Yep, it's the high reliability & quality of the first party software (Safari, their office apps, notes, and so on), the excellent battery life (largely due to the software—run a browser other than Safari and watch that benefit take a huge hit), having a Unixy OS that's way less of a PITA on a laptop than Linux (ran it for years as my main OS, including on a Thinkpad, so yes, I'm familiar), and the touchpad that doesn't make me feel like I have to have a mouse to use the machine for more than five minutes, that keep me on board.
There were other things (good-enough port selection complementing the high battery life and good trackpad to mean I could just grab my laptop and go for nearly any situation, without taking anything else, being high among them) but they're gone now. It's basically the software and the trackpad keeping me around. I'd rather use a "worse" Macbook specs-wise than a Win10 or Linux laptop that's much better on paper, because the experience will still suck far less. Design, "thinness", trendiness, all that, don't give a shit. Give me a brick of a Thinkpad with an Apple trackpad, official macOS support, and a 20% lower price than a MBP at same specs, and I'll take that option in a heartbeat.
No, this _is_ macOS - you won't have the same gesture(s), the fidelity, on other OS's. Apple goes to great lengths to ensure their trackpad is amazing on both the hardware and software side, and it shows. The drivers on Linux even running on a Macbook don't compare.
There were other things (good-enough port selection complementing the high battery life and good trackpad to mean I could just grab my laptop and go for nearly any situation, without taking anything else, being high among them) but they're gone now. It's basically the software and the trackpad keeping me around. I'd rather use a "worse" Macbook specs-wise than a Win10 or Linux laptop that's much better on paper, because the experience will still suck far less. Design, "thinness", trendiness, all that, don't give a shit. Give me a brick of a Thinkpad with an Apple trackpad, official macOS support, and a 20% lower price than a MBP at same specs, and I'll take that option in a heartbeat.