Apple's EULA prohibits you from installing their OS on anything but their own hardware- so they make their money there.
Microsoft trying that would absolutely kill the company- either by lawsuit or people getting up in arms over anti-competitive behavior. They make a small amount every few years when you buy a new computer, and hope you'll also pay for their other software (or give them data, which is tantamount to the same thing).
Given the upgrade cycle for computers, they are making substantially less (and OEM gets a massive discount over the store shelf price of windows).
Since they arent getting a massive markup on very well integrated, mediocre hardware, they need to sell more than just Windows. Office, SharePoint, etc are where the real money is at for them.
For free... Only after you buy their (overpriced) proprietary hardware. Where could I download a copy of their OS, for free, to install on my non-Apple desktop? Okay now do you see why that isn't a fair comparison?
It's pretty fair. You pay money - you get a product. In Windows, you pay money - you get ads and tracking.
edit:
To make it clear to people not reading the comment carefully, I'm not saying MacOS is "free". I'm merely saying that once you pay for the computer, the OS is included in the price.
And there is no additional monetization under the form of ads or tracking. Unlike in the Windows world, where you pay for the license, yet you are still being tracked and served ads.
I'm not defending Windows here, but you buy an Apple computer, you get the computer and their software. You can't get either independently without paying for the other, but neither could be considered "free."
>it is fair competition because in both cases you paid money for the product
The comment you replied to was a response to calling MacOS free, and was entirely about that topic. It's not a fair comparison to call MacOS free, that isn't justifying Microsoft's actions though.
Off the top of my head, Windows has advertised or directly installed Edge (are you suuuuure you don't want to default it?), OneDrive (in file explorer, no less), Office 365, Bing (in the system search bar), Xbox something or other, Candy Crush, Teams, Skype, and probably several others that I'm forgetting.
I would argue that macOS does have some advertisements , mostly for Apple services, they just tend to be cleaner and better integrated. (Also the free bit is a little fuzzy as the costs are baked into the hardware.) Microsoft is far more guilty however.
Imagine how nice Windows 10 would be if Microsoft didn't own Bing, Xbox, and Office.
Really where? I’ve never heard of adverts on a MacBook for their hardware at all. Only one is for iCloud and that’s if you got their 5GB limit. Other services for when launch the app for the first time and safari for when you use a browser for the first time that’s not safari.
* When I buy a new Macbook or upgrade the OS, I get a "walkthrough" of new features which tends to include integration with other Apple devices.
* Most Apple apps (e.g. Home, Messages, Photos, Maps, Podcasts, FindMy) advertise their integration with other Apple hardware.
* Only pre-installed browser is Safari, and the homepage is apple.com.
They might not be blatant, but I'd highly surprised if the marketing department isn't involved in their placement. They don't, for example, mention any competing products.
Also, there's no obvious reason Apple has to advertise the Apple Music subscription when I open the app to play my own MP3s.
>Imagine how nice Windows 10 would be if Microsoft didn't own Bing, Xbox, and Office.
Maybe I'm cynical, but if MS is adding ads to the OS that you paid for, then how much worse would it be if they didn't have these other platforms raising money to offset as well. I'm imagining your OS with a desktop that looks like a NASCAR car and driver's suit.
At this point they pretty much do. You can download an ISO of Windows 10 Pro, install it and never pay or register it and it will work fine indefinitely with no real restrictions. Last time I tried it, it just prevented setting the background image.
I've seen ads in the form of notifications. And Apple Music and Apple News tried to guide me to subscribe to those services even though both do have functionality that doesn't require subscribing.
Also the OS isn't free. When you buy an Apple computer, you're also purchasing a license to use macOS on that machine.
As others have pointed out, it's more accurate to say that Apple includes an OS with their hardware. Similarly, Microsoft includes an OS with the hardware they sell, but they also sell the OS to hardware vendors (their customer) or direct to consumer.
Now to say "virtually every corner of the experience" seems like a massive overreach. When you first install Windows, or buy hardware with Windows, you are likely to find some advertisements, i.e. programs pre-installed, and start menu tiles that offer other things they want you to install. And there is this obnoxious taskbar notification, which I abhor! It happens once after a major software update.
That doesn't cover nearly all corners of the Windows experience, though. It's just two items, and you can uninstall or dismiss the notification and it mostly never shows up again (except next time they release a major update.) About 363 days of the year, I will see zero advertisements in my Windows 10 experience from Microsoft.
Now, I'm not saying we give them a pass. We should absolutely be critical of these user hostile moves, but we should describe the experience using accurate terms and phrases.
I don't get the question. You can only run macOS legally on a Mac, there's no other option. And any new-ish (ten years or so) Mac is able to download the latest supported macOS completely for free.
So the OS is basically included in the product (just like a washing machine or a car) and upgrades are free.
Legally, you can run macOS anywhere you want. Apple cannot and has not stopped anyone from doing that. There is no court of law anywhere which will prevent an end-user from doing what they want with macOS.
However, you most certainly are paying for the OS whenever you buy Apple's overpriced hardware. Perhaps the receipt does not state this fact, but we all know that the only way anyone will get macOS is if someone gives Apple money. So, the people giving Apple money are all paying for macOS... And if you're one of those people, you've paid for macOS.
Saying that you're not paying for the OS is like saying that you're not paying for solar panels when you sign a 15 year deal with some energy company middle-man. It's like saying that you're not paying the full price of a smartphone when you buy it subsidized from the phone carrier. You actually end up paying more for the solar panels and the smart phone in those cases. In this case, you're most likely paying more for the OS as well.
If you want to play games with semantics, anything you want can be true.
> Legally, you can run macOS anywhere you want. Apple cannot and has not stopped anyone from doing that. There is no court of law anywhere which will prevent an end-user from doing what they want with macOS.
I think you'll quickly find out that's not the case if you, for example, start a macOS VPS hosting company that doesn't use Macs or that lends them for shorter time periods than one day.
> Apple's overpriced hardware
This meme needs to die, now more than ever (because of Apple Silicon).
This may be true for Surface Book- an uber-high-end device. But almost any other Surface device you buy through consumer channels has "Windows 10 Home" edition on it. If you want to use it for business to join a domain, you still have to pay the $100 "Microsoft Tax" to upgrade the edition to Pro. The last 20+ Surface devices I've purchased were all this way.
You've been ordering the wrong SKU then, look for "Surface Go 2 for Business" as an example (the lowest end Surface) and it comes with Pro for less than the cost of upgrading from the Home version.
If you're a Microsoft partner or resell there are also options available for ordering for use with Enterprise volume licensing.
Something something Apple makes a bit over 40% in margin on $1000+ devices, and growing even higher for their higher priced devices. They can afford to not have advertisements.
Same for me - but the problem is we have to continue jumping through hoops to hide all the garbage MS is pushing in our face in Windows.
Once every x months, I have to install a larger Windows update - which has me click through a bunch of screens AGAIN, having to avoid accepting some kind of ad-pushing nonsense and tracking.
Generally there's a few lines script that disable a lot of stuff like onedrive, app stores, blabla and that's almost all I did when it comes to those things
I did it after fresh instal and didn't have to do anything for years.
I agree that sometimes there's that privacy settings screen once a few months
iOS Music app regularly asks me about Apple Music subscription.
Every corner of my Windows 10 experience is not riddled with advertisements. All I have to do is to remove few built-in partner apps after Windows install which I'm doing every few years.
You're really exaggerating it. I don't like that Microsoft tries to monetize already sold Windows. But it's not that bad. Open web browser with a typical website and you'll have every corner of the experience riddled with advertisements. That's truly embarrassing.
Microsoft trying that would absolutely kill the company- either by lawsuit or people getting up in arms over anti-competitive behavior. They make a small amount every few years when you buy a new computer, and hope you'll also pay for their other software (or give them data, which is tantamount to the same thing).