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by graemep 54 days ago
> Aren't you contradicting yourself here a bit? If they're very loyal, there isn't much risk of them switching, is there?

That needs clarification. They are loyal because they do not try anything else and often make assumptions that other OSes are worse than they actually are. They often assume a lot of features (e.g. shared clipboards across devices) are Apple only. They will not take the risk of buying non-Apple hardware to try another OS.

> Product Cannibalization is always a risk, though it doesn't mean they couldn't actually embrace Linux and offer ecosystem integration there. iCloud integration?

It reduces the lock-in the have with existing customers. Having that lockin over the whole stack is what keeps them in the ecosystem.

> Also, if US administration changes, both US and EU regulation bodies will be back on Big Tech asses and for Apple to open to Linux to say "hey, we're pretty open" is another win.

I have less faith in the regulators than that. The push to open has never been that strong. No-one has challenged things like limiting software installation to the app-store, and Google is confident enough that no-one will to be switching to the same with Android in a few months time.

> Besides, macOS AppStore is not a huge earner for Apple, considering the platform is open, unlike iOS, so macOS users switching to Linux don't have to imply a significant loss of income from ecosystem spending

Not yet. They have the option of gradually making "side loading" harder (for our own security, of course) and increasing that profit.

1 comments

Well, agreed on all points. I guess the conclusion is time will tell, but I am sure Apple is legitimately looking into this on some level, especially since Steam is doing so well and keeps expanding Linux user-base.
I would be great if they did do it so i hope you are right.