Hmm, considering this is on mac rumours, the title does make sense. But it sounds like the more accurate title would be "Windows 10 Deadline Expedites Fleet Renewels". The +17% in lenovo shipments, along with increases for HP and Asus, will all come with Windows 11 installation count bumps, presumeably. That would be the windows 10 deadline working as intended... damnit!
Nobody looking at graphs will be able to determine if the Mac purchases are defection or full fleet renewal at hybrid companies unless the numbers are large.
You can’t compare percentages like this when they don’t have the same denominator.
This. Where are "Linux evangelists" in 2025? GNU/Linux as a whole has never been in better shape to catch users fleeing from Windows, it surely looks like a much easier task than it was 15 years ago (even despite UEFI's additional complexity burden).
Spot on the +17% in lenovo shipments, but shouldn't we also care about the huge number of computers they're replacing - just because they're incapable of running Windows 11?
I use Windows for one reason only: Steam and best performance and compatibility for high resolution gaming.
If I didn’t want that, I wouldn’t be on windows at all.
The issue I have with Linux is that it’s 2025 and every single time I’ve created a Linux system in the past ten years, I have some sort of issue that I spend too much of my time figuring out. I am married, have three school age children, and have hobbies and I volunteer regularly. One of those hobbies is not “figuring out how to make Linux work.”
The downside of open source is you have to have the time to fix it yourself, and that lack of time is what keeps me from pursuing Linux, even though I am absolutely furious at the crap Microsoft is pulling lately, from shutting off ability to create a local account, to forcing OneDrive, to throwing Ads onto the desktop, to the telemetry and marketing spyware that is now standard on Windows 11.
I find it's the opposite nowadays. I run Kubuntu LTS on an all AMD system and most Steam games just work out of the box. No tinkering with the OS, takes 15 minutes to install and set up.
Compared to the hours and hours of battling Windows to get it to a usable state. Drivers, removing bloat, hunting for exes on the internet, dealing with low quality commercial software, etc. Then you get to do it all over again when a major update drops.
If your games work with Linux, which you can check on protondb, they typically "just work" and the performance is comparable to (sometimes even slightly better than) Windows. At least using AMD. Nvidia performance is good I've heard but getting everything to work together is still a bit tricky.
> I am married, have three school age children, and have hobbies and I volunteer regularly. One of those hobbies is not “figuring out how to make Linux work.”
This comment literally asks him to go check to see if his games work with Linux, and that he needs specific hardware for that compatibility to be meaningfully successful. The alternative is he just uses Windows and plays his games. It's exactly the type of "extra steps" that he wants to avoid.
I use Linux systems daily, and every now and then I'll go FOSS-zealot enough to go rip my Thinkpad back out of the closet and port everything over. Then, I'm no longer interoperable with any part of society that isn't involved in a fringe movement of the Linux laptop, and then go back, somewhat disappointingly, to my MacBook Pro.
Unfortunately that is the standard behaviour every time some of us complain about Linux Desktop.
Just because we complain doesn't mean we are Linux newbies.
Many of us do use Linux at work, have been there since early days, myself kernel 1.0.9, do have multiple UNIX variants experience, what we lack is the willingness to keep doing the same over and over again on our free time.
Yet, a single complaint and there comes the same answer as back in the Usenet days.
You don't really need to check any more. Games just work, unless it's a competitive multiplayer FPS with kernel anticheat. In theory you should check but I've not run into any issues for years now.
And if the game isn’t supported? What then? Not buy it? Buy another PC and use windows for that?
Last time I tried a dual boot UEFI system with windows and Linux on separate drives, I spent three weeks trawling message boards for half answers from DenverCoder9 only to give up.
That is a solid option but alas voting with your wallet can be difficult (social reasons etc.)
The only thing that needs Windows for me is Valorant. Everything else runs on bazite.
> UEFI system with windows and Linux
That is weird. Were you trying to have some selection with grub?
Just having two drives and selecting a boot device in the Bios/Uefi of the MB has worked stable for at least four years with this configuration. Make your default Linux or Windows and only use the MB for one-time boots of the other one.
Last year I made the dumb decision to buy a Gigabyte Brix without really researching Linux support, after several months of trying to make its UEFI recognising Linux partitions on M2 drives instead of external USB it ended up on the recycling centre, as I eventually damaged the motherboard.
Just speaking personally, but one thing I wonder about with the issues is putting aside the 'internet knowledge base' how much I've accumulated knowledge of how to gloss over all the little issues in windows that doesn't translate over, and whether that applies to other people in general. There's the common "I migrated grandma and pointed her at firefox and she's loves it" anecdote for users with little assumptions, so for different types of user it'd be an interesting project to catalogue what pain points they come across, major ones are likely well known but I expect it'd be really interesting to gather minor ones. How much is adaptation to the windows/linux "DNA" or ways of doing things that would cause breakage if they were changed and how much could be looked at by various projects.
Indeed, writing this on a laptop with Linux that cant sleep and gets random crashes with blinking caps lock about once a week. Whether its Realtek ethernet adapter can run at its nominal 5gbps on a 6.14+ or <6.10 kernel without CPU soft lockups is an open question
True about open source though it's the only place where your computer is and feels like yours. Macs and Windows have you beholden to companies that have increasingly been user hostile and both have been keeping me in a constant state of revulsion.
That said, if you're having to fix your system constantly then something is off, as many distros have become incredibly stable. Of course I don't know your circumstances so can't say anything specific.
On any Linux distro it feels somewhat like my computer belongs to a bunch of opinionated nerds, and none of them are me, and their motivations are peculiar. But also somewhat like it's mine, I must admit.
I have been hearing evangelism since Windows XP days, when DX 10 drivers were Vista only, when driver model changed, when Windows 8 went to WinRT, when Windows 10 introduced telemetry, when....
Of all of the things that are a challenge on Linux, UEFI isnt one of them. I'm curious what you mean.
The term might come up in Linux distro installers but the ones I have used recently all handle it fine (Arch, Debian, Fedora). Secure boot is even supported without hassle by all the major distributions. Once Linux is installed the user definitely doesn't need to care about the pre-OS boot firmware.
Not on the Gigabyte Brix I bought and for whatever reason could only boot from Windows formatted M2 drives, regardless of how many UEFI partition flavours I tried.
We hang out in different circles because a surprising number of my non-tech worker PC using friends are trying out Linux and liking it. The only thing holding most of my friends back at this point is kernel anti cheat.
Games using kernel anti-cheats + Ableton + Unreal Engine (editor + plugins) not running properly on Linux are the three only things stopping me from removing Windows fully from my desktop.
Are you still having bad issues with Ableton? I did until recently, but now with Ableton in a fairly simple Bottles setup it works quite well (for me, at least).
Do you have more specific needs where the normal way doesn't work? I'm no music producer, so there's lots of stuff I probably don't even know about, would love to hear your thoughts. :)
> Are you still having bad issues with Ableton? I did until recently, but now with Ableton in a fairly simple Bottles setup it works quite well (for me, at least).
Could you share the config somehow so I could try it out? Last time I tried to get it to work I couldn't get it to recognize my audio interface (USB class compliant, Steinberg UR44), and the UI was very glitchy.
I don't think I have any special needs compared to others, do fairly basic things. Which version is it that you've tried it with? Tried v11 years ago I think, and v12 when it was just released, but not since then.
"Linux on the Desktop" is great. I've been using it since 1994. "Linux on the Laptop" sucks- I just want my laptop to sleep and awake properly, without draining the battery. I'm old enough that I'm done spending time twiddling kernel parameters in an attempt to get all of the onboard devices working, including sleep.
> I just want my laptop to sleep and awake properly, without draining the battery.
To be fair this is _also_ a massive problem on Windows too, because of Windows Modern Standby encouraging laptop makers to replace ol' reliable S3 sleep with the terribly broken modern standby stuff. Macbooks and certain Framework models are the only laptops left with reliable sleep.
I just want a laptop that has almost zero latency between the CPU and RAM and at least 300GB/s RAM bandwidth for data science. Not much choice there, unfortunately.
I know many people (myself included) that stopped using Windows altogether this year. Even accounting for biases, this is a very bad year for Microsoft.
My recent experience with Linux Mint on a new PC is the opposite. I went from USB installer to a fully functional system with drivers, chrome, my fave web pages, and my fave games on Steam and Battlenet, etc running flawlessly without ever doing a single "techie" thing.
On Windows 11 I had to figure out that I needed hop on another computer to search, download and copy via USB some motherboard and wifi drivers before I could even access the Internet. A number of things in the system remain rather quirky and not entirely reliable, including video playback of all kinds.
If I was setting up a PC for say my dad tomorrow, I'm finally at the point where I'd rather give him Linux than Windows.
I have a laptop running Zorin I'm probably going to flip to Mint if the new release doesn't fix my stuttering issues otherwise I had the same experience. Also bazzite on an AMD desktop and my steam deck are a breeze to use.
The “Linux demographics” were a bunch of 20-30 year olds who are now 40-50.
Same with the “Free Software” crowd - those 20-30 year olds are now 50-60.
Aging demographics that broadly failed to attract any interest from the next generation. Honestly though, why join? There’s nothing inherently attractive about either community. Hang out with toxic gamers on Discord and join a team, or hang out with toxic old nerds still on IRC for ideological purity. I know which one wins. Even professionally, I’d rather join a model train community.
You're being downvoted, however you're exactly right.
Speaking as one of those 40-50, I firmly believe once our generation is gone all those ideals will be gone as well.
Also everyone that thinks Valve will stay the Linux white knight after current management is gone, is in for a surprise, who knows what they will do with their assets.
This comment is getting downvoted for what is likely its tone of ageism, but I don't think that it's completely wrong: the original FOSS-activist community is now a group of oldheads and hasn't successfully made the same generational shift that maintained its original philosophy. Looking at any rant from Torvalds, the Linux programming community has often held technical elitism before inclusivity. "Open source" over "free/libre software" has found success not because of its personalities and community but rather because it is a meme that can be appropriated for your own. The counterculture I see in GenZ+ that is most interested in working with FOSS/public technologies is politically aligned differently and has more pragmatic goals (e.g. will use major commercial communications platforms such as Discord).
The findings they are discussing are from Counterpoint Research:
> According to Counterpoint, Apple's global Mac shipments grew 14.9% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2025, supported by demand for new MacBook models and rising enterprise adoption of Apple hardware.
I am not saying the company is going to buy a big sales contract from Acer. But they aren’t trying to outfit their secretaries with top of the line computers. They are going to go to Dell and buy the cheapest thing that will meet their needs - barely.
I think outside of a very niche bubble - not. Look at the average selling price of computers. It doesn’t jibe with people buying high end computers to run local models. From everything I am seeing it’s still less than $1000
My 89 year old mother switched to Mac. She's not that techy but when Microsoft depreciated her Windows 10 system she asked friends what's good and now has a Macbook. I'm not sure this has been a good move from Microsoft.
The TPM 2.0 requirement is also bullshit. I'm sure there are good excuses but I know several people who have older PCs that still run perfectly fine and now have to move to Linux/Mac or buy a new PC. I've been offering to help them move to various Linux distros but in the end, there are going to be soooo many old PCs ending up in landfill because of this decision.
I also would have much preferred to stay on 10 (for various reasons) but my work VPN is locking out anyone using it (even though MS just extended the support deadline for another year).
For kicks I put Windows 11 on one of my retro laptops - a dell e6500 with 8gb of ram and it ran super well. I don't think it meets the tpm v2 requirements but it's wild we can't virtualize a decent tpm.
The biggest issue with Windows 11 for me is the noticeable performance lag in basic apps like Notepad and File Explorer. Simple tasks, like opening files or navigating folders, feel sluggish, and I can visibly see windows rendering in slow motion. I’ve heard this might be due to Windows 11’s UI elements being redrawn over lower level UI. I’m considering switching to Linux as my daily driver.
My older Dell XPS Windows 10 laptop was due for an upgrade, and it was new enough that it supports Windows 11. Microsoft's end-of-life of 10, constant prodding to upgrade and Dell's terrible redesign of the XPS series made me look at my options.
I ended up with an M4 MacBook Air and couldn't be happier.
I decided a Macbook pro M4 pro was the right option for me, 48gb/36 accessible to the gpus with very decent tokens/s throughput for (increasingly impressive) offline midrange open LLM inference and huge battery life. Nothing in the windows world to touch it. But a few windows-only bits of software I occasionally use now run very happily in a Windows 11 arm vm on a free VMware fusion 25H2 on my mac, with a 5 dollar win oem license.
All depends on what Microsoft allows - my Thinkpad with a Ryzen 2500u Pro has a TPM but they blanket blocked "Ryzen 2500" because the non pro doesn't always have a TPM.
It seems like if you aren't gonna use Linux and you aren't severely cash-constrained, Macbooks are almost the only credible choice at this point?
Pretty annoying coz Linux is non-negotiable for me. I've just bought a laptop and it feels like I'm getting much worse value for money than I would with a Mac.
If you really need something cheap... Seems you are basically just screwed at this point, unless you are able to use Linux. Admittedly, I installed Ubuntu for my 70 year old mother a few months back and I haven't had a single support request so far. She's on a 2013 MacBook Air.
Was in the market for a Linux laptop for son who's entering college.... Dug through lenovo and saying that it's hard to find decent info on Linux support is an understatement...
Finally got an e14 g6 AMD.... It's not supported by lenovo for Linux but everything got Auto detected and worked except fingerprint
The bummer: suspend to ram is terribly broken and for a laptop that's a deal breaker
Yeah I'm aware of framework and system 76... They aren't here. The pricier lenovo options exist but at that point is just go with a mac
Ubuntu is an easy transition for older folks more comfortable with Windows XP through Windows 7. The desktop experience is much more familiar than Windows 11, and they aren't getting spammed with ads for Microsoft services and AI slop that they're skeptical of and not interested in.
As a person who switched from windows to mac (while linux being an all-time constant) for other reasons, it still feels like a weird migration because windows is a system full of glaring bugs that everyone experiences but knows how to work around while mac is (feels like) a system absent of huge flaws but there are many more smaller bugs that very small number of users experience that are seemingly impossible to work around.
One thing that's driving me crazy:
So for example you have 5 virtual desktops on Mac, and you use a keyboard shortcut to move left and right. So, if you start from the 1st and go to the 3rd and then immediately try to go back to the 2nd (1->3->2), animations need to complete on the 3rd until you can change direction. Doesn't happen if you start from the 2nd and go to the 4th then change direction to move to the 3rd(2->4->3). Same when beginning from the 5th to the 3rd then back to 4th (5->3->4). Doesn't happen with 4->2->3. Also, the windows which are visible on all desktops are shown until the animation is complete then the last focused windows on that desktop will be shown. And even with reduced motion, some fade animation is still there. Infuriating stuff for otherwise a magical experience.
Yeah, this is also true when switching applications, the keyboard events are sent to the previous application until the animations are completed.
The result? If you switch to an app to close it and use the Cmd + Q to quit it, but if you didn’t wait for the animations to finish, then you just quit the app you came from.
I think this bug was introduced like 2-3 years ago.
When Windows 8 and the start page came out, I convinced a lot of my end users (most of my 75 end users did over time) to switch as they'd have to learn something new anyway.
Now with Windows 10 going away, they are picking up the stragglers.
You are misunderstanding. It's not I don't want Windows 11.
For example, I have a pretty good gaming PC that plays Grand Theft Auto V at 4K and Elden Ring on low settings.
It no longer gets security updates. Microsoft has made the arbitrary policy that this hardware is too old simply because it doesn't have TPM 2.0 Secure Boot, and a certain generation of Intel or AMD CPU. They have decided it should go to a landfill.
Of course, I am more skilled than the average person, so I easily installed a hack to bypass these hardware requirements and get Windows 11 installed anyway. So I get security updates. But it's a matter of principle that I shouldn't have to use a hack.
Also, a lot of these comments are misunderstanding the question. Recall, Copilot, and ads are not the reason most of these people are opting for Mac instead of Windows 11. It's because they cannot install it legitimately at all. Microsoft said you have to buy new hardware, so they're buying new hardware.
> Microsoft has made the arbitrary policy that this hardware is too old simply because it doesn't have TPM 2.0 Secure Boot
There's stuff I don't like about Windows 11, but this feels kinda overblown. The hardware requirements are satisfied by almost anything from the last 10 years, which is still a decently generous support window. TPM 2.0 is probably worth requiring, not unlike the 64-bit migration back in the day.
Not 10 years. For example, another commenter mentioned the 7700 CPU which is from 2017. Keep in mind that 2017 was the launch of this CPU which means it was available to consumers for a couple of years at least. So presumably you could build a new system around 2019 which is just six years ago and not make the cut.
Microsoft is wrong to do this. There is LOT of capable hardware out there which can provide value. The TPM 2 limitation is completely artificial, as you can install Windows 11 anyway with a quick hack and it will work fine.
We have an HTPC with hardware from 2008 (mainly the board and CPU) which runs absolutely great. It still manages to surprise us with how capable it is. We are going to use this thing until it absolutely dies with no hope for recovery.
> Not 10 years. For example, another commenter mentioned the 7700 CPU which is from 2017. Keep in mind that 2017 was the launch of this CPU which means it was available to consumers for a couple of years at least. So presumably you could build a new system around 2019 which is just six years ago and not make the cut.
Apple seems to get a lot of praise for long term software support and the latest iOS doesnt support hardware released before 2019 as far as I can tell.
In fact Linux is probably the only major exception to this, and if you need commercial support for 10+ year old hardware it costs $$$$
> Apple seems to get a lot of praise for long term software support and the latest iOS doesnt support hardware released before 2019 as far as I can tell.
iPhone XR/XS that were released in 2018 indeed can't get the latest iOS (26.) The good thing is that security updates for the previous iOS versions (18, 16) usually roll for a year or more. Currently, iOS 15 (from 2021) is the oldest version still receiving updates (15.8.5 was released a month ago) and the oldest devices capable of running that are from 2015.
> Apple seems to get a lot of praise for long term software support
Not aware of this, and actually, it seems like the contrary. Apple repeatedly deprecates stuff and makes users and developers dance around a rather quick, and very unreliable software deprecation cycle which makes it terrible to do anything long term on Mac.
MacOS is worse, my experience is that you might get ten years of support. The Apple Silicon migration is making it worse and shortening the support periods.
A 2017 MacBook Air can only run MacOS 12 - which was unsupported last year, giving a total of seven years of support. Yes, you can run OpenCore Patcher if you want to stretch the definition of support.
> Apple seems to get a lot of praise for long term software support and the latest iOS doesnt support hardware released before 2019 as far as I can tell.
Probably more relevant here is MacOS 26 doesn't support anything before 2019 either. And it's not because they dropped x86 support entirely, it still supports some Intel Macs. Just not many.
> For example, another commenter mentioned the 7700 CPU which is from 2017. Keep in mind that 2017 was the launch of this CPU which means it was available to consumers for a couple of years at least.
The 8700 that replaced it is also from 2017. The 7th gen was extremely short lived for whatever reason
Can you clarify what operating system the gaming PC I play Elden Ring on is supposed to run? Please note that Windows 10 does not receive security updates, and Windows 11 blocks the install because my quad core intel CPU arbitrarily didn't make their list, and my motherboard doesn't have a TPM 2.0 module. If you're telling me that I should throw this amazing CPU in the trash, please say it outright. State that you think millions of still above‑average PC components should be arbitrarily turned into e‑waste, so that they can't be passed down to kids without a computer, can't serve any role at all, because we can now buy brand new 10x slower $150 ARM64 laptops with secure boot. If you think that trade-off is worth it, and that a big corporation isn't just doing it as planned obsolescence, I just want to hear it. Keep in mind there's a third‑party hack to flip the bit, allowing Windows 11 to install anyway. That proves Microsoft could save all these PCs from landfills if it wanted to.
I don't know, man. I'm just now hearing about this, but after quickly looking it up, I've concluded that I can't legally buy it, I can't install it as a straightforward upgrade, and some of my games won't run on it. So, if I'm going to be breaking the law anyway, I might as well use the hack to install Windows 11 for free.
Here's the info I skimmed
"Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC is designed for devices that need to run a single task consistently and securely for many years, with minimal changes. Examples include ATMs, medical devices, point-of-sale terminals, and industrial control systems. This Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) version intentionally omits modern features and frequent updates to ensure a highly stable, unchanging operating system."
"The IoT version is sold exclusively through authorized Microsoft partners and has a different licensing model. It is not for internal use on general-purpose PCs and purchasing it from third-party resellers is likely to involve an illegitimate or stolen key."
"Microsoft does not officially support or recommend a transition from Windows Home or Pro to a Windows IoT Enterprise LTSC version for regular users. "
"Some game anti-cheat software has been known to have issues with LTSC versions of Windows, leading to potential game compatibility or stability problems.
Dependency on the Xbox app: Games distributed via the Xbox app or Game Pass would be inaccessible. Many newer games also rely on components from the Xbox app for proper functionality, potentially leaving you locked out of a title even if you owned it on a different platform."
1. First and foremost, if your only problem with Window 11 is the TPM check, just bypass the TPM check. My gripes with Windows 11 go far beyond this so regardless of the hardware, I am never installing Windows 11.
2. Microsoft recommendations serve Microsoft's interests, not necessarily yours. Look surprised when Microsoft "recommends" you dump your perfectly usable computer for Windows 11.
3. Microsoft will be fine no matter what you choose to do on your machine.
4. Look a little deeper into LTSC IoT. It's Windows 10 with security updates and most things work fine. Yes there are trade-offs. For me, who never installs aggressive ring-zero anti cheat software for games, it was a no brainer. I also don't care about Xbox or the Microsoft Store. Having these things stripped from my Windows install is a feature, not a nuisance.
I have a PC with a 7700k that doesn't qualify despite running circles around the crappy Pentiums and Atoms that did get the ability to upgrade. I get that they don't want to support ancient hardware but a good amount of powerful CPUs in the Intel 6XXX and 7XXX series, as well as powerful first-gen Zen CPUs got cut off for no clear reason.
As far as I can tell, Windows barely leverages the new features in TPM 2 for consumer versions and the code for TPM 1.2 still seems to be there. The intruction set also didn't meaningfully change, unless we're talking 2010 era chips.
I'm not using Windows on that desktop anymore so I don't feel too bad about it, but I can easily give my PC to a relative if I get a new one and they'd be able to keep using it for five or six years when it comes to performance. The only real obstacle is software support.
The interesting thing about Kaby-lake/7th is that other CPUs in that generation are allowed by MS. While there is the extensions support aspect, after spectre/meltdown I think part of it was getting AMD/intel to sign up to providing firmware updates for product ranges over the win11 lifespan, then cycle will repeat again for win12.
This was a late addition to the Windows 11 supported CPU list. The rumor is that this happened after it was pointed out that Microsoft was still selling brand new Surface Studio 2 devices that had 7th gen Intel CPUs.
10 year ago was 2015 mate, that's an outrageous time limit for a product you paid thousands for. If my bike EOLd itself after ten years I'd be livid. Imagine if your car just stopped starting after ten years.
Computers older than 10 years includes the vast majority of computers ever built. It's an insane requirement and it's not one that other OS share.
And the solution isn't hard work for Microsoft, the risk is mine to take if I don't want to upgrade for better secure boot.
Anyway, I migrated to linux for my gaming PC, the last Windows PC I had, and it's going really well. Good riddance.
From Microsoft's perspective you are running unsupported hardware. You're getting updates for now. But any future update might ban your system, disable your updates or even unintentionally break your system. It makes sense Microsoft are being more lenient about it at the moment, but a year or two from now? I wouldn't count on it.
As for myself, I didn't bother with Windows 11. Converted all my daily drivers who were still on Windows to Linux. On one machine I have a dual boot Windows 10 LTSC IoT just in case. This gives me 7 more years.
Honestly, big tech companies have screwed me enough times that I just sort of plan for it. So, I'll cross that bridge when it comes to it. My running policy is to keep all the files I care about on a Synology NAS that syncs to a backup cloud over my Wi‑Fi, and then have all my laptops and PCs just have easily replaceable common downloads on them.
I object mostly to Microsoft's pushiness. At every turn, they're trying to nudge/coerce the user to do this and to do that.
Example: "You should make a Microsoft account!" -> "You really need to make a Microsoft account." -> "Here's a full-screen Window begging you to make a Microsoft account, with a tiny skip button." -> "Here's a full-screen Window demanding you to make a Microsoft account, and if you want to skip it, you need to reboot and do this without a network connection." -> "You're going to make a Microsoft account if you want to use your computer. Just do it, asshole. (command line workaround)" -> "OK, fuckface, we tried the easy way, now we punish you with the hard way. Make that fucking Microsoft account whether you want it or not. I'm not fucking around anymore. YOU HAVE TO DO IT."
You can see this progression with basically all of their unwanted features.
My experience with alternatives (macOS, ChromeOS) isn't that different once you get past the setup screen. The privacy implications of an Apple account are much smaller than those of a Microsoft account, though.
It's a shame, really. Windows 11 has a whole bunch of nice-to-haves for development and gaming. They have one side making consistent improvements while the other makes the ecosystem as bad as they can.
I'm sure there will be many opinions, but here's mine.
Win10 came with the computer that I chose for home use because it was a cheap refurb with a touch screen. It's fine. My workplace has switched to Win11 and it seems fine. I'm practically ambivalent about the "platform wars" because I rarely interact with the OS.
I've read about issues such as: Growing amounts of telemetry. Requiring people to have a Microsoft account. Switching to subscription models for software.
But I think a serious issue is that there's a lot of hardware out there, that's not technically obsolete, but won't run Win11 for whatever reason. Being forced to upgrade your hardware opens up your choices, and now this brings Apple into play. I'm in this boat, though for me, Ubuntu may also be in play. If I have to give up my touch screen, my options open up a lot.
At my workplace, we were a Dell-only shop for many years, but now we offer either Dell or Apple. Even if only a percentage of people decide it's time to try Apple, that's still a lot of computers. Maybe something has changed that made it easier for corporate IT (at a F500 multinational) to support both platforms. My cube mate has a MacBook.
Windows used to be software you bought, and could use with a decent amount of control (obviously not at the level of linux). Windows 11 is a front-end to advertise Microsoft's cloud services. There are ads for them (and also other ads) throughout the OS, and you can't really easily escape the nudges to use them. It also needlessly removes a variety of customizability that has existed for decades; the taskbar is locked to the bottom of the screen, for example, while you could move it to the left/right/top of the screen on all Windows versions since 95.
Being forced to use 11 at work convinced me to finally move to Linux at home. And for context, I was an early adopter of Vista, and remain a defender of it.
It's full of little quirks and annoyances in my experience. I find it gives me random problems a lot more often than Win10 or Linux gave me. Wifi connectivity, unable to wake from sleep, video playback causing flashes. Nothing constant but all frequent enough for me to really feel disappointed and annoyed. Windows 10 was absolutely rock solid for me.
I don't particularly like the UI redesign but that's low on the list of problems. And I haven't been blasted with ads and AI things as other people report but maybe that stuff is all in the Home edition.
For a lot of people it's no different from the upgrade from Windows 7, they just don't want change.
The privacy invasions grew in Window 11 and the advertisement of Microsoft products increased quite a bit. The start menu now works better (opens every time you press the button, which I had issues with on Windows 10). Many people didn't get a choice to upgrade, which also pissed people off.
For the more technical-minded, the mandatory Microsoft account also pissed a lot of people off. Haven't heard any complaints about that from people who can't name a preferred Linux distro, though.
They fiddled with the UI and people don't necessarily like it, including the loss of some features. A Microsoft account is now mandatory and they replaced the default local folders (docs, pictures, videos, etc...) with OneDrive.
Hardware-wise a TPM is now mandatory, which means a lot of systems that could otherwise run it fine are locked out.
FWIW TPMs have been in computers (processors) FIR years, but they were often disabled by default by motherboard vendors because they couldn't be arsed to test beyond the bare minimum Windows required.
The move to TPM 2.0 made a lot of TPM-capable systems incompatible. Arbitrary CPU support also didn't help; there is no clear reason why some CPUs made the cut and others didn't. Seems like a mix between fTPM 2.0 support and SPECTRE hardware mitigations, but MS never really clarified what their actual reasons were.
It's not already on my computer, and changing that will cost me money and time and is something that Microsoft promised we wouldn't have to do anymore when they sold us on 10.
You must connect to the internet and connect your Microsoft account. There used to be a workaround using console commands, but that was removed recently.
Without a cloud account, you are stuck on the OOBE setup screen.
Copilot, ads, shit, copilot, telemetry, forced MS accounts, copilot, forced ms edge, copilot, forced obsolescence, copilot. I might be missing some other stuff like copilot and clean of shit versions like ltsc, but those are on the top of my head.
If I were CEO, I'd notice that smart phones, tables, Chromebooks, and a more successful Apple have shifted the market. Windows is only 10% of revenue, so I'm not about to throw it away, but it's declining, and it's my focus. I'd let the engineers do the big breaking change that they've been clamoring for and make sure a key goal is cost savings from dropping legacy platforms. This sets up Windows to go into maintenance mode in 2035.
So I work at Microsoft and will admit that the company has had many Own-goals over the years, but think about it this way. Apple provides software updates for a given model of mac for 7-8 years on average. Windows 10 came out more than 20 years ago. How long should they put resources into it?
You're framing this completely wrong. I have a gaming PC that runs Elden Ring, but it lacks TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, and the right generation of CPU from Intel or AMD. So Windows 11 literally cannot be legitimately installed. And now, Windows 10 is being purposely left with security holes. Microsoft is dictating that an Elden Ring‑capable gaming PC belongs in a landfill. Does that not sound absolutely ludicrous to you? Microsoft is free to obliterate its compatibility and shun its customer base if it wants to. That's its right. But whoever has convinced you that TPM 2.0 is so important that millions of gaming PCs should be turned into zombie‑virus‑infested abandonware—sorry, I just do not sympathize. The fact that there’s a third‑party hack to flip the bit that requires TPM 2.0 just proves that Microsoft could fix this situation with no effort whatsoever.
I mean, you're right, but Microsoft's planned obsolescence here is a shorter cadence than Apple's.
All the newest Mac hardware that came out in 2018 still gets security updates to this day.
But there's plenty of brand-new Windows hardware that came out in 2021, which now must be thrown away because it didn't qualify for a future operating system they had planned.
So we can gripe about it for the next three years before "what about Apple" becomes totally valid. Still feels messed up that the global monopoly holder for PCs decided e-wasting a billion of them would fly under the radar. Hopefully most people realize they can download a little bit flip hack to undo Microsofts check.
Picked up by the media and Microsoft did absolutely nothing to correct until they decided they wanted to create Windows 11. They were completely aware of what was in the press and if the media message was "Microsoft says switch to Linux" they absolutely would have corrected the message. That they let this misconception to become as widespread as it did shows they were happy for people to believe it. That makes them absolutely 100% responsible for it.
Three other comments are dunking on the OP writing "Windows 10 came out more than 20 years ago". It's probably a typo for "10 years ago" and OP is comparing it by saying Apple does 7-8 years.
The problem for me is the 11 interface is rubbish. It seems badly designed and unfinished. Everything was just shuffled around with no thought to usability. There is a limit to the number of icons on the start menu. The taskbar works differently in arbitrary ways and has less features than 10.
Clicking through the link, both Macs and PCs are up. And Intel can even be upset it's not more of an Intel mix, so all of that can be true at the same time.
Where are you seeing support until 2038? I see support until 2027.
Even if it was 2038, Win10 LTSC only supports hardware from the time it was originally released. That might or might not be a problem today, but it definitely will be problematic long before 2038.
If Apple had released the rumoured budget macbook using the A-series chipset and take a shot at Microsoft in the marketing, I think they would see a surge of orders and converts.
The Windows hullabaloo actually made me want to move off Mac and try Linux. I tried daily driving Bazzite and Omarchy. It's funny how the smallest things can cause resistance to change. For me, the lack of inertial scrolling with mouse wheel and the different copy/paste shortcuts were the dealbreakers. Even though the tiling windows, lack of bloat etc was super nice
It sucks that DHH is getting so much attention on what is basically his personal rice in Omarchy, to the point that he's becoming a sort of face for "Linux with nicish defaults". He is a bigot who regularly engages in reactionary politics on his personal blog (https://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-pro...). I don't want this man representing the Linux community writ large.
Organisations of all kinds did, and now ESU updates are free for consumers in the EU: Microsoft conceded that they had to be according to some EU directive, although it was related to software and not to environmental factors.
Microsoft is selling the ESU in cumulative year-long batches, so they're only offering Year One for free for now. But depending on how many people are left on Windows 10, it wouldn't surprise me if they extend it by Year Two just to stay clear of the Digital Markets Act.
As for limits, I think it's only a limit of PCs per account, but I think you've got that limit already for licenses anyway.
And of course it won't last forever, sooner or later we'll be on square one again. I've personally already migrated my devices to Linux, except for a partition to play games that require anti-cheats, and I'm explaining to my family what their options are.
Datacenters are the much bigger issue now. At least most of the greenwash nonsense has stopped. It wasn't that long ago that Microsoft was bragging about slowing down your PC to help the environment. Between Windows 11 binning tens of millions of computers and all the energy hungry datacenters, the corporate green messaging has been blown apart.
Apple has trained us to expect better. I pay the premium price with those expectations in mind.
I, personally, would _like_ a new laptop and am lucky to be able to afford to buy at any retail price point but I cannot justify spending on Apple at this time. Maybe they’ll course correct but it seems unlikely to happen quickly enough for me. Johnny Ive ruined the product side of the company and IMO they may never recover as Tim Cook doesn’t have the kind of vision it would take to pivot to making consumer first products again.
I assume you are not using the Apple devices in the same way as me. If my very small companies detect the kind of issues Apple have now in my own developed software, I would be very angry if there are not fixed.
Windows Vista by all accounts was far worse, and people definitely switched to Mac then because one of the best laptop Windows XP could be installed on flawlessly at the time was a MacBook Pro.
Hmm, considering this is on mac rumours, the title does make sense. But it sounds like the more accurate title would be "Windows 10 Deadline Expedites Fleet Renewels". The +17% in lenovo shipments, along with increases for HP and Asus, will all come with Windows 11 installation count bumps, presumeably. That would be the windows 10 deadline working as intended... damnit!
Nobody looking at graphs will be able to determine if the Mac purchases are defection or full fleet renewal at hybrid companies unless the numbers are large.
You can’t compare percentages like this when they don’t have the same denominator.
Seme though. What are the odds the increase in Mac sales just correlate to old Intel Mac users finally upgrading to AS?
This. Where are "Linux evangelists" in 2025? GNU/Linux as a whole has never been in better shape to catch users fleeing from Windows, it surely looks like a much easier task than it was 15 years ago (even despite UEFI's additional complexity burden).
Spot on the +17% in lenovo shipments, but shouldn't we also care about the huge number of computers they're replacing - just because they're incapable of running Windows 11?
I use Windows for one reason only: Steam and best performance and compatibility for high resolution gaming.
If I didn’t want that, I wouldn’t be on windows at all.
The issue I have with Linux is that it’s 2025 and every single time I’ve created a Linux system in the past ten years, I have some sort of issue that I spend too much of my time figuring out. I am married, have three school age children, and have hobbies and I volunteer regularly. One of those hobbies is not “figuring out how to make Linux work.”
The downside of open source is you have to have the time to fix it yourself, and that lack of time is what keeps me from pursuing Linux, even though I am absolutely furious at the crap Microsoft is pulling lately, from shutting off ability to create a local account, to forcing OneDrive, to throwing Ads onto the desktop, to the telemetry and marketing spyware that is now standard on Windows 11.
I find it's the opposite nowadays. I run Kubuntu LTS on an all AMD system and most Steam games just work out of the box. No tinkering with the OS, takes 15 minutes to install and set up.
Compared to the hours and hours of battling Windows to get it to a usable state. Drivers, removing bloat, hunting for exes on the internet, dealing with low quality commercial software, etc. Then you get to do it all over again when a major update drops.
Performance is better on Linux too, I noticed a good 10-20% FPS uplift in some games. Found a random CPU review showing everything is slower under Windows. https://www.phoronix.com/review/windows-linux-amd-9950x-9950...
If your games work with Linux, which you can check on protondb, they typically "just work" and the performance is comparable to (sometimes even slightly better than) Windows. At least using AMD. Nvidia performance is good I've heard but getting everything to work together is still a bit tricky.
> I am married, have three school age children, and have hobbies and I volunteer regularly. One of those hobbies is not “figuring out how to make Linux work.”
This comment literally asks him to go check to see if his games work with Linux, and that he needs specific hardware for that compatibility to be meaningfully successful. The alternative is he just uses Windows and plays his games. It's exactly the type of "extra steps" that he wants to avoid.
I use Linux systems daily, and every now and then I'll go FOSS-zealot enough to go rip my Thinkpad back out of the closet and port everything over. Then, I'm no longer interoperable with any part of society that isn't involved in a fringe movement of the Linux laptop, and then go back, somewhat disappointingly, to my MacBook Pro.
Unfortunately that is the standard behaviour every time some of us complain about Linux Desktop.
Just because we complain doesn't mean we are Linux newbies.
Many of us do use Linux at work, have been there since early days, myself kernel 1.0.9, do have multiple UNIX variants experience, what we lack is the willingness to keep doing the same over and over again on our free time.
Yet, a single complaint and there comes the same answer as back in the Usenet days.
You don't really need to check any more. Games just work, unless it's a competitive multiplayer FPS with kernel anticheat. In theory you should check but I've not run into any issues for years now.
It takes like 2 seconds to check if a game is supported. How is that different from checking the recommended system requirements.
And if the game isn’t supported? What then? Not buy it? Buy another PC and use windows for that?
Last time I tried a dual boot UEFI system with windows and Linux on separate drives, I spent three weeks trawling message boards for half answers from DenverCoder9 only to give up.
> Not buy it?
That is a solid option but alas voting with your wallet can be difficult (social reasons etc.) The only thing that needs Windows for me is Valorant. Everything else runs on bazite.
> UEFI system with windows and Linux
That is weird. Were you trying to have some selection with grub?
Just having two drives and selecting a boot device in the Bios/Uefi of the MB has worked stable for at least four years with this configuration. Make your default Linux or Windows and only use the MB for one-time boots of the other one.
Last year I made the dumb decision to buy a Gigabyte Brix without really researching Linux support, after several months of trying to make its UEFI recognising Linux partitions on M2 drives instead of external USB it ended up on the recycling centre, as I eventually damaged the motherboard.
Should have known better.
Just speaking personally, but one thing I wonder about with the issues is putting aside the 'internet knowledge base' how much I've accumulated knowledge of how to gloss over all the little issues in windows that doesn't translate over, and whether that applies to other people in general. There's the common "I migrated grandma and pointed her at firefox and she's loves it" anecdote for users with little assumptions, so for different types of user it'd be an interesting project to catalogue what pain points they come across, major ones are likely well known but I expect it'd be really interesting to gather minor ones. How much is adaptation to the windows/linux "DNA" or ways of doing things that would cause breakage if they were changed and how much could be looked at by various projects.
Other than the “best performance”, Steamdeck fits the bill.
I’d also mention Windows isn’t a panacea. I’ve fiddled with driver upgrades and downgrades for various games over the years on Windows.
Indeed, writing this on a laptop with Linux that cant sleep and gets random crashes with blinking caps lock about once a week. Whether its Realtek ethernet adapter can run at its nominal 5gbps on a 6.14+ or <6.10 kernel without CPU soft lockups is an open question
True about open source though it's the only place where your computer is and feels like yours. Macs and Windows have you beholden to companies that have increasingly been user hostile and both have been keeping me in a constant state of revulsion.
That said, if you're having to fix your system constantly then something is off, as many distros have become incredibly stable. Of course I don't know your circumstances so can't say anything specific.
On any Linux distro it feels somewhat like my computer belongs to a bunch of opinionated nerds, and none of them are me, and their motivations are peculiar. But also somewhat like it's mine, I must admit.
I have been hearing evangelism since Windows XP days, when DX 10 drivers were Vista only, when driver model changed, when Windows 8 went to WinRT, when Windows 10 introduced telemetry, when....
In the end, Valve had to come up with Proton.
Signed ex-FOSS zealot.
Of all of the things that are a challenge on Linux, UEFI isnt one of them. I'm curious what you mean.
The term might come up in Linux distro installers but the ones I have used recently all handle it fine (Arch, Debian, Fedora). Secure boot is even supported without hassle by all the major distributions. Once Linux is installed the user definitely doesn't need to care about the pre-OS boot firmware.
If anything I UEFI is _easier_ on Linux than Windows. Especially if you aren't dual booting and can use EFISTUB.
Not on the Gigabyte Brix I bought and for whatever reason could only boot from Windows formatted M2 drives, regardless of how many UEFI partition flavours I tried.
We hang out in different circles because a surprising number of my non-tech worker PC using friends are trying out Linux and liking it. The only thing holding most of my friends back at this point is kernel anti cheat.
Games using kernel anti-cheats + Ableton + Unreal Engine (editor + plugins) not running properly on Linux are the three only things stopping me from removing Windows fully from my desktop.
Are you still having bad issues with Ableton? I did until recently, but now with Ableton in a fairly simple Bottles setup it works quite well (for me, at least).
Do you have more specific needs where the normal way doesn't work? I'm no music producer, so there's lots of stuff I probably don't even know about, would love to hear your thoughts. :)
> Are you still having bad issues with Ableton? I did until recently, but now with Ableton in a fairly simple Bottles setup it works quite well (for me, at least).
Could you share the config somehow so I could try it out? Last time I tried to get it to work I couldn't get it to recognize my audio interface (USB class compliant, Steinberg UR44), and the UI was very glitchy.
I don't think I have any special needs compared to others, do fairly basic things. Which version is it that you've tried it with? Tried v11 years ago I think, and v12 when it was just released, but not since then.
I’m on Windows 10 and can’t upgrade to 11 even if I wanted to - my hardware is too old to be supported.
I’ve already messed around with a Fedora dual-boot, but now I’m fully planning to go 100% Linux once I get around to building a new computer.
Luckily I don’t really play multiplayer games so I don’t need to worry about the anti cheat issue.
So 2025 is going to be the “Year of Linux on the Desktop”?
"Linux on the Desktop" is great. I've been using it since 1994. "Linux on the Laptop" sucks- I just want my laptop to sleep and awake properly, without draining the battery. I'm old enough that I'm done spending time twiddling kernel parameters in an attempt to get all of the onboard devices working, including sleep.
> I just want my laptop to sleep and awake properly, without draining the battery.
To be fair this is _also_ a massive problem on Windows too, because of Windows Modern Standby encouraging laptop makers to replace ol' reliable S3 sleep with the terribly broken modern standby stuff. Macbooks and certain Framework models are the only laptops left with reliable sleep.
Old video but nothing's really improved since: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHKKcd3sx2c
Not a laptop, but steam deck sleeps perfectly. So it's not a Linux problem, but a laptop problem.
Meanwhile, Microsofts cannot even get their own Surface line with Windows on them to not wake up while in your backpack.
“Linux on the Desktop” is a 30 year old meme about this being the year that people will leave Microsoft en masse and install Linux.
I just want a laptop that has almost zero latency between the CPU and RAM and at least 300GB/s RAM bandwidth for data science. Not much choice there, unfortunately.
I know many people (myself included) that stopped using Windows altogether this year. Even accounting for biases, this is a very bad year for Microsoft.
“People you know” is anecdotal. We can look at broad base market share trends.
We don't have that data. You are quibbling on sample size but making no argument on effects. Make the case that this is a good year for Microsoft.
When the desktop environments unite and a single distro rises up as champion, the year is nigh.
> GNU/Linux as a whole has never been in better shape to catch users fleeing from Windows
It’s still in really bad shape, from a consumer perspective.
My recent experience with Linux Mint on a new PC is the opposite. I went from USB installer to a fully functional system with drivers, chrome, my fave web pages, and my fave games on Steam and Battlenet, etc running flawlessly without ever doing a single "techie" thing.
On Windows 11 I had to figure out that I needed hop on another computer to search, download and copy via USB some motherboard and wifi drivers before I could even access the Internet. A number of things in the system remain rather quirky and not entirely reliable, including video playback of all kinds.
If I was setting up a PC for say my dad tomorrow, I'm finally at the point where I'd rather give him Linux than Windows.
I have a laptop running Zorin I'm probably going to flip to Mint if the new release doesn't fix my stuttering issues otherwise I had the same experience. Also bazzite on an AMD desktop and my steam deck are a breeze to use.
They're right here and are organizing campaigns to switch to Linux: https://endof10.org/
Did you even look before you threw out a lazy negative post?
The “Linux demographics” were a bunch of 20-30 year olds who are now 40-50.
Same with the “Free Software” crowd - those 20-30 year olds are now 50-60.
Aging demographics that broadly failed to attract any interest from the next generation. Honestly though, why join? There’s nothing inherently attractive about either community. Hang out with toxic gamers on Discord and join a team, or hang out with toxic old nerds still on IRC for ideological purity. I know which one wins. Even professionally, I’d rather join a model train community.
You're being downvoted, however you're exactly right.
Speaking as one of those 40-50, I firmly believe once our generation is gone all those ideals will be gone as well.
Also everyone that thinks Valve will stay the Linux white knight after current management is gone, is in for a surprise, who knows what they will do with their assets.
This comment is getting downvoted for what is likely its tone of ageism, but I don't think that it's completely wrong: the original FOSS-activist community is now a group of oldheads and hasn't successfully made the same generational shift that maintained its original philosophy. Looking at any rant from Torvalds, the Linux programming community has often held technical elitism before inclusivity. "Open source" over "free/libre software" has found success not because of its personalities and community but rather because it is a meme that can be appropriated for your own. The counterculture I see in GenZ+ that is most interested in working with FOSS/public technologies is politically aligned differently and has more pragmatic goals (e.g. will use major commercial communications platforms such as Discord).
> considering this is on mac rumours
The findings they are discussing are from Counterpoint Research:
> According to Counterpoint, Apple's global Mac shipments grew 14.9% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2025, supported by demand for new MacBook models and rising enterprise adoption of Apple hardware.
But PC sales are rising too so it's misleading.
What’s misleading? All it says is it boosted Mac sales.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-truth#Selective_truth
Even that is a stretch. How are they actually discerning intention/causation?
Didn't we have way more layoffs last year? AI chase hardware is rolling out. Seems like a lot of factors could be involved.
Despite what both Apple and Microsoft are saying, no one is buying personal computers to run AI on.
Sure, but executives can be swayed by a shiny new sticker on the box.
Executives since the dawn of buying computers for companies only care about buying the cheapest computers with reasonable support contracts.
Executives since the dawn of buying computers for companies only care about buying the cheapest computers with reasonable support contracts.
If that was true, the various computer companies wouldn't spend billions on advertising to C-suite types, and fleets of salespeople to woo them.
Executives since the dawn of buying computers
Clearly you weren't there, or you'd know executives paid extra for the IBM brand because "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."
I am not saying the company is going to buy a big sales contract from Acer. But they aren’t trying to outfit their secretaries with top of the line computers. They are going to go to Dell and buy the cheapest thing that will meet their needs - barely.
There’s a sizeable community interested in running local models.
I think outside of a very niche bubble - not. Look at the average selling price of computers. It doesn’t jibe with people buying high end computers to run local models. From everything I am seeing it’s still less than $1000
It reads like a fluff piece by that webpage. A rumors site.
My 89 year old mother switched to Mac. She's not that techy but when Microsoft depreciated her Windows 10 system she asked friends what's good and now has a Macbook. I'm not sure this has been a good move from Microsoft.
The TPM 2.0 requirement is also bullshit. I'm sure there are good excuses but I know several people who have older PCs that still run perfectly fine and now have to move to Linux/Mac or buy a new PC. I've been offering to help them move to various Linux distros but in the end, there are going to be soooo many old PCs ending up in landfill because of this decision.
I also would have much preferred to stay on 10 (for various reasons) but my work VPN is locking out anyone using it (even though MS just extended the support deadline for another year).
For kicks I put Windows 11 on one of my retro laptops - a dell e6500 with 8gb of ram and it ran super well. I don't think it meets the tpm v2 requirements but it's wild we can't virtualize a decent tpm.
Many motherboards have builtin software TPM
The biggest issue with Windows 11 for me is the noticeable performance lag in basic apps like Notepad and File Explorer. Simple tasks, like opening files or navigating folders, feel sluggish, and I can visibly see windows rendering in slow motion. I’ve heard this might be due to Windows 11’s UI elements being redrawn over lower level UI. I’m considering switching to Linux as my daily driver.
My older Dell XPS Windows 10 laptop was due for an upgrade, and it was new enough that it supports Windows 11. Microsoft's end-of-life of 10, constant prodding to upgrade and Dell's terrible redesign of the XPS series made me look at my options.
I ended up with an M4 MacBook Air and couldn't be happier.
I decided a Macbook pro M4 pro was the right option for me, 48gb/36 accessible to the gpus with very decent tokens/s throughput for (increasingly impressive) offline midrange open LLM inference and huge battery life. Nothing in the windows world to touch it. But a few windows-only bits of software I occasionally use now run very happily in a Windows 11 arm vm on a free VMware fusion 25H2 on my mac, with a 5 dollar win oem license.
some Dell XPS series come with "Intel PTT" option in BIOS which provides TPM 2.0 functionality. That might open up the upgrade path, FYI.
All depends on what Microsoft allows - my Thinkpad with a Ryzen 2500u Pro has a TPM but they blanket blocked "Ryzen 2500" because the non pro doesn't always have a TPM.
Sure. They block older generation CPUs too regardless of TPM 2.0 support. There's just a possibility for some newer CPU models.
It seems like if you aren't gonna use Linux and you aren't severely cash-constrained, Macbooks are almost the only credible choice at this point?
Pretty annoying coz Linux is non-negotiable for me. I've just bought a laptop and it feels like I'm getting much worse value for money than I would with a Mac.
If you really need something cheap... Seems you are basically just screwed at this point, unless you are able to use Linux. Admittedly, I installed Ubuntu for my 70 year old mother a few months back and I haven't had a single support request so far. She's on a 2013 MacBook Air.
Was in the market for a Linux laptop for son who's entering college.... Dug through lenovo and saying that it's hard to find decent info on Linux support is an understatement...
Finally got an e14 g6 AMD.... It's not supported by lenovo for Linux but everything got Auto detected and worked except fingerprint
The bummer: suspend to ram is terribly broken and for a laptop that's a deal breaker
Yeah I'm aware of framework and system 76... They aren't here. The pricier lenovo options exist but at that point is just go with a mac
Ubuntu is an easy transition for older folks more comfortable with Windows XP through Windows 7. The desktop experience is much more familiar than Windows 11, and they aren't getting spammed with ads for Microsoft services and AI slop that they're skeptical of and not interested in.
As a person who switched from windows to mac (while linux being an all-time constant) for other reasons, it still feels like a weird migration because windows is a system full of glaring bugs that everyone experiences but knows how to work around while mac is (feels like) a system absent of huge flaws but there are many more smaller bugs that very small number of users experience that are seemingly impossible to work around.
One thing that's driving me crazy:
So for example you have 5 virtual desktops on Mac, and you use a keyboard shortcut to move left and right. So, if you start from the 1st and go to the 3rd and then immediately try to go back to the 2nd (1->3->2), animations need to complete on the 3rd until you can change direction. Doesn't happen if you start from the 2nd and go to the 4th then change direction to move to the 3rd(2->4->3). Same when beginning from the 5th to the 3rd then back to 4th (5->3->4). Doesn't happen with 4->2->3. Also, the windows which are visible on all desktops are shown until the animation is complete then the last focused windows on that desktop will be shown. And even with reduced motion, some fade animation is still there. Infuriating stuff for otherwise a magical experience.
Yeah, this is also true when switching applications, the keyboard events are sent to the previous application until the animations are completed.
The result? If you switch to an app to close it and use the Cmd + Q to quit it, but if you didn’t wait for the animations to finish, then you just quit the app you came from.
I think this bug was introduced like 2-3 years ago.
You can set hotkeys to go directly to a specific virtual desktop. I have ctrl-1 though ctrl-9 setup for the reason you called out.
> you have 5 virtual desktops on Mac
The easiest workaround that come to mind is to not use 5 virtual desktops
When Windows 8 and the start page came out, I convinced a lot of my end users (most of my 75 end users did over time) to switch as they'd have to learn something new anyway.
Now with Windows 10 going away, they are picking up the stragglers.
Made my life easier.
What an own goal by Microsoft.
What’s a one paragraph explanation of why 11 is considered so much worse than 10 for someone who didn’t use Windows since 7?
You are misunderstanding. It's not I don't want Windows 11.
For example, I have a pretty good gaming PC that plays Grand Theft Auto V at 4K and Elden Ring on low settings.
It no longer gets security updates. Microsoft has made the arbitrary policy that this hardware is too old simply because it doesn't have TPM 2.0 Secure Boot, and a certain generation of Intel or AMD CPU. They have decided it should go to a landfill.
Of course, I am more skilled than the average person, so I easily installed a hack to bypass these hardware requirements and get Windows 11 installed anyway. So I get security updates. But it's a matter of principle that I shouldn't have to use a hack.
Also, a lot of these comments are misunderstanding the question. Recall, Copilot, and ads are not the reason most of these people are opting for Mac instead of Windows 11. It's because they cannot install it legitimately at all. Microsoft said you have to buy new hardware, so they're buying new hardware.
> Microsoft has made the arbitrary policy that this hardware is too old simply because it doesn't have TPM 2.0 Secure Boot
There's stuff I don't like about Windows 11, but this feels kinda overblown. The hardware requirements are satisfied by almost anything from the last 10 years, which is still a decently generous support window. TPM 2.0 is probably worth requiring, not unlike the 64-bit migration back in the day.
Not 10 years. For example, another commenter mentioned the 7700 CPU which is from 2017. Keep in mind that 2017 was the launch of this CPU which means it was available to consumers for a couple of years at least. So presumably you could build a new system around 2019 which is just six years ago and not make the cut.
Microsoft is wrong to do this. There is LOT of capable hardware out there which can provide value. The TPM 2 limitation is completely artificial, as you can install Windows 11 anyway with a quick hack and it will work fine.
We have an HTPC with hardware from 2008 (mainly the board and CPU) which runs absolutely great. It still manages to surprise us with how capable it is. We are going to use this thing until it absolutely dies with no hope for recovery.
> Not 10 years. For example, another commenter mentioned the 7700 CPU which is from 2017. Keep in mind that 2017 was the launch of this CPU which means it was available to consumers for a couple of years at least. So presumably you could build a new system around 2019 which is just six years ago and not make the cut.
Apple seems to get a lot of praise for long term software support and the latest iOS doesnt support hardware released before 2019 as far as I can tell.
In fact Linux is probably the only major exception to this, and if you need commercial support for 10+ year old hardware it costs $$$$
> Apple seems to get a lot of praise for long term software support and the latest iOS doesnt support hardware released before 2019 as far as I can tell.
iPhone XR/XS that were released in 2018 indeed can't get the latest iOS (26.) The good thing is that security updates for the previous iOS versions (18, 16) usually roll for a year or more. Currently, iOS 15 (from 2021) is the oldest version still receiving updates (15.8.5 was released a month ago) and the oldest devices capable of running that are from 2015.
> Apple seems to get a lot of praise for long term software support
Not aware of this, and actually, it seems like the contrary. Apple repeatedly deprecates stuff and makes users and developers dance around a rather quick, and very unreliable software deprecation cycle which makes it terrible to do anything long term on Mac.
Plenty of examples for this. Just ask around.
MacOS is worse, my experience is that you might get ten years of support. The Apple Silicon migration is making it worse and shortening the support periods.
A 2017 MacBook Air can only run MacOS 12 - which was unsupported last year, giving a total of seven years of support. Yes, you can run OpenCore Patcher if you want to stretch the definition of support.
> Apple seems to get a lot of praise for long term software support and the latest iOS doesnt support hardware released before 2019 as far as I can tell.
Probably more relevant here is MacOS 26 doesn't support anything before 2019 either. And it's not because they dropped x86 support entirely, it still supports some Intel Macs. Just not many.
> For example, another commenter mentioned the 7700 CPU which is from 2017. Keep in mind that 2017 was the launch of this CPU which means it was available to consumers for a couple of years at least.
The 8700 that replaced it is also from 2017. The 7th gen was extremely short lived for whatever reason
Can you clarify what operating system the gaming PC I play Elden Ring on is supposed to run? Please note that Windows 10 does not receive security updates, and Windows 11 blocks the install because my quad core intel CPU arbitrarily didn't make their list, and my motherboard doesn't have a TPM 2.0 module. If you're telling me that I should throw this amazing CPU in the trash, please say it outright. State that you think millions of still above‑average PC components should be arbitrarily turned into e‑waste, so that they can't be passed down to kids without a computer, can't serve any role at all, because we can now buy brand new 10x slower $150 ARM64 laptops with secure boot. If you think that trade-off is worth it, and that a big corporation isn't just doing it as planned obsolescence, I just want to hear it. Keep in mind there's a third‑party hack to flip the bit, allowing Windows 11 to install anyway. That proves Microsoft could save all these PCs from landfills if it wanted to.
> Can you clarify what operating system the gaming PC I play Elden Ring on is supposed to run?
Windows 10 LTSC IoT.
I don't know, man. I'm just now hearing about this, but after quickly looking it up, I've concluded that I can't legally buy it, I can't install it as a straightforward upgrade, and some of my games won't run on it. So, if I'm going to be breaking the law anyway, I might as well use the hack to install Windows 11 for free.
Here's the info I skimmed
"Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC is designed for devices that need to run a single task consistently and securely for many years, with minimal changes. Examples include ATMs, medical devices, point-of-sale terminals, and industrial control systems. This Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) version intentionally omits modern features and frequent updates to ensure a highly stable, unchanging operating system."
"The IoT version is sold exclusively through authorized Microsoft partners and has a different licensing model. It is not for internal use on general-purpose PCs and purchasing it from third-party resellers is likely to involve an illegitimate or stolen key."
"Microsoft does not officially support or recommend a transition from Windows Home or Pro to a Windows IoT Enterprise LTSC version for regular users. "
"Some game anti-cheat software has been known to have issues with LTSC versions of Windows, leading to potential game compatibility or stability problems. Dependency on the Xbox app: Games distributed via the Xbox app or Game Pass would be inaccessible. Many newer games also rely on components from the Xbox app for proper functionality, potentially leaving you locked out of a title even if you owned it on a different platform."
1. First and foremost, if your only problem with Window 11 is the TPM check, just bypass the TPM check. My gripes with Windows 11 go far beyond this so regardless of the hardware, I am never installing Windows 11.
2. Microsoft recommendations serve Microsoft's interests, not necessarily yours. Look surprised when Microsoft "recommends" you dump your perfectly usable computer for Windows 11.
3. Microsoft will be fine no matter what you choose to do on your machine.
4. Look a little deeper into LTSC IoT. It's Windows 10 with security updates and most things work fine. Yes there are trade-offs. For me, who never installs aggressive ring-zero anti cheat software for games, it was a no brainer. I also don't care about Xbox or the Microsoft Store. Having these things stripped from my Windows install is a feature, not a nuisance.
I have a PC with a 7700k that doesn't qualify despite running circles around the crappy Pentiums and Atoms that did get the ability to upgrade. I get that they don't want to support ancient hardware but a good amount of powerful CPUs in the Intel 6XXX and 7XXX series, as well as powerful first-gen Zen CPUs got cut off for no clear reason.
As far as I can tell, Windows barely leverages the new features in TPM 2 for consumer versions and the code for TPM 1.2 still seems to be there. The intruction set also didn't meaningfully change, unless we're talking 2010 era chips.
I'm not using Windows on that desktop anymore so I don't feel too bad about it, but I can easily give my PC to a relative if I get a new one and they'd be able to keep using it for five or six years when it comes to performance. The only real obstacle is software support.
The interesting thing about Kaby-lake/7th is that other CPUs in that generation are allowed by MS. While there is the extensions support aspect, after spectre/meltdown I think part of it was getting AMD/intel to sign up to providing firmware updates for product ranges over the win11 lifespan, then cycle will repeat again for win12.
This was a late addition to the Windows 11 supported CPU list. The rumor is that this happened after it was pointed out that Microsoft was still selling brand new Surface Studio 2 devices that had 7th gen Intel CPUs.
10 year ago was 2015 mate, that's an outrageous time limit for a product you paid thousands for. If my bike EOLd itself after ten years I'd be livid. Imagine if your car just stopped starting after ten years.
Computers older than 10 years includes the vast majority of computers ever built. It's an insane requirement and it's not one that other OS share.
And the solution isn't hard work for Microsoft, the risk is mine to take if I don't want to upgrade for better secure boot.
Anyway, I migrated to linux for my gaming PC, the last Windows PC I had, and it's going really well. Good riddance.
> Imagine if your car just stopped starting after ten years.
Bad example. Windows 10 computers continue to work just fine. They aren't going to stop turning on
Roads don't upgrade out cars, but sofiware does.
From Microsoft's perspective you are running unsupported hardware. You're getting updates for now. But any future update might ban your system, disable your updates or even unintentionally break your system. It makes sense Microsoft are being more lenient about it at the moment, but a year or two from now? I wouldn't count on it.
As for myself, I didn't bother with Windows 11. Converted all my daily drivers who were still on Windows to Linux. On one machine I have a dual boot Windows 10 LTSC IoT just in case. This gives me 7 more years.
Honestly, big tech companies have screwed me enough times that I just sort of plan for it. So, I'll cross that bridge when it comes to it. My running policy is to keep all the files I care about on a Synology NAS that syncs to a backup cloud over my Wi‑Fi, and then have all my laptops and PCs just have easily replaceable common downloads on them.
I object mostly to Microsoft's pushiness. At every turn, they're trying to nudge/coerce the user to do this and to do that.
Example: "You should make a Microsoft account!" -> "You really need to make a Microsoft account." -> "Here's a full-screen Window begging you to make a Microsoft account, with a tiny skip button." -> "Here's a full-screen Window demanding you to make a Microsoft account, and if you want to skip it, you need to reboot and do this without a network connection." -> "You're going to make a Microsoft account if you want to use your computer. Just do it, asshole. (command line workaround)" -> "OK, fuckface, we tried the easy way, now we punish you with the hard way. Make that fucking Microsoft account whether you want it or not. I'm not fucking around anymore. YOU HAVE TO DO IT."
You can see this progression with basically all of their unwanted features.
My experience with alternatives (macOS, ChromeOS) isn't that different once you get past the setup screen. The privacy implications of an Apple account are much smaller than those of a Microsoft account, though.
It's a shame, really. Windows 11 has a whole bunch of nice-to-haves for development and gaming. They have one side making consistent improvements while the other makes the ecosystem as bad as they can.
Don’t Apple and Google require their respective accounts for their platforms and hardware? How is this different?
Apple does not require it, although in case of iOS, having one for AppStore is the only way of installing apps.
I'm sure there will be many opinions, but here's mine.
Win10 came with the computer that I chose for home use because it was a cheap refurb with a touch screen. It's fine. My workplace has switched to Win11 and it seems fine. I'm practically ambivalent about the "platform wars" because I rarely interact with the OS.
I've read about issues such as: Growing amounts of telemetry. Requiring people to have a Microsoft account. Switching to subscription models for software.
But I think a serious issue is that there's a lot of hardware out there, that's not technically obsolete, but won't run Win11 for whatever reason. Being forced to upgrade your hardware opens up your choices, and now this brings Apple into play. I'm in this boat, though for me, Ubuntu may also be in play. If I have to give up my touch screen, my options open up a lot.
At my workplace, we were a Dell-only shop for many years, but now we offer either Dell or Apple. Even if only a percentage of people decide it's time to try Apple, that's still a lot of computers. Maybe something has changed that made it easier for corporate IT (at a F500 multinational) to support both platforms. My cube mate has a MacBook.
Windows used to be software you bought, and could use with a decent amount of control (obviously not at the level of linux). Windows 11 is a front-end to advertise Microsoft's cloud services. There are ads for them (and also other ads) throughout the OS, and you can't really easily escape the nudges to use them. It also needlessly removes a variety of customizability that has existed for decades; the taskbar is locked to the bottom of the screen, for example, while you could move it to the left/right/top of the screen on all Windows versions since 95.
Being forced to use 11 at work convinced me to finally move to Linux at home. And for context, I was an early adopter of Vista, and remain a defender of it.
The start menu is now written in Javascript and horrifically slow.
The start menu is already slow in Windows 10. I don't think that's new to Win 11.
To clarify: Not that it is any better — The recommended section which serves OneDrive files is a ReactNative component.
It's full of little quirks and annoyances in my experience. I find it gives me random problems a lot more often than Win10 or Linux gave me. Wifi connectivity, unable to wake from sleep, video playback causing flashes. Nothing constant but all frequent enough for me to really feel disappointed and annoyed. Windows 10 was absolutely rock solid for me.
I don't particularly like the UI redesign but that's low on the list of problems. And I haven't been blasted with ads and AI things as other people report but maybe that stuff is all in the Home edition.
For a lot of people it's no different from the upgrade from Windows 7, they just don't want change.
The privacy invasions grew in Window 11 and the advertisement of Microsoft products increased quite a bit. The start menu now works better (opens every time you press the button, which I had issues with on Windows 10). Many people didn't get a choice to upgrade, which also pissed people off.
For the more technical-minded, the mandatory Microsoft account also pissed a lot of people off. Haven't heard any complaints about that from people who can't name a preferred Linux distro, though.
I don't need a whole paragraph just: Copilot+ Recall.
They fiddled with the UI and people don't necessarily like it, including the loss of some features. A Microsoft account is now mandatory and they replaced the default local folders (docs, pictures, videos, etc...) with OneDrive.
Hardware-wise a TPM is now mandatory, which means a lot of systems that could otherwise run it fine are locked out.
FWIW TPMs have been in computers (processors) FIR years, but they were often disabled by default by motherboard vendors because they couldn't be arsed to test beyond the bare minimum Windows required.
The move to TPM 2.0 made a lot of TPM-capable systems incompatible. Arbitrary CPU support also didn't help; there is no clear reason why some CPUs made the cut and others didn't. Seems like a mix between fTPM 2.0 support and SPECTRE hardware mitigations, but MS never really clarified what their actual reasons were.
It offers no tangible improvement or new features over Windows 10 but uses 2x the computing power.
It's not already on my computer, and changing that will cost me money and time and is something that Microsoft promised we wouldn't have to do anymore when they sold us on 10.
Ads everywhere.
One word: Ads
No respect for the user at all
Microsoft promised 10 was the last.
I’m not in that ecosystem, so I missed that. How did they phrase that?
* one Microsoft developer at a conference once
It was for me.
You must connect to the internet and connect your Microsoft account. There used to be a workaround using console commands, but that was removed recently.
Without a cloud account, you are stuck on the OOBE setup screen.
There are still working workarounds, I have a local user account on my Windows 11 box.
Copilot, ads, shit, copilot, telemetry, forced MS accounts, copilot, forced ms edge, copilot, forced obsolescence, copilot. I might be missing some other stuff like copilot and clean of shit versions like ltsc, but those are on the top of my head.
If I were CEO, I'd notice that smart phones, tables, Chromebooks, and a more successful Apple have shifted the market. Windows is only 10% of revenue, so I'm not about to throw it away, but it's declining, and it's my focus. I'd let the engineers do the big breaking change that they've been clamoring for and make sure a key goal is cost savings from dropping legacy platforms. This sets up Windows to go into maintenance mode in 2035.
So I work at Microsoft and will admit that the company has had many Own-goals over the years, but think about it this way. Apple provides software updates for a given model of mac for 7-8 years on average. Windows 10 came out more than 20 years ago. How long should they put resources into it?
>Windows 10 came out more than X years ago.
You're framing this completely wrong. I have a gaming PC that runs Elden Ring, but it lacks TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, and the right generation of CPU from Intel or AMD. So Windows 11 literally cannot be legitimately installed. And now, Windows 10 is being purposely left with security holes. Microsoft is dictating that an Elden Ring‑capable gaming PC belongs in a landfill. Does that not sound absolutely ludicrous to you? Microsoft is free to obliterate its compatibility and shun its customer base if it wants to. That's its right. But whoever has convinced you that TPM 2.0 is so important that millions of gaming PCs should be turned into zombie‑virus‑infested abandonware—sorry, I just do not sympathize. The fact that there’s a third‑party hack to flip the bit that requires TPM 2.0 just proves that Microsoft could fix this situation with no effort whatsoever.
>You're framing this completely wrong.
Why? Old Mac hardware are also powerful enough to run Apple's latest OS, yet they won't bother backporting it. You have to throw away your Intel Macs.
Same for ChromeOS hardware.
I mean, you're right, but Microsoft's planned obsolescence here is a shorter cadence than Apple's.
All the newest Mac hardware that came out in 2018 still gets security updates to this day.
But there's plenty of brand-new Windows hardware that came out in 2021, which now must be thrown away because it didn't qualify for a future operating system they had planned.
So we can gripe about it for the next three years before "what about Apple" becomes totally valid. Still feels messed up that the global monopoly holder for PCs decided e-wasting a billion of them would fly under the radar. Hopefully most people realize they can download a little bit flip hack to undo Microsofts check.
First, they released it only 10 years ago, and second, Microsoft marketed it as the last windows version. So yes, this is a own goal)
They never did that. It was an offhand comment by a developer which was picked up by the media.
Picked up by the media and Microsoft did absolutely nothing to correct until they decided they wanted to create Windows 11. They were completely aware of what was in the press and if the media message was "Microsoft says switch to Linux" they absolutely would have corrected the message. That they let this misconception to become as widespread as it did shows they were happy for people to believe it. That makes them absolutely 100% responsible for it.
Why let facts in the conversation when we can have FUD dominate it?
Three other comments are dunking on the OP writing "Windows 10 came out more than 20 years ago". It's probably a typo for "10 years ago" and OP is comparing it by saying Apple does 7-8 years.
Must be insider information. I thought Windows 10 came out 10 years ago.
The problem for me is the 11 interface is rubbish. It seems badly designed and unfinished. Everything was just shuffled around with no thought to usability. There is a limit to the number of icons on the start menu. The taskbar works differently in arbitrary ways and has less features than 10.
Windows 10 didnt come 20 years ago. You work for Microsoft and didnt know this? Win 10 was released in 2015 fyi
Are you ai? Windows 10 is a decade old.
I hear Intel in unhappy because enterprise fleets are replacing win 10 with macs.
Weird, because on earning call 2 days ago they claimed that w10 eol is significantly boosting sales
Both can be true. w10 eol can drive sales of new hardware and a subset can be using the opportunity to switch to Mac.
Clicking through the link, both Macs and PCs are up. And Intel can even be upset it's not more of an Intel mix, so all of that can be true at the same time.
but why wouldn't enterprise just run W10 LTSC until 2038 ?
there will probably be ATMs running LTSC even past 2038
Where are you seeing support until 2038? I see support until 2027.
Even if it was 2038, Win10 LTSC only supports hardware from the time it was originally released. That might or might not be a problem today, but it definitely will be problematic long before 2038.
sorry my brain mis-remembered 2032 wrong
W11 LTSC is 2034
even the commercial ESU for Windows 10 general release will go to October 2028
Apple is well positioned for this, it has never been so cheap to own a Mac before, and the price/performance you get at that price is unprecedented.
If Apple had released the rumoured budget macbook using the A-series chipset and take a shot at Microsoft in the marketing, I think they would see a surge of orders and converts.
The Windows hullabaloo actually made me want to move off Mac and try Linux. I tried daily driving Bazzite and Omarchy. It's funny how the smallest things can cause resistance to change. For me, the lack of inertial scrolling with mouse wheel and the different copy/paste shortcuts were the dealbreakers. Even though the tiling windows, lack of bloat etc was super nice
It sucks that DHH is getting so much attention on what is basically his personal rice in Omarchy, to the point that he's becoming a sort of face for "Linux with nicish defaults". He is a bigot who regularly engages in reactionary politics on his personal blog (https://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-pro...). I don't want this man representing the Linux community writ large.
Don't expect macOS quality to be any better though, especially if buying laptops running Tahoe.
It is really weird but at first it made me think of Bootcamp&Windows would be back etc.
Interesting that environmental organisations are not protesting at Microsoft HQ. It's a massive middle finger to nature.
Organisations of all kinds did, and now ESU updates are free for consumers in the EU: Microsoft conceded that they had to be according to some EU directive, although it was related to software and not to environmental factors.
My understanding is that this is limited and only to one year? Next year will be back to square one.
Microsoft is selling the ESU in cumulative year-long batches, so they're only offering Year One for free for now. But depending on how many people are left on Windows 10, it wouldn't surprise me if they extend it by Year Two just to stay clear of the Digital Markets Act.
As for limits, I think it's only a limit of PCs per account, but I think you've got that limit already for licenses anyway.
And of course it won't last forever, sooner or later we'll be on square one again. I've personally already migrated my devices to Linux, except for a partition to play games that require anti-cheats, and I'm explaining to my family what their options are.
they protested it both in the US and the EU.
Datacenters are the much bigger issue now. At least most of the greenwash nonsense has stopped. It wasn't that long ago that Microsoft was bragging about slowing down your PC to help the environment. Between Windows 11 binning tens of millions of computers and all the energy hungry datacenters, the corporate green messaging has been blown apart.
Protests rarely work.
Clearly they must not be serious about the environment then /s
Don't worry the bugs of Tahoe will turn it back down :)
On HN every release of MacOS since Mavericks has been an unforced error that will bring the swift, irreversible end of the Mac.
Seems to be pretty good in my experience, compared to previous .0 releases
Same for me, it has been rock solid (just like all the recent macOS releases).
Completely agree, Apple made a vast of unforced errors: beyond UI tastes there are bugs that could have been detected by a below average QA team.
But OS bugs don't matter as long as people can "engage" with the notification to subscribe to Apple TV+, or their new Apple Intelligence AI thingy.
(the payment process itself will likely fail with random obscure errors after being prompted for your Apple password the 10th time though)
What makes you think they weren’t detected? I’ve never heard of a company that fixed everything before a release
Apple has trained us to expect better. I pay the premium price with those expectations in mind.
I, personally, would _like_ a new laptop and am lucky to be able to afford to buy at any retail price point but I cannot justify spending on Apple at this time. Maybe they’ll course correct but it seems unlikely to happen quickly enough for me. Johnny Ive ruined the product side of the company and IMO they may never recover as Tim Cook doesn’t have the kind of vision it would take to pivot to making consumer first products again.
There are scores of Japanese &&/|| console games that were perfect on release and never received a patch or report of a bug in their lifetime.
Granted, most of them are pre-internet.
I assume you are not using the Apple devices in the same way as me. If my very small companies detect the kind of issues Apple have now in my own developed software, I would be very angry if there are not fixed.
Windows Vista by all accounts was far worse, and people definitely switched to Mac then because one of the best laptop Windows XP could be installed on flawlessly at the time was a MacBook Pro.