[kelnos]

> Either they are the best and everyone uses macOS

"Best" obviously means different things to different people, but at least by market share, macOS has never been the best. Modern Apple doesn't seem to care about market share outside of the iPhone (and even then, they are still more interested in the iPhone being a premium product than winning on market share).

I used to like macOS, 15-20 years ago, but now it's just power-user-hostile and considerably more locked down and buggy. That's not the way to be "best", by any metric I can think of.

[philistine]

> but now it's just power-user-hostile and considerably more locked down and buggy.

Sure, macOS has continued to secure more and more elements of the OS. They have taken a different approach than Windows and Linux, which both keep large swaths of the OS woefully insecure from third-party apps for legacy reasons. But for each and every new lock, there is a key. An incredibly secure OS that gives you the power to control what third-party apps access on your computer is the best power-user feature.

[YmiYugy]

Mac OS does some amazing things for security. An immutable root OS, sandboxing, very user friendly disk encryption. But there are certainly decisions that hold back the platform. Their business decisions have driven most developers away from the App Store. There is a notarization process, but it imposes a burden that many small open source projects can not bear. They don't have an easy way to run untrusted software in a containerized way (compare Fedora toolbox). Installing things globally via homebrew or a random install script is still the way to go.

[philistine]

> Their business decisions have driven most developers away from the App Store.

> They don't have an easy way to run untrusted software in a containerized way (compare Fedora toolbox).

The App Store is the way to run untrusted apps in a containerized way.

[chipotle_coyote]

I think if your app is on the App Store, it's kind of trusted by definition, isn't it?

[fcantournet]

It's "the way" that apple wanted it to be, but it's not the way that humans have chosen.

Typically not a great idea to be against humans, especially the ones that give you money.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> especially the ones that give you money

Last time I checked, their market cap was North of $3T, so someone is giving them money…

[makeitdouble]

They're also hitting the classic "strategy tax"

When Apple secured the OS from third party, they also purposefully closed the door on deeper third party integration to privilege their ecosystem.

macOS only being half as useful for Android users makes it harder to be the "best" for that swath of users. iPadOS being the only tablet form in the ecosystem will also distance other users etc. They just can't please everyone while locking them in a limited ecosystem.

[virgil_disgr4ce]

> now it's just power-user-hostile and considerably more locked down and buggy

Hm, I've been using macOS (alongside others) for the past 20 years straight. In what ways is it hostile and buggy?

[pmarreck]

Secure Enclave, having to use only signed apps and kernel extensions, stuff like that I imagine.