I’ve been thinking about going all in on Mac for a while now and with my current one no receiving OS upgrades I am now unable to install the latest version of xCode which means I can’t build Xamarin/MAUI apps targeting iOS devices.

Well, today I finally pulled the trigger and order a new MacBook Pro (MBP) which will be delivered in a couple of days. I’m really looking forward to the performance improvements from my 2015 Macbook Pro and my i7 Windows Workstation (custom built in 2010) to the new M3 Pro CPU in my new purchase.

People I’ve worked with in the past will recall me saying things like ‘you can put an Apple device in my cold dead hands’ but times change and views need to change with them, even mine.

But I could have bought 2 or 3 laptops for what I’ve just spent on the new Macbook - why didn’t I just get a decent laptop for say £1000? Well, it mainly comes down to my need/desire to develop mobile applications.

When I bought my current Macbook Pro I wanted to write Xamarin applications for iOS devices and that was all. I still needed my Windows Workstation to do all my other development as .NET was still really a Windows technology and while Xamarin was using the cross platform project Mono to enable me to write apps using C# on the Mac it has to be said …. it was a bit on the flaky side.

Then .NET Core came along and the game changed with development now being possible on Mac and Linux as well as Windows. This meant that I only needed a single device for all my development needs …. but it had to be a Mac if I wanted to do iOS development.

It also has to be said that I’m not a fan of the way that Windows is going. There are a number of aspects to this and they are outside what I want to talk about here - the fact is that I’ve found the Macbook surprisingly easy to migrate over to (Linux experience certainly helped) and while I don’t think I’ll be replacing my Android with an iPhone anytime soon I do feel that Apple & MacOS tick more boxes for me than Microsoft & Windows.

I’m wondering if, as a regular Windows-based .NET/C# developer, my migration to a Mac-based .NET/C# developer might be a suitable subject that might see me blog a little more this year.

The configuration of my current MBP has evolved over time and there is probably a lot of cruff in there so documenting the setup as I go will help me build a reliable, robust development environment that should last me (based on how well my current MBP has performed) until the end of my professional development career.