[nikitaga]

How is MacOS as enshittified as Windows? It doesn't have ads, doesn't push AI on you, their online services are trivial to ignore once and never think about again, etc. I haven't tried Tahoe, and sure, its new glass UI is shit, but merely incompetent UI design is not "enshittification" and is not in any way equivalent to what Microsoft does in Windows.

[madeofpalk]

macOS absolutely, definitely, 100% has ads.

Buy a new Apple Watch and notice that the settings app with have a [1] badge trying to upsell you to buy AppleCare+. They obscure dismissing these by clicking the "Add AppleCare Coverage" button and then having a button that says actually no.

[pixelready]

The undissmissable badges in settings irk me to no end. Using language like “finish setting up” in iOS to describe me opting out of Apple Intelligence by choice as leaving MY device in some sort of “unfinished state” is user hostile too. With the amount of effort it takes me to push back constantly on these dark patterns, I know for a fact all my less tech savvy friends and family just aren’t bothering and that’s what they count on.

Not as egregious as what windows is doing with copilot everywhere or sneakily flipping user-toggled options during updates, but it’s all some degree of gross.

[lynndotpy]

This, on top of the nonstop onslaught of advertisements for F1. It seemed like every one of Apple's services were pushing for that movie. They even put it into maps, wallets, into CarPlay (while people were driving!) It was surprisingly shameless.

It's certainly not as bad _right now_ as what you'll see on Windows 11, but this is something that will almost certainly only get worse over time.

[iwontberude]

Windows has third party ads and it’s so trash

[nikitaga]

My MacOS "100%" does not have any ads. But I don't use Apple watch or Apple online services, so that's the difference I guess.

You don't need to buy a Windows Watch to get ads on Windows though. They'll be right there anyway, and more of them.

[gverrilla]

Didn't know that was possible (not a mac user).

[rpdillon]

Agreed. And don't press the play/pause button on your Bluetooth headset, or Apple Music will fire up and ask you to agree to their terms.

[Marsymars]

> their online services are trivial to ignore once and never think about again

The workarounds to get rid of the nag to log into your icloud account on macOS are far more difficult than the workarounds to avoid using an MS account in Windows.

[latexr]

> The workarounds to get rid of the nag to log into your icloud account on macOS

Do you have an example? I have to set up macOS on the regular, and after saying no to iCloud on the setup screen, it never bothers me again.

They are very aggressive with trying to get me to “update” to Tahoe, though.

[Marsymars]

It's this thing I'm talking about, where I've got a permanent notification bubble on the System Preferences app on the Mac where I'm not logged into an Apple ID: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/344278/how-can-i-d...

[runjake]

I've been getting intrusive first-party ads in Apple's OSes for at least the past 3 major OS releases. News+, Fitness+, Music, Apple TV+, etc etc.

[nikitaga]

Surely we can distinguish MacOS – the operating system – from the online services provided by Apple that happen to have a native app?

If you are choosing to use Apple online services, sure, you'll get upsells I guess, as with any other online service. I don't use any of Apple's online services, and never see those ads.

[al_borland]

News+ also has a ton of articles behind paywalls, even if paying for the premium version. It’s an ugly experience, probably the worst one.

[bigyabai]

macOS does have ads, their online services are worse than Windows, and installing basic software like Homebrew and Git is like having teeth pulled.

Windows is absolutely miserable, but with WSL installed it's far and away the better dev environment. I say that as someone who dailies Linux and hates all three OSes.

[coldtea]

While macOS has gown down over time, installing Homebrew and Git on macOS is trivial, a 30 second affair.