Apple or PC, the debate continues. You find passion on both sides of the fence so I'm gonna sit that discussion out. I used PC for years running ProTools and had a lot of problems over the years. Finally got fed up with all of the windows updates and platform issues with protools, so I took the plunge and bought a Mac pro. It fully integrates with Protools, and has worked perfectly.
As for apps, I suggest you carefully consider what you are doing. The more junk you load up your computer with, the worse it will perform for a recording tool. Since you are relying on your computer as host, your hard drive capacity and your processor are crucial in determining how well or how poorly your system will work. I run two hard drives, one dedicated to running the CPU and the second strictly for audio files. Unless you are recording the LA Symphony, the computer usually has no problem keeping up with the recording part. It is the mix and master that will choke your computer. Depending on the type of music you want to record and edit, even a fairly well endowed Macbook will choke during mix, when everything is up and running, especially if you are running any mastering software. Even really big systems experience disk allocation issues.
If you are going to use your laptop as a laptop and just do some recording, then app away. If you are going to do some serious recording, not only should you skip the apps, but you should remove all of the useless junk that gets loaded in. Keep only what you need to record, and a few basic functional items. Gut all of the background stuff. Do yourself a favor and find a friend who really knows computer platforms, and find out what a lot of the pre-canned stuff actually does before you remove it so you do not accidentally shoot yourself in the foot. I have been recording on computers for a long time, and run a home studio. My system runs great, but that is because that is how I designed and use it.
Just my 2 cents.
