&quot;Since you are a security researcher, aren&#x27;t a lot of people of &quot;your breed&quot; using Macs as well?&quot;<p>I use Linux, BSD&#x27;s, and custom systems. From what I&#x27;ve gathered, the people using Mac&#x27;s do it for usability and apps more than anything. The Mac OS is pretty, well-designed components for GUI&#x2F;desktop on top of a hybrid between a microkernel and UNIX (BSD). Let&#x27;s ignore their bad choice of microkernel. The real benefit is you get a desktop with comparable usability to Windows, you can pull out command line for full power of the UNIX underneath, it&#x27;s overall more reliable&#x2F;consistent than Linux on desktop side, and there&#x27;s plenty of apps from vendors who target Windows + Mac but not Linux.<p>So, that&#x27;s the overall value equation. A UNIXy OS with many apps and nice interface. I considered attempting to secure its foundation, Darwin, at one point but it&#x27;s a hodgepodge of crap thrown together. Clever way to get a system out the door for Jobs back in the NEXT days. Not so good later on when one is improving foundations. :)<p>Note: Addressing your other point in a new comment as I can never remember length restriction.