Let's face it iOS and need for software for it is keeping Apple computers alive. If one day it would be possible to develop iOS apps on other operating systems Macs sales would crash.
Every software company I've worked in building websites/webapps (Ruby, Python, Java, HTML/CSS/JS/React/whatever etc.) tends to issue their developers with MBPs. None of them need to do so for Xcode to build Mac/iOS apps. A few people may opt for Lenovos running Linux, but they're a distinct minority who really likes compiling their own tiling window manager from scratch etc.
Why MBP as standard? Because you get a reasonably stable Unix box that also runs commercial business and productivity software (Office, video conference stuff), and the Adobe suite for the front-end/creative folks.
Windows is going after that with WSL. Linux is going after that with, err, GNU/Freedom I guess?
Writing Python/Ruby/JavaScript/Java/Go/Elixir/whatever hot new shiny, in Atom or Vim or VSCode, is about as easy on Linux as it is on Mac (and it is getting better on Windows with WSL). But when you've got to use some awful video conferencing corporate crapware, there's at least some chance it'll work on a Mac in a way it won't on Linux.
Just a guess - but you are in the US, right? In most other places of the world I have not seen macbooks being used for non Apple related development tasks due to pricing.
I am in Europe, and in the country that used to be a part of USSR. The last four companies I worked for also offered Macbooks for developers by default.
It's interesting to hear. I have not seen a lot of Macbooks in any of the companies I worked for nor the one we partnered with in germany. At least in software development, in creative domains (photo, video) things are different.
In north america Macbooks seem to be more or less the default hardware (also mainly my personal impressions - since I moved there).
That seems unlikely given that the Air range are by far the most popular models, and are squarely aimed at the mass consumer market. Also it’s seems a bit unlikely the masses of people crowding in the Apple stores in the UK all the time are all developers.
you get a reasonably stable Unix box that also runs some commercial business software and worst terminal experience than running full ubuntu on windows wsl. Ubuntu on WSL> brew on mac.
The worldwide installed base of the Mac is 100 million. There only a bit over 2 million apps in the app store, so it seems unlikely a large proportion of those 100 million Macs are used to develop iOS apps.
Changing your assertion from Mac users in general to "professionals" is moving the goal posts a long way.
As of last year, roughly 10% of all personal computers on the internet are Macs. Do you think a majority of those--say 6% of all PC users worldwide--are iOS devs and other professional MacOS lock-ins?
