What changes here would meaningfully change the competitive balance? A macOS subsystem for Linux doesn't sound interesting. Neither, really, does a new IDE for building macOS and iOS applications. What's the real misstep here? The crappy Apple keyboard?
I think the misstep by Apple was to focus so heavily on iPhones that they stopped paying attention to the developer experience on Mac. Look at the fucked Catalina release, the slow MacPro update cycle and the abandonment of the Mac Mini, the obscene SSD pricing (especially combined with the way Docker likes to eat gigs...), and yes, the shitty Macbook Pro keyboard and stupid touch bar. Lots of things that together add up to a poor developer experience.
Obviously, Mac doesn't need a subsystem for Linux because it's already a *nix and all the tools work there already. Microsoft was playing catch up, but they're starting to look pretty well caught up.
Now, this isn't to say Apple is doing poorly, obviously they make ungodly gobs of money and are usually the most valuable company in the world. My original comment was about developer mind share, though, which I think is swinging back towards MS after being thoroughly owned by Apple from, say, 2008-2016. By not making the developer experience a priority, I think Apple is losing ground that they didn't have to cede.
The parent comment just reads like an ad for windows. Having recently had the displeasure of developing on Windows, WSL is terrible and buggy. I’ve tried it on two different occasions and both times I just ended up going back to PS. That comment will get upvoted because hating Apple is so popular here that even shilling Microsoft will get upvotes when framed like this (I guess the “year of the linux desktop” memes got tired?). Apple still makes the best dev machines (unless you’re writing a .NET app), the keyboard is the only legitimate complaint I can see against them, but most people I know actually kinda like it. Even then, for that to be a deal breaker, you have to pretend as though we don’t all have our MacBooks plugged into two monitors and a mechanical keyboard at work (and have you ever used a Surface keyboard? Yikes...).
