As long as MS keeps making Windows worse and worse each release (and no one willing to develop decent ARM SoCs) and Android smartphone manufacturers keep releasing utter dogshit, Apple will have customers. They already market themselves as the privacy-friendly, "just works" alternative - and that's legitimately hard to fight.
Apple isn't in the position it is just because they make factually good hardware or because of their business practices - they are where they are because the competition constantly shoots itself with a sawn off shotgun.
IMO Apple have started to do the same. Their software is consistently getting buggier with worse user experiences, along with their reputation.
Tech savy windows users that are trying out Apple are finding that it very much doesnt 'Just Work' anymore, and that sentiment is starting to creep out more and more.
Take a look at Linuses recent evaluation of macOS by using only a Mac for a solid 2 months. His conclusion is that it is no better or worse than windows, and definitely doesnt 'Just Work'.
> Tech savy windows users that are trying out Apple are finding that it very much doesnt 'Just Work' anymore, and that sentiment is starting to creep out more and more.
Even with all the faults and degrading quality, it's still above any of proprietary alternatives, particularly Windows. I'm running the Tahoe developer beta, and in comparison to my Arm surface laptop 7, it's still light years better. I have no problems with Bluetooth, which is an endless struggle on Windows. I don't deal with windows update failures, windows installer service crashing and requiring a PC restart to install an MSI (happens constantly on the Arm devices), I don't have copilot being shoved down my throat, I'm not nagged to start an Office trial, or redirect my folders to OneDrive, or have ads in my app menu, etc.
Even Apple at its lowest is still a better experience than the alternatives because the alternatives just suck worse, and have chosen the path of data harvesting and monetizing the hell out of its user base over anything else.
> Even Apple at its lowest is still a better experience than the alternatives because the alternatives just suck worse
Thats your subjective opinion based on what you do on a computer and how you like it to work. Thats absolutely fine, just dont state the like its a fact. The only real fact you can say is they both have pros and cons, and its up to each user to decide what their personal preference is.
To be fair to us, Linus is wildly incompetent when it comes to operating systems and software as a whole.
His metric for "just works", like many users, is "works like Windows". Such a metric is inherently flawed because any piece of software will always come up second-best to Windows.
When he did his Linux experiment stuff, he approached everything with a Windows context. And, when things didn't work the same, he didn't sit back and say "hmm, is this new way of doing things better, or worse?". No, he immediately rejected it because it's not like Windows.
And look, I get it, it takes on the order of decades to learn an operating system inside and out. I still find Windows GUIs I've never seen before in my life. But the way he approaches software reviews is incredibly frustrating. He takes the most closed-minded mentality and then acts surprised when it doesn't work.
Apple isn't in the position it is just because they make factually good hardware or because of their business practices - they are where they are because the competition constantly shoots itself with a sawn off shotgun.