...and now Apple has altered the deal and we must pray they do not alter it further. Disgusting. Predictable, expected, unsurprising -- but still disgusting.
Speaking of iPhone, the open options are at best abysmal for privacy (at least orders of magnitudes worse than Apple) and at worst part of planned obsolescence that creates e-waste much faster than Apple devices.
Fun fact, at least for now, you can still buy a Mac and boot Linux. Probably not true once Apple silicon hits but that’s a sad day for anyone who liked boot camp.
Are you praing too that Apple will still allow that in the future?
>I buy Apple computers because of the hardware support and integration with iPhone
Have fun then, i dont buy Think different but same.
That being said, Linux is available, and it's perfectly usable by people who would be bothered by Apple's dev policies.
I'd argue options really are limited. Your counter argument assumes one can just roll their own OS with the same features and functionality as current-gen OS's. That's quite a leap. Options today are Windows, Mac, or some flavor of Linux if you can get it to work. Linux aside, Windows and Mac both are making it so you no longer own the OS but are "subscribed" to it. Making it easy for them to implement anti-consumer strategies to lock you in.
https://www.trustedtechteam.com/products/windows-10-enterpri...
There is a free alternative which is better in many ways and has an unlimited supply.
The only reason Apple has a lead in software is that they have made their closed source model deliver end-user benefits at a faster rate than the open source alternatives.
There is no reason this needs to remain true, and there are a lot of signs that it will not continue.
Apple gives me that. Ubuntu gives me that these days in some limited sense too, but not when you factor in AppleTV , phone, pad, homepod and airpod and the watch.
I am saying the lack of desktop adoption is indicative of the difficulties of doing so. There is a level-of-effort barrier and technical-knowledge barrier to it. 20 years of progress have lowered those barriers a lot, but even if something like Ubuntu will often be fully functional with a standard install, most users never have to install an OS. They can't walk into Best Buy and come out with a computer that runs desktop Linux.
I think the success of Chrome Books show that people would be receptive to alternative operating systems, but we don't have a retail or post-purchase support environment in place to facilitate it, and I don't see that coming on the horizon.
(And no, chromebooks are not linux for any practical purpose, although they probably would be easier to install a real linux system on.)
KDE is by far my preference and in general I don't think neither windows nor macos has fewer problems despite the price tag.
After hearing the "it just works" mantra of apple users for many years I was surprised to find I had at least as many glitches on the Mac as I did on KDE (win 7 was better, 10 has more problems ime).
(I use my computers for development and sysadmin, not gaming or art)
There's also the strong possibility that at least some of these places won't exist anymore at some time over the lifetime of the computer. Purism is only a few years old, with ~ $1million in revenue/year. It uses its own flavor of Linux, meaning support options are extremely limited. System76's website is itself half-broken, with 500 errors when I attempt to customize a system.
You cannot point to niche operations and claim it to be a viable mass-market option. I'm not saying it isn't possible to get there, I'm saying it doesn't exist today, which means it is not an option for mass-market consumers. If tomorrow a million Apple users said "Enough! LittleSnitch is the straw that breaks the camel's back!" and decided they wanted to shop for a desktop linux system, the market couldn't handle it.
Remember, I'm not saying Linux can't be successful on the desktop, I'm saying that it is not a mass-market option right now for users frustrated with Windows/OS X.
Only "free" in terms of literal monetary payments to acquire the operating system. But the choice between Apple's stack and other Linux stacks has many trade-offs in terms of time, support, documentation, complexity, transition cost, etc.
The only thing stopping those trade-offs being changed is people’s willingness to make the changes.
Based on a lot of criticism of MacOS I see here, some of that is because people don’t actually want to change the trade offs.
The difference between PureOS and Debian is practically non-existent.
> System76's website is itself half-broken, with 500 errors
OK, it proves that the company is about to die. We of course never see those errors on big websites /s
>If tomorrow a million Apple users said "Enough! LittleSnitch is the straw that breaks the camel's back!" and decided they wanted to shop for a desktop linux system, the market couldn't handle it.
Although it is true, the good news is that such thing just cannot happen. This is not how the market changes. The change is always smooth enough that the companies can adjust. And I am sure Purism and System76 are able to given reasonable time.
> I'm saying that it is not a mass-market option right now for users frustrated with Windows/OS X.
Many (most?) frustrated users on MacOS are those who can use the options I listed. If they understand the problems like the one in the title, they definitely can order a laptop online. Probably also true with Windows. Such changes typically start with geeks anyway (AFAIK geeks switched to MacOS first).
> You cannot point to niche operations and claim it to be a viable mass-market option.
I did not claim that. I suggest that those complaining about users restrictions should go to Linux. Typical users do not complain about such things.
> I didn't say you can't buy Linux pre-installed, I said you can't go into a big-box store like Best Buy to do so, and that there's no significant consumer support infrastructure.
Now you have a point and I actually do not really understand, why I cannot just enter a big shop and ask for a Linux laptop. I actually tried to ask tens of times and they always say there are no. Sounds like a conspiracy by the big labels to me.