I don't think anyone will build as nice hardware as Apple anytime soon, so I think if that's your primary requirement then any other choice will be a compromise. I don't really like Apple, but it must must acknowledged that even a few basic things (the monitor turning on immediately as I open the screen, the touchpad quality, etc.) seem totally elusive to other manufacturers.

Apple's pretty imperfect, and it's sad to see that they've neglected and regressed their desktop OS, however I don't think anyone can argue that macOS is anywhere near as bad as Windows 11.

Apple's only just started getting good hardware. For so long their hardware was so below standard and in a lot of areas it still is. Apple users will sit there with a straight face telling me about how much they care about a good cpu when I know they paid 3k for a low tier intel cpu and 8gb of ram not to long ago.

Also when they talk about how their laptop can handle all this stuff without fans spinning up its only because the laptops come with next to no cooling and spend most of the time thermal throttling.

Eh. debatable. my work MBP frequently dies and the screen never turns on when i plug it in. I have to wait 15-20 minutes for it to turn on. My Linux laptop on the other hand, the screen turns immediately power or no power/just plugged in

I'm pretty sure Apple is unavoidable if you work as a mobile app developer. I mean, no iOS SDK for Windows/Linux.

If your work area is anything other than it, perhaps the Mac isn't necessary.

Some of the stuff coming out of CES is nice. Whether the apparent quality survives in production is another question.