[Kukumber]

why would you use windows nowadays?

why would you use windows with ARM?

m1 mini let's you build apps for the biggest OS on the market (iOS)

macOS is the industry standard when it comes to audio/photo/video production

office? everyone uses a web interface, even slack has a web interface

and it makes even more sense to compare both, specially considering we are headed towards a giant recession due to rising cost of energy and the anti-carbon policies that will come will affect the companies that are wasting energy with inefficient machines

it's mindbloging that people put this much energy defending qualcomm contract, it literally is putting the west at a disadvantage against China

it makes perfect sense to compare it with the apple chip, you are blind if you think otherwise, to stay polite

[nvrspyx]

> why would you use windows nowadays?

- Gaming

- Cheaper hardware options than Macs

- Commercial software support (e.g., Adobe, Autodesk, Affinity, Office, etc.)

- Better hardware support (e.g., Nvidia graphics cards)

- Easier Linux VM setup with WSL and x86(_64) support than Mac (i.e., requires ARM iso or the hassle of setting up Rosetta)

- Piecemeal hardware upgradability

- Less hassle than Linux, depending on hardware configuration and needs

- Smoother experience for some things like (HiDPI) multi-monitor setups and video playback than Linux with the current state of Wayland and the recent drop of third-party codecs by multiple distros

Some of these apply to Mac and some of these apply to Linux, but only Windows has all of these characteristics. Windows is far from perfect, but it is the best tool for some jobs. People also simply have different preferences and trade-off priorities, whether it be in regards to usability, affordability, privacy, or anything else.

[smackeyacky]

This is a good list, although for me I find it less and less compelling as more of my development tools become either fully cross-platform or web based completely and distributions like Pop! make hardware support easier.

- Gaming - no question windows is still better.

- Less hassle? - I find that questionable these days. Windows 11 has broken this somewhat.

I like WSL2 but for the last couple of years I've found it easier to reboot into Linux for dev work and just switch back to Windows for gaming.

[cooldown_00001]

> - Gaming

Mobile/Console gaming got a bigger market share

> - Cheaper hardware options than Macs

That's a valid point, although Chromebooks are better in that regard

> - Commercial software support (e.g., Adobe, Autodesk, Affinity, Office, etc.)

They support macOS too, and since they are moving to web interfaces the OS not longer matter (support Chromium / Safari / Firefox)

> - Better hardware support (e.g., Nvidia graphics cards)

Both NVIDIA / AMD offered their PRO products for a very long time on macOS

macOS also has better audio hardware support out of the box, and that includes manipulating RAW photos too ;)

> - Easier Linux VM setup with WSL and x86(_64) support than Mac (i.e., requires ARM iso or the hassle of setting up Rosetta)

That's not true, macOS doesn't need a linux VM when most of the core unix tools are available out of the box

And in that case, WSL doesn't work with the ARM windows ;)

> - Piecemeal hardware upgradability

Professionals don't care about this, they replace their machines every few years (ebay is flooded with cheap thinkpad laptops)

> - Less hassle than Linux, depending on hardware configuration and needs

Nobody waste their time constantly "configuring" their machines, it's setup once then they use it, it's valid for Windows/macOS/linux and mobile OSs, most of the settings are blocked by the sys admin anyways

> - Smoother experience for some things like (HiDPI) multi-monitor setups and video playback than Linux with the current state of Wayland and the recent drop of third-party codecs by multiple distros

Linux? linux is not meant to be a "univernal ready2go plug'n'play" OS, it's meant to scale from embedded to datacenters, you have to configure it to work the way you want, it's by design and the reason why people use it to begin with

[pjmlp]

People use it because it is a free beer UNIX clone, they wouldn't otherwise if there was a price tag on it.

We would have kept using Solaris, Aix, HP-UX, Tru64,...

[thebitstick]

All valid and true points on x86_64.

Windows on ARM ruins everything Windows offers.

- No gaming due to poor emulation

- Usually pricy Surface devices

- macOS on ARM has waaaaay better commercial support

- Do any WoA devices even have USB4?

- WSL still exists, and is better than anything on the Mac

- No hardware upgradability

- More hassle than Linux, since everything is compiled natively for aarch64

[neogodless]

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share

Android 42%

Windows 30%

iOS 18%

> everyone uses a web interface

Can you provide some global statistics for this claim? I don't believe it's accurate, but I don't have a good way to measure or disprove it.

[scarface74]

And where are the most affluent users? Do you think Google would be paying Apple 18B+ a year to be the default search engine if the 18% of mobile users weren’t valuable?

[Kukumber]

It's clear in that graph

Look around you, look what tech companies uses to make their products (hint: electron)

Microsoft moving their Office suite to the web should give you an indication where they want to take Windows, due to new usages

Global market share is a fake metric, what grandma's PC from 2006 has to do with todays usages?

It's true for everything, gaming, music, video, even art [1]

"Photoshop's journey to the web"

[1] - https://web.dev/ps-on-the-web/

[hota_mazi]

OP debunks your claims with solid statistics and the best way you can respond is "Look around you"?

You fandom for all things Apple make you a bit blind to reality, I suggest you look at things with more nuance and actually document yourself with actual numbers. You might be surprised by what you find.

[cooldown_00001]

debunk what? number of people visiting that weird website that includes `gs.statcounter` javascript tracker?

can we stop with macOS vs windows, it's clearly not the point

that was in response to:

> Comparing this to an M1 Mini is a bit odd since they're not competing with each other at all

to that it started with the evolution of the usages and why the OS/Machine no longer matter since the products target them all

so again, comparing both makes perfect sense

the people who add value, are using certain kind of devices

why did microsoft invest into Teams web interface first, and more than their native counterpart?

why was zoom the most popular product (it's a webapp), for visio conference, despite skype existing for years during the pandemic?

why is adobe investing into porting photoshop to the web?

why is microsoft investing into cloud gaming?

you have to filter out the noise if you want to have a proper analysis, and to properly project

when one say look around, it's not looking at your neighborhood, it's about looking at other stats/metrics

[mynameisvlad]

> what grandma's PC from 2006 has to do with todays usages?

I mean, grandma clearly uses her PC for it to be included in a global market share, so why do you think her use should be discounted?

Even if her usage is considered "niche" (debatable as that is), it doesn't mean it shouldn't be included.

[Kukumber]

windows has 0 market value, most of the usage comes from zombie machines

it even dropped in revenue in their latest report

https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-msft-q1-earnings-repo...

[bilekas]

> windows has 0 market value, most of the usage comes from zombie machines

Have you ever worked in an enterprise environment ?

[z3phyr]

> Why would you use windows nowadays.

1) PC Gaming is a big market mover.

2) (Underrated) As a systems developer, Visual Studio is one of the best development environments I have ever used. VS for windows is the real one, VS for mac is a totally different software.

[scarface74]

1. PC gaming is tiny in the grand scheme of things.

https://kevurugames.com/blog/mobile-gaming-vs-pc-gaming-over...

[pjmlp]

In revenue kind of, but not on the AAA titles it shares with XBox.

[jhoechtl]

> m1 mini let's you build apps for the biggest OS on the market (iOS)

Mobile OS it's Android,Desktop is Windows.

> office? everyone uses a web interface, even slack has a web interface

Huh? Microsoft Word on Windows native?

> companies that are wasting energy with inefficient machines

I bet your usage of cloud office burns more energy than an native app.

[scarface74]

> Mobile OS it's Android,Desktop is Windows

Money is not in Android development compared to iOS.

And M1 Macs are faster for Android development than Windows

https://habr.com/ru/company/surfstudio/blog/646677/

[rekoil]

> Huh? Microsoft Word on Windows native?

I think the commenter is trying to say that it's not something you need a Windows device for anymore.

I agree with that sentiment, but disagree about web-based Word, web-based Word is terrible, we often joke in my team that we need to start over if someone accidentally opens a SharePoint document in web-based Word.

[rejectfinite]

>why would you use windows nowadays?

One thing people have not mentioned is Enterprise.

Just because its all webapps does not mean everyone can move to a Chromebook.

The ecosystem of HP/DELL/Lenovo Thinkpad hardware + Windows 10/11 OS + management over Azure AD or on-prem AD that hooks into Office 365 and most other apps. Plus all ERP and HR software that run on Windows Servers.

Yes the USERS are mostly on the Office 365 suite and webapps for things. But their PCs have to be managed and apps have to be served.

[scarface74]

I know of a very large company - the second largest employer in the US has no problem managing Macs at scale.

[rejectfinite]

Jamf is a thing, yes I know :)

[TheLoafOfBread]

I can user 2 or more monitors without actually losing my sanity.

[rekoil]

macOS is very clearly optimised towards laptops in this regard, which makes sense since they sell waaaay more of those than they do stationary.

It's been a while since I used Windows on a laptop, about 2 years (so Windows 10 20H2 was likely the last I used on a laptop). Back then un-docking and re-docking my laptop was a pain because it would smoosh all app windows to the primary monitor, and I'd have to move everything around on my 3 monitors when re-docking. Every. Single. Time.

Those had different DPIs as well, with all the issues that brought.

I can't actually recall a time when macOS was that bad at managing my app windows when changing monitor configurations, but I'll give you that Windows is better at window management if all displays stay connected and have the same DPI.

Has Windows gotten better at these things?

[TheLoafOfBread]

If you have icons on 2 monitors and then you disconnect 1, yes icons are everywhere. When you will reconnect the second one, it will restore as it was. I do not know how it is working (or not) on laptops and monitors combinations as I have desktop PC with 2 monitors.

[rekoil]

I'm not so worried about icons, I don't really use the desktop, in fact I actually disable desktop icons on my macOS laptop.

I'm more interested in what happens to app windows when you remove and reconnect displays.

[flohofwoe]

> why would you use windows nowadays?

PC games, plain and simple.

[Melatonic]

macOS is the standard for prosumer audio/photo/video production - not for the actual pro market. VFX mainly uses Linux or Windows desktops and the top compositing applications arent even made for macOS.

Not to mention all of the stuff that requires CUDA to run and the fact that Apple made their bed with AMD a long time ago and you can no longer use Nvidia GPUs.