OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

This is great work and I commend it. But in other threads people are acting like Asahi Linux hardware support is 100% complete. My fear is that if I were to go this route and purchase the hardware I'd be seeing fraction of the performance and capability I would in Mac OS. To be honest this blog post seems like the project has a long ways to go, not that it is nearly completion.

I just can't justify buying hardware from a company that is so hostile to developers and hackers as nice as it may be.

> I just can't justify buying hardware from a company that is so hostile to developers and hackers as nice as it may be.

I don't think it's hostile, I think they're just hands-off; they throw the hardware over the fence and say, "if you wanna make use of it, here's our software; if you don't like our software, sorry no docs but you're free to write your own". Which is exactly what's happening.

I mean it would be nice if Apple had released more documentation, but I totally understand if they don't want the burden of supporting it.

First, personally I don't care what hardware or software people use, if they are happy with the tools that they using then that's good.

That said, Apple has been very hostile to hackers over the years imo. Hardware being hard to repair, access, upgrade, etc. I think at one point they were making it virtually impossible to replace components because they were serial locked.

As far as I am aware, progress Apple as made has been in response to public image issues or changes in consumer laws within the EU.

Plus Apple software is heavily indebted to Open Source software so they very easily could be releasing drivers for their hardware instead of relying on community to do backwards engineering.

> Hardware being hard to repair, access, upgrade, etc. I think at one point they were making it virtually impossible to replace components because they were serial locked

You can only have so many flexibility in design with modern hardware — they are not fitting things into 5 cm “thin” chassics anymore. How exactly are such a thin device be repairable? Similarly to how old car motors could be tweaked with, you need special tools to touch anything in a modern engine. This is not against the customers, these are trade offs.

But even this way, apple devices have by far the longest lifetimes, macs, iphones will have 2-3 owners easily - so is it really fair to call them out, or is it just baseless emotional reaction?

Also, what you heard about locked down components resulted in better security, a much lower risk of theft, and a much more clean second-hand market (where you won’t be sold a phone with a cheap chinese shittier screen for example).

"But even this way, apple devices have by far the longest lifetimes, macs, iphones will have 2-3 owners easily - so is it really fair to call them out, or is it just baseless emotional reaction?"

Why reply that criticism of Apple must be purely an emotional one? Kind of diminishes your argument here.

Immediate search result for repairable phones:

https://www.androidcentral.com/best-sustainable-repairable-p...

https://shop.fairphone.com/en/buy-fairphone-4

Here's a laptop that you can upgrade:

https://frame.work/

Lifetime for Apple isn't as long as you make it out to be when batteries need replaced and software support for hardware ends:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/macos-sonoma-drops-s...

"Also, what you heard about locked down components resulted in better security, a much lower risk of theft, and a much more clean second-hand market (where you won’t be sold a phone with a cheap chinese shittier screen for example)."

Apple could just release stuff that didn't break so easily too so no need to risk changing out a screen if it ain't broke. There are plenty of ways to increase security of the device without making it less consumer friendly.

Additionally since the context here is whether Apple has been hacker friendly or not, why shouldn't you be allowed to upgrade and change the hardware of YOUR device? As in, you want to put in more storage or change the screen to one that's better in some manner (maybe it's just cost) then you ought to be able to.

That is it should be the device owners choice whether or not to replace their screen with one from Apple or a cheaper one.

Going with the first link. The "best" phone is not globally available. The second "best" comes with three years of OS updates. I stopped reading there; three years is a much, much shorter lifespan than you get with iOS or MacOS.

Also, say you have one of these phones, and are in a major city, then break it. How will you get the parts you need to repair it? How many hours will you be without a phone?

With Apple phones, it's typically same day service to get it repaired. Worst case, you can get a new phone with your data mostly transferred, again, same day.

The Ars article you link is pointing out that Apple is dropping software support for laptops that are 6 years old. That's better than pretty much any other vendor.

As far as laptop repairs go, frame.work is probably the best non-apple option, but they don't have a fixed policy for how long replacement parts will be available. The story is similar for Apple:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

says they provide parts for up to 7 years, and battery swaps for up to 10 (subject to part availability). I hope frame.work will be able to do better, but I challenge you to find any laptop company significantly better than this.

(Other than soldered ram and disk, I honestly don't care about third party parts. It's not like Apple replacement part markups are insane or there are significantly better parts available. I've definitely never used third party parts for other brands of laptops, even when they were available. However, I've been repeatedly screwed over getting other brands of laptops repaired, especially under warranty.)

Anyway, I get why Apple has a bad reputation for support and repairability. There objectively bad. However, that doesn't mean they're not simultaneously also the best option (or close to being the best).

I am sorry but you're missing the point here.

I'm not arguing over better hardware (performance) or price. I am arguing over hack-ability; that's it. I hope you can understand that.