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Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

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Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#121

Post by markus_zhang »

blitz_skull wrote: post #19
rconti wrote: post #14

The web/webapps/mobile helped lead to this era of "desktop PCs" (to include laptops) where the browser mattered more than the OS. It allowed Apple to become resurgent in the desktop market because OS compatibility mattered less than ever. It's not weird that it led to Apple regaining _some_ market share because clearly there was demand for the Apple/MacOS/OS X experience that may have been tempered by incompatibility…

As an Apple Stan, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas, I’m not really sure what you could be referring to when you say “stagnation”. Every OS ever released has issues at launch, not sure if that’s what you mean by “regression”. But man… windows has been garbage for the better part of 2 decades now.

I use all three and I have to say Windows shitifize itself by adding too much ads, but if you can remove those than it’s a better experience than MacOS.

Someone else on HN has a line that I agree with:”Apple makes the OS apps mundane so that people can write replacements and sell those in App Store where Apple has a fat share”.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#122

Post by Root_Denied »

amarant wrote: post #22

2026 will finally be the year of Linux on the desktop!

Unironically it might actually be 2025.

In the last 18 months we've seen a lot of maturation in various linux distros trying to make them "out of the box" usable by people who are not all that technical. More GUI utilities, better stability, compatibility layers for gaming driving adoption, and dead simple setup.

Valve has been doing a lot of the work driving adoption from gamers with Proton, PulseAudio is suddenly way more functional and compatible, working Nvidia GPU drivers (565+), and immutable spins on distros have all made it so that linux overall is more approachable than ever.

I think we'll look back at 2025 and see it as the inflection point where suddenly linux became a viable alternative to Apple/Microsoft in a way it wasn't before, driven in part by development targeting a new demographic along with the spotlight on both the technical and consumer issues with OSX/Windows (such as patches bricking hardware, attempting to crowbar AI into everything, and antagonizing their customer base with things like subscriptions and data harvesting).

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#123

Post by BirAdam »

Microsoft really should just open source Windows and completely abandon the OS market. They make their money on things like gaming, Office, and Azure. At this point, Windows is just a loss leader for other products. Outsource the dev cost with open source like phone makers do with Android.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#124

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

pezezin wrote: post #105
Nextgrid wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very surprised if "consumer computer" will be anything but a niche thing in 25 years.

I have been hearing the same for the last 20 years, if not longer, and yet the consumer computer remains strong.

Absolutely no one said consumer computing was going away in 2005. What were they supposed to be replaced with?

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#125

Post by markus_zhang »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #81
blitz_skull wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Apple Stan, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas, I’m not really sure what you could be referring to when you say “stagnation”. Every OS ever released has issues at launch, not sure if that’s what you mean by “regression”. But man… windows has been garbage for the better part of 2 decades now.

macOS daily driver for last 5 years because the hardware is better; I can stay unplugged for almost my entire workday. Lots of things irk me about macOS UX. Finder's lack of tree view sidebar really irks me. Having to disable the silly animations and sounds when I get a new machine irks me. The absolutely terrible window tiling system irks me. When I minimize a window, I can no longer tab into it. The settings dialog…

Exactly my thought, the last paragraph.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#126

Post by green7ea »

munificent wrote: post #86
blitz_skull wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Apple Stan, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas, I’m not really sure what you could be referring to when you say “stagnation”. Every OS ever released has issues at launch, not sure if that’s what you mean by “regression”. But man… windows has been garbage for the better part of 2 decades now.

The question is not whether MacOS is ahead of Windows. As an Apple user since the Apple IIe, I agree it's still the best OS by a mile. But that has basically always been true, at least since Mac OS X. (I liked the earlier OSes too, but they really did crash all the time and have no memory protection, so arguably Windows had some compelling advantages.) The interesting question is whether recent MacOS releases are ahe…

> it's still the best OS by a mile

I'm not so sure about that, modern Linux is pretty good — I was able to configure it to fit my needs much better than I could a mac. It's also free of dark patterns (looking at Windows).

If you're willing and able to configure Linux, I would say that, for some people, it's much better than a mac.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#128

Post by markus_zhang »

liuliu wrote: post #25
blitz_skull wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Apple Stan, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas, I’m not really sure what you could be referring to when you say “stagnation”. Every OS ever released has issues at launch, not sure if that’s what you mean by “regression”. But man… windows has been garbage for the better part of 2 decades now.

Windows 7 is the last good one. And that is only... Oh, almost 20 years ago. Never mind.

10 is OK if you remove the ads and stop random update. I’ll never use 11 and beyond. I always switched to Linux for my dev box and now that I play less and less game (haven’t played for weeks) I’ll switch to Linux for my personal box too, once the current one broke down.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#129

Post by wffurr »

candiddevmike wrote: post #71
blitz_skull wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Apple Stan, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas, I’m not really sure what you could be referring to when you say “stagnation”. Every OS ever released has issues at launch, not sure if that’s what you mean by “regression”. But man… windows has been garbage for the better part of 2 decades now.

Snapping and switching windows is light-years ahead of Windows? It only recently became a little more reasonable, and even then they still kept that idiotic full screen mechanic.

The full screen thing was great on an 11” MacBook Air. It’s pretty useless on anything bigger.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#130

Post by ukuina »

mschuster91 wrote: post #50
fooqux wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft is in a great position when AGI "drop-in office workers" become a thing While I don't disagree with you here, that's a helluva big bet. It'll have to happen soon enough that other companies aren't able to pivot in time, and despite what Altman says, I just don't see it happening at that timescale.

> While I don't disagree with you here, that's a helluva big bet. And yet, one that Microsoft has the best chances. Apple has all but zero presence in BigCorp outside of social media and creative teams. Google has its Workspaces thing plus its web wannabe-equivalents to Office, but that's it. And AWS is an infrastructure provider. Microsoft in contrast? They're everywhere and most importantly, whatever is in Office 3…

To the sibling comments: Apple holds https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-01-1...
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