Starise
Playing devil's advocate here, I wouldn't say Apple is "easy . This is usually the expectation for those who buy Apple. It doesn't always work that way.It mostly does though. You still need to go through whatever process it is you need to things happen. Apple isn't going to write the music for you.

Macs are “easier” than Windows setups when it comes to near-real-time audio simply because the OS is designed differently and Apple have 100% control over and knowledge of exactly what components each revision of the computer uses. The myriad of possible hardware combinations Windows has to work reliably with doesn’t exist for Apple.

Delayed procedure call latency that causes dropouts in Windows isn’t a problem on Macs, not is there any need to tweak any cpu sleep settings or any other settings to get low latency. A combination of Core Audio and (hopefully) good drivers from the interface manufacturers means that side of things pretty much does “just work”. Even running MIDI networked via wi-fi at the same time as sub-10ms round-trip audio doesn’t cause problems.

Where Windows can have an advantage is the modular nature of PCs makes it possible to do frequent cpu/motherboard etc. upgrades to improve performance, while Macs’ internal hardware is pretty much fixed to how the model in question was designed and what was in it when you bought it.

But after spending about couple of decades tweaking BIOS settings and Windows to get acceptable audio performance, I found setting up a Mac DAW simplicity itself. For a lot of people who want to use computers to make and record music, a simple setup procedure requiring no in-depth tweaking of bits of the OS and BIOS most people never even know exist is worth trading against the extra brute power the latest cpu provides.

Now if someone could only come up with a “click here to create a hit single” function.....

One of my work colleagues uses both Logic and Cubase on the Mac, and he's always complaining that every time Apple releases an OS update it ends up breaking either Logic or Cubase, and it takes up to a month before they sort it out.
 
He says he rarely uses Cubase on his PC because it crashes too much... the only time Sonar crashes on me is when I forget to close down OneDrive.
 
Also, Mac's seem to slow down over time for no apparent reason - and even a clean install of the OS makes no difference (I've heard some people say Apple do this deliberately to try to get you to upgrade your Mac, but I'm slightly dubious about this).
 
My Mac Mini is an Intel Core Duo running at 2.4 GHz with 8Gb RAM, and my old Dell Core Duo @ 2Ghz laptop with 4Gb Ram wipes the floor with it (both on Windows and Ubuntu). I recently put an SSD in my Mac with a clean install of High Sierra, and although the boot time improved significantly, it's still slow as hell doing anything else.
 
The worst I've ever seen on a PC is Windows Update messing around with drivers - re-installing the drivers has fixed things.
 
Nowadays the only thing I use my Mac for is backing up my iPhone and running Visual Studio for cross-platform Xamarin projects.
 
So in conclusion, it seems to me that Mac users have exactly the same issues some PC users have (although if anything, it's worse if things just stop working altogether). And they're paying 3 times as much for the pleasure. 
 
All the Mac users I've spoken to say they just don't bother with updates unless they have to in order to keep their system stable... so no difference from PC users then!
 
M.

msmcleod
One of my work colleagues uses both Logic and Cubase on the Mac, and he's always complaining that every time Apple releases an OS update it ends up breaking either Logic or Cubase, and it takes up to a month before they sort it out.

 
Anybody working on any platform should know better than to upgrade OS upon release. I wouldn't even get into a discussion with someone who has not yet figured out that simple rule, much less take their opinion into consideration...
 

msmcleod
 
Also, Mac's seem to slow down over time for no apparent reason - and even a clean install of the OS makes no difference (I've heard some people say Apple do this deliberately to try to get you to upgrade your Mac, but I'm slightly dubious about this).
 

 
Unless you mess with the OS, no they don't. There is no mysterious voodoo at work. But new software that is not optimized to run on your hardware will indeed make your computer slower. (And that is the one thing that seems to have changed dramatically in the last decade - developers no longer seem to be interested in optimizing their software and would rather use as much of your hardware's resource as they can).
 
I've often mentioned my brother-in-law who ran a studio with Pro Tools 6 on his early 2000 OS9/Mac G4 at its center for well over a decade - in fact, I believe he still has that machine running. My own Mac is a bit over 3 and still works exactly like the day I brought it home.
 
If you treat your machine as you would a dedicated hard disk recording system and not like a disposable smart phone, it will last.
 

msmcleod
 
So in conclusion, it seems to me that Mac users have exactly the same issues some PC users have (although if anything, it's worse if things just stop working altogether). And they're paying 3 times as much for the pleasure. 
 
All the Mac users I've spoken to say they just don't bother with updates unless they have to in order to keep their system stable... so no difference from PC users then!

 
People who know what they are doing and don't upgrade OS just because Apple or Microsoft released a new version usually don't have as many problems with their computer. 
 
With that basic bit of common wisdom taken in consideration, as a user of both Mac and PC, I would say that, no, I do not have the exact same issues on Mac as on PC and that I still prefer Mac - and by a long shot.
 
One can draw his or her own conclusion, but I would urge you not to rely too much on the experience of people who haven't figured out the basic "if it ain't broke" rule...

msmcleod
One of my work colleagues uses both Logic and Cubase on the Mac, and he's always complaining that every time Apple releases an OS update it ends up breaking either Logic or Cubase, and it takes up to a month before they sort it out.
 

Really? I keep seeing these claims, but can’t say I’ve ever seen that, nor has anyone I know who uses Macs for audio or video work. Sometimes it takes hardware manufacturers a few weeks to get out a driver, but that’s the same for WIndows as well. Or in M-Audio’s case anything up to a couple of years.

msmcleod
Also, Mac's seem to slow down over time for no apparent reason - and even a clean install of the OS makes no difference (I've heard some people say Apple do this deliberately to try to get you to upgrade your Mac, but I'm slightly dubious about this).
 

 
There’s a function in some of the phones to slow them down if the battery is low or aging and no longer delivering full current to avoid the phone shutting down due to not enough power left. Not in Macs though, especially ones that don’t even have a battery. If Macbooks have a battery life problem it’s that the i7 ones drain the battery fairly quickly if pushed hard, say around 8 hours life compared to around 10 if used for less demanding stuff. They’re more of a portable computer than a “use it all day” laptop.

msmcleod
My Mac Mini is an Intel Core Duo running at 2.4 GHz with 8Gb RAM, and my old Dell Core Duo @ 2Ghz laptop with 4Gb Ram wipes the floor with it (both on Windows and Ubuntu). I recently put an SSD in my Mac with a clean install of High Sierra, and although the boot time improved significantly, it's still slow as hell doing anything else.

The mini’s OK for what it’s intended to do - as a media server, file server, internet browser or for office work. For DAW work it’s not so good. As for SSDs they improve file access times and drive throughput and also speed up paging to the swap file, but that’s it. They’re also impervious to shock damage and draw little power which makes them good options in laptops and being silent makes them useful in DAWs.

msmcleod 
The worst I've ever seen on a PC is Windows Update messing around with drivers - re-installing the drivers has fixed things.

I could give you a list of the problems I’ve found with Windows from 3.11 onwards, including quite expensive software becoming unusable, but it would be a long list....

msmcleod
All the Mac users I've spoken to say they just don't bother with updates unless they have to in order to keep their system stable... so no difference from PC users then!

I’ve never seen any problems caused by Mac updates between the roughly annual major OS updates, and the big ones usually only have problems while some third-party hardware people catch up. I generally install the updates between those as they turn up, though I check what they are doing first to be on the safe side. In the commercial world it’s quite common to be using very old OS releases simply because there’s been the time to thoroughly check them for potiential issues and the fear of custom business-critical software becoming unusable is very real.

Setting time aside to train people in a new OS of software version is also a factor, as is how long it takes users to get up to speed on the new stuff. All of which has cost implications. In the audio world the cost in downtime when switching software is one reason Pro Tools became the “industry standard”.

The downside of that approach is things like a major UK government department’s central office being massively hit by the Blaster worm three years after MS released the fix for it. Which is why MS took to giving very extended security issue support to old versions of Windows it you’re a large-scale commercial license customer.

tlw
...
In the commercial world it’s quite common to be using very old OS releases simply because there’s been the time to thoroughly check them for potential issues and the fear of custom business-critical software becoming unusable is very real.
...

It's possible to wait too long. Consider the computer system running Social Security in the U.S. It is, as far as I know, the longest operating commercial system remaining. Proprietary computers. Proprietary OS. Proprietary development language and environment. 50+ years old.
 
There's a company in the Cincinnati area that has been supporting it for decades. I can't remember if they were the original developers or not. They have other lines of business. Printing money, they are. Their biggest problem, other than the system itself, is finding capable hardware and software engineers who are willing to make something that old a career. And it's 100% on-the-job training.
 
The SSA would be looking at a total, built from scratch new system.
 
Now that our wonderful government is shutdown, again, what do you think the likelihood of that happening any time soon is?
 
They waited WAY too long.

I'm a bit of a bargain hunter. If I happen to come across a used Apple spec'd fairly well. I might bite. Why would I do that? Because I can. To me this would be a value. I won't buy a new Apple unless the price goes WAY down.