Apple hardware is overpriced and they go out of their way to make it unrepairable.
This is the reason I will never buy an apple device and go out of my way to (try and) convince people in my circle not to buy apple devices.
The only apple things I've ever owned was an IPod. And I never paid full price for that shit.
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It's worse than a paid ad. It's an ad. You have to pay to see.
If you look at the price for a Mac versus a Windows computer, I think it's pretty obvious why people might choose a Windows device. For Linux, you really have to know where to look to buy a laptop that is shipped or warrantied with Linux. People tend to buy Windows computers because that's what's advertised available, familiar and in their price bracket.
Disclaimer: my main laptop is Mac. I have a secondary one running Linux and although I have a work laptop running Windows, that wasn't my choice and I don't have Windows on any personal devices.
By Betteridge's law of headlines: no. Also: this is an ad.
Linux is not quite normie stream ready but boy is it getting close.
Ubuntu and it's spin-offs are really are as close as we're ever going to get to a full, user-friendly Linux OS. At least one that isn't going to scare off as many people.
It's just when you tell people the part where you have to keep track of some of the software that they use through the terminal, that's when you start seeing them trickle off back to Windows.
Because the average user doesn't have the patience, time or know-how to utilize commands in a terminal. If you plopped them down during the era where DOS was prominent, they'd be so lost and be begging for a UI to handle everything.
Ubuntu and it's spin-offs are really are as close as we're ever going to get to a full, user-friendly Linux OS
Why do you think it will not progress much from now on?
You don't need to use the terminal for Linux at all now AFAIK. Ubuntu / GNOME already has a nice software store as a UI.
There are some rough edges I really don't understand why they haven't addressed yet that seem like very low hanging fruit, but overall IMO it's very close to being there.
Isn't it? I think it's quite there, unless you get unlucky with hardware.
There are some little things / low hanging fruit that I personally find very annoying, and don't know why they haven't addressed yet. Average users coming from Mac or Windows notice these things easily and will immediately write off Linux as being janky when they run into them. Most Linux users I see are fairly apologetic about the rough edges since 1. they know how to figure out how to fix them, and 2. believe in the principles of FOSS.
Well, I was comparing to my experience with both Windows and MacOS or whatever is the thing called.
Windows PC gets slow and laggy after around half a year, it goes slowly so you don't notice at first, but around half a year later it's shitty. No matter the hardware. Sure, your $2k laptop won't be as slow as a random $300 laptop, but the ratio of new/half-a-year-later is more or less the same.
With Macs I have limited experience, but my partner's Mac was shitting itself all the time, weird issues with login screen being stuck and needing hard reboot, the thing generally being laggy when you try to do more than two things (neither of which necessarily needs to be a demanding task), Finder is pretty much an abomination that no one really knows how to use well and so on.
Sure, Linux is fucked up all the time as well, but my point is it's not worse than the other two systems, both are broken all the time as well. And the argument that you need terminal to work - have you actually fixed any problem on Windows? Unless a reboot of the system or of some service solves the problem, within 10 minutes you're either running PowerShell or you're deep in the registry.
Well, at least Windows seems to be a problem that's solving itself (albeit very slowly) with how shitty it's become.
I've never had a Windows pc get slow after 6 months... Unless I've beat the snot out of it as I just don't care. But I'm an Admin, user boxes don't usually have such an issue. I have a 10 year old Windows 7 box that's as fast as it was 10 years ago.
But... If you install/uninstall a lot of stuff, over time that can cause issues (because Uninstallers are notoriously lazily compiled - I say this as an app packager of 20+ years.)
I used to say Windows Reg cleaners are snake oil, but on some systems it can really help with the uninstall issue - lots of crap, especially stuff related to context menus, can really slow it down. The only one I've ever recommended is Crap Cleaner - I've seen it revive a test machine that had gotten slow from a billion installs/uninstalls, testing lots of iffy software, etc.
I will never use a Windows laptop because it wakes up in the middle of the night to apply some stupid update, then glitches out, and can't go back to sleep. So every morning I find a laptop with a dead battery. Sometimes if I wake up early, it'll still be hot from whatever it was doing.
Fixing that stupid bug should have been easier than porting the whole OS and app stack and emulator to a new CPU arch. And I have no faith they fixed the bug anyway, so it'll probably still happen to ARM models. So no thank you.
It's actually astounding, how weirdly unmaintained Windows is in many areas. Just look at the settings chaos. There are three completely different settings trees, and at least for me, it's impossible to know which one to choose for a given task.
There's constantly stuff going on in the background for no reason and updates take forever and require 7 reboots. That's not okay.
ShutUp10 helps a bit. It puts a ton of settings in one place for you.
For those who unfortunately have to use Windows laptops for work, there is a workaround. Unplug the laptop before putting it to sleep/hibernate. That's it. Super irritating they won't fix it, but not surprising, too busy trying to shove (more) ads into the start menu.
There was a video on LTT about this. From what I remember the conclusion was that if you shut down the laptop while connected to power, it remembers the fact and wakes up in the middle of the night to apply updates and shut down again, assuming the power cable will remain connected so there wouldn't be an impact on the battery. But of course, most people (I think) disconnect the power cable once the laptop is shut down. Windows still wakes up, sees the power cable disconnected, and goes 'oh well' and proceeds to update anyway.
It’s also that “Shutdown” doesn’t shut the computer down. It puts it into a sleep mode so it will “boot” faster next time
The hibernation mode has more wake up sources than if it was actually off
For me, it was wake on LAN that Windows just kept sucking at. Leave the computer, it goes to sleep. Wake up the next morning, head into my office, computer is wide fucking awake and the whole room is warm...
SSDs boot fast enough that I just hard shut down windows at night whenever I have to boot into it -- usually for games, since all my non-vr games run on Linux but I have a Quest 2, and Linux support for those is Incredibly sketchy.
It can't wake from sleep/hibernation if it's fully powered off and there's no windows code running to wake it.
I haven’t had the same experience.
For anyone wondering what the issues with sleep in windows are, the problem is that instead of using traditional S3 sleep (suspend to RAM) Microsoft has been pushing hard for "Modern Standby" where insted of only the RAM being powered the whole system is powered on and kept in a low power mode.
In theory this can provide a shorted wake time (because apparently the approx 5 seconds provided by S3 sleep isn't good enough). The problem is that Windows will sometimes wake up to do maintenance and drain your battery.
You might be able to fix it by disabling Modern Standby (also called S0ix, Connected Standby and S2Idle)in your BIOS. Unfortunetly a lot of modern BIOSes no longer offer the option to disable it and even sometimes lack support for traditional S3 sleep.
Windows beats Mac on price.
Windows beats Linux on compatability.
Really all there is to it.
If you want to spend 3x the money, get a Mac.
If you're comfortable dealing with software incompatibility, install Linux.
My MacBook Air is 9 years old and still running strong. I’ve more than gotten my moneys worth out of it.
Unless your laptop isn't brand new, at which point Linux absolutely beats Windows on compatibility.
unless you work with foss software then linux tends to work better
I find it hard to believe that, outside of work computers, many people would be choosing Windows over Mac or Linux, especially is AI is their goal.
I'm sorry, why? Microsoft basically owns OpenAI and has begun integrating it into their products. Apple doesn't have any AI capabilities beyond Siri.
No.
For me, my cad software was always windows specific. I think they have Linux versions now though.
Gaming is the other reason.
I think (although I've never tried to verify) Steam is making progress to make most games playable on Linux.
Gaming is no longer a reason, really. 99% of the time it works out of the box.
At his point for me it's only CAD and Lightroom that keeps a Windows install in my machine
All the games I like run fine on Linux nowadays
F'ing Lightroom, man.
I find it really frustrating to not have a touchscreen on a laptop (e.g. scrolling and zooming Google maps).
I don't understand what I'm getting for the price difference compared to a similar windows laptop.
I don't like how the Ctrl/Fn/Alt/Cmd keys are used, but that's just because I'm used to Windows. (Remapping then doesn't help because commands are divided differently been those modifiers).
I do like that it has a native bash shell instead of having WSL with its separate filesystem. But I doubt that that is a common reason people choose macs.
There is pinch to zoom and multitouch gestures on the trackpad, which I consider a lot more convenient than a touchscreen since my hand is already there.
I haven't actually bought a Mac in a long time since I get them from my job, but the Windows laptops I've used and seen don't have the build quality, and having a big network of retail stores is a nice insurance policy. And if I was going to buy a Mac I'd buy refurbished anyway.
I've been a Mac user since the late 80s so I have the opposite problem with keyboard commands on Windows and Linux that you do.
Most of the people I've seen who use Macs - mainly developers working with Linux servers - do use it because it has a shell. (Though Apple switched to zsh not too long ago.)
I loved macs back when it was more maximalist design and its service was beyond reproach. anyone buying a pc might be installing linux on it. not that many vendors specific to linux.
What does maximalist design mean in the mac world ? Is this regarding UI and/or industrial design ? I was teaching design back when we were transitioning from OS9 to OSx early or mid 2000s I guess . We had to switch between them for a good couple years I think as various packages became available or affordable on osx. Never owned one in the early days but study and work from mid 90s onward was generally on them. I can’t relate to them ever being maximalist really but I guess they gradually did get more minimalist very gradually as far as UI. Throughout this time I was almost always using windows at home so my super basic summary of 90s, 2000s mac vs pc argument would be that the mac rarely interefered with workflow in the sense that win98,2000,xp etc were requiring a large percent of maintenance time. To me thats the minimalism mac were always about and for me still holds to a degree - though far more retail/consumer and far less industry/pro focussed despite FCP, Logic, and fast apple silicone etc.
Dont necessarily disagree though, just curious what it means. Now also using kubuntu or similar around 9 years (I’m jumping between 3 OSs these days) it often feels like the os9 days as far as community vibe and support - smooth and low stress though the ui approach is sometimes an afterthought rather than the end goal perhaps. Completely capable though. Mac feels more consumer and indeed less concerned with service feeling direct or individualised . So agree with you there. Maximalist service, or is it minimalist :)
Im talking about the time when mac enthusiasts would brag about how many more ports a macbook had over a windows laptop. I use the term just because when they went minimalist design coincided when the apple store started acutally said they would not deal with something which was the cable losing their casing which did end up being a design issue so they handled it later but previous to that they would never not do something unless it was obvious you took a hammer to it or something. my last mac was the macbook pro erra with the dvd-i port.
It's Mac, Wintel and Chromebook vs PC. Trying to kill it for many years and close to succeeding.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Microsoft isn’t launching a new version of Windows next week, but what it’s about to unveil could be just as significant.
After nearly four years of falling behind Apple’s MacBooks, sources inside Microsoft tell me that the company is confident it can finally beat Apple’s own chips that power the MacBook Air.
On Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will detail the company’s “AI vision across hardware and software” at an event hosted at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington.
It’s a pivotal moment for Microsoft and Windows because it won’t involve the typical chip partnership with Intel that we’ve seen for decades.
Instead, Microsoft will set the stage for a summer of Arm-powered laptops thanks to a close collaboration with Qualcomm.
I’m told Microsoft has full confidence that Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processors will begin a new era for Windows laptops...
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This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
