I ran debian as my daily driver for like half my life; now I’m on mac and never have to worry about my friggin wifi driver.
Have you noticed how bad the Docker experience is on Macs though, after how many years?
I think it is unjust to share strong opinions about previous issues that Linux distributions had without recent evidence.
Corporations have pressure points and there are a myriad of ways to contribute to the overall progress that each one wants to see for themselves.
Your desire for Apple to become an open system removes my choice to opt into a closed ecosystem, when you already have an open ecosystem to play in.
Yeah, I mean Linux is an abject failure, nothing ever works or runs on it. Nobody needs open data formats or open protocols for interoperability. Binary blobs for the win! /s
>Your desire for Apple to become an open system removes my choice to opt into a closed ecosystem, when you already have an open ecosystem to play in.
Don't worry, it's easy to lock down any open system and we can give you that should you desire it.
In the 1990's, Microsoft Windows had over 90% of operating system market share. They were a monopoly.
iPhones are only 58% versus Android in the US right now. That's nowhere close to monopoly. Globally Android has 71%. Android is thriving.
With Windows, you didn't have a choice. With iOS and Android, you have choice.
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
Presumably the DoJ wouldn't have sued Apple for being a monopoly if it was impossible for them to legally qualify as one?
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/gallery/justice-departm...
There is no need to have a "clear" monopoly like Windows in 1990's to abuse your power and presence in the market.
It's generally in the 70-90% range. Right now, it's much easier to argue that Android has a global monopoly.
> There is no need to have a "clear" monopoly like Windows in 1990's to abuse your power and presence in the market.
Well it depends what you mean by "abuse". I mean, even small companies can "abuse" their customers by not building the interoperability their customers want. But we generally prioritize individual freedom, that private businesses ought to have free choice in what they work with or don't. That's important.
That only becomes a problem when consumers aren't able to switch to a competitor. I.e. when there is a monopoly provider. I.e. which controls 70-90%+ of the market.
The only tariff change ever made on the appstore was as a reaction to an antitrust lawsuit and copied straight to Google. Just that is enough of a proof.
And that's a key part of the discussion.
They still bundle Edge, and keep setting it to default. But idc, it's just one of 1000 reasons I don't use Windows.
Microsoft tried to build their own extensions to the internet standards, like activex and proprietary DOM/JScript extensions, explicitly designed to lock devs into IE’s ecosystem. It's quite impressive that they managed to miss this opportunity to Adobe. And how Adobe then just... squandered it. I would expect that "being the necessary proprietary piece in significant chunk of internet" would have some deep strategic advantage, but both tech giants couldn't be bothered to do a good job.
For instance, try to play a video game on MacOS. While Vulkan is available on every playform, it's not available on MacOS or iOS despite the fact that it would take an engineer at Apple a weekend to implement (figuritively speaking). Apple are also killing off OpenGL support for MacOS.
Generally, Apple deliberately build a "dependence ecosystem" for their consumers on the product side while also actively preventing engineers from using portable technologies on their platforms.
The fact that MacOS is as open as it currently is is a miracle and I am sure executives hate that.
They create the fastest and most ergonomic mobile hardware on Earth but, outside of web browsing, video editing and some engineering workloads, there's very little you can actually do on it.
Re executives being mad: The thing is, they make money off Mac hardware, and even then its profits are dwarfed by iPhone and iPhone accessories. Which are of course locked down.
Imagine if you could swap out Siri for Alexa. The privacy guarantees are nothing alike. People buy iPhones because they prohibit unsafe choices.
If you don't like it (and I can totally understand why), there are numerous other smartphone makers out there with products that allow better integration with these watches and you're free to buy one.
MS didn't get into trouble because they went after competing browsers, they got into trouble for doing that while also having a monopoly on PC OSes. Apple doesn't have anything like a monopoly in this market (their US market share is about 50%, worldwide is around 28%).
If Apple makes a watch that can receive and send iMessages then there is no reason any other device shouldn't be able to use the same APIs that Apple uses.
It absolutely creates a system where competitors literally cannot compete with the same features.
