Creating consistent colors across Apple/Mac and Windows displays

It’s possible to get close, but very difficult to achieve an exact match across Mac, Windows, and phones.

I looked at the specs for the current Dell XPS 15 line, and depending on which model you bought, the display could be capable of sRGB, Adobe RGB, or DCI-P3.  Regardless, if that’s the display you edit on, it should be profiled (and calibrated if possible), ideally using hardware instead of the built-in system profiler. Once that’s done, it will be the best reference you have.

If you also make sure you embed a color profile into the image, the colors will appear consistent on any Mac or Windows PC if:

• The display panel is capable of reproducing colors similarly to yours (cheap displays might not).
• It’s set to an appropriate display profile.
• It’s set to a similar brightness level as yours.
• The photo is being viewed in a color-managed application.

Since you can never guarantee all that, all you can really do is get it right on your profiled display and not worry about everyone else.

On phones, it’s worse. Depending on the phone model, the display panels are all over the place in terms of what color range they can reproduce. Only iOS is color managed, but if the other factors aren’t controlled then it won’t even look the same across all iPhones.

And a big factor now, across macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS is that even if you get all of the above matching your Dell, other displays might still not look the same if the following are used on either device:

• Ambient light level correction. If the computer or phone is set to automatically adjust the display brightness based on the ambient light level, each device will shift brightness based on its local light level. 
• Ambient white balance correction. If the computer or phone is set to automatically adjust the display white balance based on the ambient light level, each device will shift colors to adapt to local light conditions. On Apple devices, this option is called TrueTone. 
• Blue light reduction. If the computer or phone is set to automatically shift white balance away from blue at night, it will look warmer than displays where this option is not enabled. On Apple devices, this option is called Night Shift. Also, even if two devices are both set to have this on, they might be set to different amounts.

That’s how hard it is to match color across devices, because you can’t control how thousands of other people have their devices set when they look at your photos. Again, the best you can do is turn your device into a solid reference (calibrate and profile it as best you can). You can look at your photos on other devices just to see if they look OK, but it’s pointless to try and perfect the image based on a single phone or other computer, because that still won’t look the same as all the others.

"I have my Dell XPS 15 display set to Adobe RBG"

That's wrong unless the display is wide gamut (few are). Even so, a generic profile will never be accurate and there's no point going that route if you need consistency across several machines. Generic profiles give generic results.

If you need consistency, you must use a calibrator. All the monitor profiles must be accurate, and a calibrator is the only way. Windows or Mac is entirely irrelevant.

That said, only a color managed application will understand and use these profiles. Phones are off the map. There is some sort of limited color management behind the scenes with most phones, but there's no way to profile a phone screen accurately, and that's what you need.