[envolt]

The iPhone has a very smooth process of upgrading the phone. You turn on the new iPhone next to your old one, it prompts and voila. It's like upgrading hardware of your current phone.

I'm unsure if we're at a point where these things are even feasible. e.g I have configured my MBP a lot, the .zsh file, home directory and endless configuration.

I would not be surprised if they ditch the kernal completely, and make everything an App (much like chromebook)

[timzo]

You can do something similar with Macs. Using Migration Assistant I was able to transfer all my data (.zsh, git repos, configs, Docker containers, everything.) Took less than an hour. In fact, I did this because I needed to upgrade my RAM

[gwd]

Yup, did this when I upgraded from a 2013 MacBook Air to a 2018 MacBook Pro. Everything worked great except for homebrew, which unfortunately had to be nuked and re-installed; but I can't really blame Migration Assistant for that.

[aws_ls]

I thought, the parent comment was talking about hardware upgrade on the same laptop.:)