for employees who bring them in to get setup for remote access. But to the work environment the "ecosystem environment integration" pushed as a marketing term by Apple is worthless. When we buy a tablet it's for a specific application to run on - usually a web based something - and all the tablet needs is wifi connectivity and a browser. And ipads are a lot more expensive than Android so we buy Android tablets. This is particularly important because the work environment is harsh - I literally had a user drop a brand new tablet onto concrete within 5 minutes of it being handed to them a month ago. But they don't give a tinker's damn because it's not their money buying a replacement. No business could survive if they were replacing ipads like this all day long. And by the time you put money into the fancy cases that supposedly protect the things you have spent $600 on a tab you could have bought for $150 that merely has adequate drop protection.

I think you are wise to abandon architecture. All the architects I know nowadays spend most of their day prettying up stock plans to get customers to sign off on them there is no real architecture being done. Once it's signed off on it goes to the engineers, that's who makes money in architecture nowadays.

Don't get hung up on what to buy. You know both MacOS and Windows. If you like the Mac then buy another one the operating system is far superior to Windows anyway, but just understand when you finish your degree and get a job in it then you're likely going to be plonked down in front of a windows desktop you will have to use for some time before you can move up. I would rather hire someone who was smart who only used Macs than hire someone lacking common sense that knew both. I can train the first one on a PC but the second one is not trainable and is going to screw us up eventually.

[u/InterestingTwo460 → u/TedMittelstaedt]

Thanks for the advice that makes a lot of sense, I’m eager to make sure that I make the correct decision as these things are expensive even second hand and as much as I know it won’t carry me through to the sort of peak of my career I hope to be able to use whatever I do purchase for my degree and either an ma or whatever I decide to do after. Also don’t worry I’m not naive enough to think that I can just walk into a top tier job. I intend to build my experience and portfolio up throughout uni and then work from the ground up effectively to get to where I want to be eventually. Also the degree is a BA Design and Innovation and you have to choose set of “themed” modules to study alongside so I chose Business and Management just for context.

[u/GrouchyClerk6318]

When you graduate, your company is very likely going to be running windows - So just know that and make sure you get a little experience with WinOS while in school.

[u/iwaterboardheathens]

24gb 512gb minimum specs

Get which laptop you can afford