People who would have gone into finance or received an MBA have been going to tech for a decade now. Every one of them pushes out someone who would have been a real developer.

I’ve also had the pleasure of watching a lot of the generation who’s now complaining as they grew through their journey as developers. I think a lot of them are sugar coating their own abilities. I struggled with many a now illustrious developer whole they banged their head against the wall for hours.

You’re supposed to gatekeep code. There is nothing wrong with gatekeeping things that aren’t hobbies.

If someone can’t explain every change they’re making and why they chose to do it that way they’re getting denied. The bar is low.

Lame platitude

There’s no advantage to being Mac like.

You can’t pick the most expensive brands and claim they’re “well rounded”. It’s like buying a luxury car and saying it’s your reliable little daily commuter.

The point is there is no valid reason besides the three reasons I stated for someone to want to buy a Mac. Either you like the looks, the brand or you just don’t know any better and you refuse to learn. Each of those options is valid, but you do have to pick one of them.

What is it about the MacBook Air that makes you feel it is well rounded? Why do you need the compute? Is it for video editing or 3D modeling? Because those run fantastic on midrange hardware now. Are you a developer? Because Mac hasn’t been the developer choice in over two decades. You know what’s better than being Linux like? Being Linux. WSL and the TPM chip removed anything else that might draw a rational consumer to Apple. Do a little gaming? I’ve got bad news about Macs. Lol. There’s no real reason anymore.

My DBA has had the same two monitors for a decade and most of the devs just use whatever monitor was on sale.

Technical people are not the people buying Macs. Mac has its place and it hasn’t been technical folks since TPM chips and WSL.

If like to see what you think the “features” are that can’t be replaced. Literally every single feature of a Mac is implemented better with Windows or Windows with WSL. “It’s closer to Linux” No, Linux is closer to Linux and I can’t dual boot or WSL on Apple silicone. “Muh security” TPM is 10x more practical and slightly beats out Enclave in performance. “Muh hardware” if you spend that much money on any laptop it’ll perform well. If you spend that much on a Windows laptop you’d get even better hardware. You could build multiple Linux machines that each outperform the Mac for the same price. “It just works” I have had multiple hours long troubleshooting call with a Jr Engineer that proves otherwise. “Muh package manager” if you struggle with this, you’re not technical. “Muh iOS dev” iOS/Android apps can be tested in a pipeline or through the myriad of tools like Device Farm. Ship it with Fastlane and call it a day. You can handle both app stores this way.

Why do you want a Mac? The only valid choices are aesthetics, brand loyalty or ignorance.

It’s not uncommon to just disable hardware you don’t intent to use. You don’t have to do it mechanically. There’s a lot of kiosks around that have a lot more capabilities than they’re used for.

If you’re looking to do it with a Pi, banana, orange or raspberry, let me know. I’ve spent way too much time finding the perfect screen to use and case to print. I build a rechargeable handheld device that can pull up all my surveillance cameras and functions as a master remote.

You’re thinking about it too hard.

Just use a launcher, sometimes called Kiosk mode/launchers, to launch one app. You can disable the other hardware if you want, but it doesn’t seem like it really helps you reach your goal.

You could probably pull it off with a Pi Zero, battery pack, and screen if you want to get into it a bit. It’s not that hard at all.

Does your average non technical user who wants a device like this care if it’s not the highest quality screen?

The demographic that is just Apple fanboys and they weren’t giving up their overpriced garbage no matter what.

You can also just have an application designed to do that do it more accurately.

If you can’t do that you’re not an engineer. If you don’t recommend that you’re not an engineer.

If they think AI is working for them then he can. If you think AI is an effective tool for any profession you are a clown. If my son’s preschool teacher used it to make a lesson plan she would be incompetent. If a plumber asked what kind of wrench he needed he would be kicked out of my house. If an engineer of one of my teams uses it to write code he gets fired.

AI “works” because you’re asking questions you don’t know and it’s just putting words together so they make sense without regard to accuracy. It’s a hard limit of “AI” that we’ve hit. It won’t get better in our lifetimes.

I work in tech and can confirm the the vast majority of engineers “dislike ai” and are disillusioned with AI tools. Even ones that work on AI/ML tools. It’s fewer and fewer people the higher up the pay scale you go.

There isn’t a single complex coding problem an AI can solve. If you don’t understand something and it helps you write it I’ll close the MR and delete your code since it’s worthless. You have to understand what you write. I do not care if it works. You have to understand every line.

“But I use it just fine and I’m an…”

Then you’re not an engineer and you shouldn’t have a job. You lack the intelligence, dedication and knowledge needed to be one. You are detriment to your team and company.

Why couldn’t you just use a custom launcher? This isn’t a hard task.

You’ll need a place for the dialogue. Do you know anywhere that would work? I don’t know how we can organize at that level, but I’m willing to learn.