This discussion got me thinking: wouldn't it be better to vent the heat through the screen side of the laptop? That side's usualy exposed to the outside freely and thus you get a lare surface area to transfer heat through, as well as free convection. Ofcourse then you'd need to put the heat-generating components in the standing side, completely inverting the normal desing.
This is done to some extent, but you can't really fit a big enough fan.
I don't know where you still see major desktop use by programmers. It's partly true for the office environment (white-collar megacorps with massive internal IT depts), but most people working from home or contracting uses a laptop these days -- and the others are certain to at least own a laptop. It's far too limiting to use a desktop in a team and impractical for other mobile roles (e.g., consulting/analyst, client support). At the job I took straight out of school, before I started doing remote conferencing, half of the 11 programmers (including me) had their laptops out at meetings, and two or three others routinely left it at their desk.
Of the 3 groups I listed, I would actually presume programmers rank the lowest. Xcode is a very smooth IDE, but does not compare to VS. But it isn't rare, and when the rest of the company uses Macs for their work, it isn't uncommon to find a complete Mac shop, including the programmers.
'Engineers'... OSX is actually the anathema of CAD users IME. But papers (for household/business construction blueprints) are often done from home, and I have met a few independent contractors who carried around a MB for their other work.
'Modelers'... OSX actually carries huge weight in the 3D modeling community. Heavier 3D modelers don't use MPBs (or laptops generally as you point out), because it doesn't carry the Quadro/FirePro lines, and (more commonly the issue) the processors have traditionally been behind the curve. But MBPs aren't unusual in small game development shops or for other lighter weight applications, and of course on college campuses. I see a number of designers carrying a secondary laptop for simple prototypes and quick work, or just ease.
'Design'... UML, graphics, layouts/documents, charts, websites. Needs no explanation. Very popular in this category.
'Artists'... Almost everything OSX had was ported long ago to Windows, but it still appears dominant among digital graphics/paint artists. (I need to ask one of them Why? someday.)
'Editing'... OSX rules again in this category (and in film). But you are right about film using the desktop (and render farms) AFAIK. I don't know why I wrote that. I really meant video editing, not film producing or CGI. As for sound, I think this needs no explanation -- it's just better, and doesn't always require a desktop. I would guess desktop is far more common for (professional) video editing however.
Fair enough. I took it as you saying that it was a major choice of primary workstation. There are indeed plenty of people who have laptops, and solid handful pick up macbooks as secondary computers. It also occurs to me that most studios have one kicking around somewhere to make presentations on.
I have only ever seen Macbooks of any model being used by casual users as fad items. Of course, that's just around here (silicon valley). Other major technological centers may be different. I suppose it's entirely possible that Apple has some ungodly amount of inexplicable penetration into the Indian industries, but that seems extremely unlikely to me. The Indians normally like more for their money.
I don't know what to say to this, except that you may not be looking very hard. 1 out of every 15-20 developers I run into use a Mac/MB as their primary system. Except for University, where MBPs make practical sense -- for linux/unix interfacing, and getting work done -- I don't see 'normal' people with Macs at all, unless they are abnormally rich. Silicon Valley's relevance to tech. today is over IMO -- and has been for nearly a decade -- but it does make sense to me that companies within a major business sector would tend to congregate around a standard platform.
1 out of 15-20 doesn't actually sound too far off to me in general, I suppose. But they become exponentially less common the more you get into advanced computer usage. Note that there may be a disproportionate amount of people around here that you would consider abnormally rich - it's a fairly wealthy area, in spite of everything. Silicon Valley is still the biggest tech center in the west, in terms of both innovation and cashflow, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Except, MBPs are not 'fad' items. It's a workstation. Used by artists, programmers, engineers. Graphics, modeling, design, (film/sound) editing, you name it. Anyone who thinks MBPs are used primarily by casual users is seriously out of touch with reality. And no, I don't own one.
And you'd think the same for a..microwave. When I look at mac and I see people who are "artists" etc I don't see why they don't use a actual laptop that has more power for buck and will do the same job. Mac seems to me as the "go-to" for people who do things other than game and I have no idea why...most people I know or see(Note: I don't know many people..thanks DF!) like Macs because they look good.
[spoiler]I think you are looking at this from the entirely wrong perspective. The average person does not overly care about hardware performance; and of those who do, a 10-20% drop is generally acceptable for the benefits OSX brings. If Linux were proven 20% faster for
general usage patterns (read: not gaming), would you switch? Most would not; Windows is what they know. It's not even technically OSX itself that attracts specialists -- it's the software (a lot of it) that has no functional equivalent in Windows.
[/quote]So far as I know, the 20% faster thing is out of date and was based on Apple's own data even when it was new.
As far as software, could you give specific examples? I think that most everything has a Windows equivalent these days.
