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by ajdude 1180 days ago
MacOS doesn't have the issues that you've described while giving you many of the same tools Linux has, in addition to support for most mainstream windows software.

And while macOS isn't as free as Linux, it's certainly less "spyware" than windows.

2 comments

Growing up in a developing country, until recently Apple devices (laptops/desktops especially) have been a bit out of price range for me. Although I can afford one now, my current laptop is nowhere near its end of life, and something in my soviet-scarcity-mentality-influenced mind doesn't feel right about upgrading just for the sake of upgrading. That said, Apple laptops look very convincing at the moment, and when the time comes they will probably be my first choice.
One thing that more than balances it out for me - my Mac's have a lot longer of a lifespan than my Windows machines. I have a larger up front cost, but get far more out of them over time. I average at least 7 years without having to do anything with my Mac's (and used my last two for just under 10 years) - Windows has improved dramatically since the 2000's, but I seem to either need to reload Windows from scratch on the same hardware to maintain decent performance, or upgrade hardware a lot more frequently than I have with my Mac's. Also when setting up a new machine I have found Apple's migration assistant to be flawless in moving everything from my old machine to my new one. I only deviated with my current M1 MacBook Pro because of the CPU architecture change - and friends overwhelmingly positive experiences with using migration assistant to move from Intel to AS Mac's indicate I probably wasted a bunch of time needlessly in setting everything up fresh.
One thing that helped me is realising that I should be selling ild electronics, so it goes to people that need it most. Instead of having it collect dust in the drawerr untill it becomes c dead and obsolete
Have you noticed Apple news notifications on a loved ones Mac in recent years? Happens even without a paid subscription if I recall correctly.
I've not seen this and I set up new Macs every year. Can you expand? You'd have to open the news app to see this AFAIK. Unless it was part of some iCloud on-boarding process which I haven't done in years.
I don't recall the details. Possibly may appear as an onboarding process.

I think in the same way we now see advertising on school buses and display-covered vending machines (even inside a state office), were going to end up with forms of outreach / ads in our tools unless there's more robust forms of support (could be paying, could be a more multicapital flow of support).

That only happens if the loved one opens the Apple News app, and grants permission for notifications. If they never open Apple News, or if they open it and deny permission, no notification.
Yes on iOS - but you can turn that off easily but installing News.app or removing it's notifications.

Microsoft makes it much more difficult, then wipes out your preferences a few patches later.

I’ve never seen this and if I did, I would just turn it off.