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by brailsafe 15 days ago
> MacOS on the other hand is full of ecosystem features, improving collaboration, connectivity, handoff across devices, etc.

True, but if you're only in the ecosystem as a mac user, in many ways it's felt like a mixed bag. I still wildly prefer mac over other operating systems, but if upgrades had a price, I think those sales would mostly go to iPhone users. Even at free, I'm yet to find a compelling reason to install Tahoe, and will probably just continue waiting until the next one.
2 comments
rickdeckard 14 days ago
Agree, it's a fairly closed ecosystem, that's why I personally don't use it.

But despite that, as a Windows user I acknowledge that any kind of interaction with another Mac from within MacOS (Handoff, Sidecar, Universal Control, Bluetooth-pairing to Apple-ID instead of Hardware MAC-ID,...) is leaps ahead of what Microsoft was doing with their OS for the past years.

Just the scenario of an employee getting a Windows laptop as a work-PC, there's barely any halo-effect if he/she also uses Windows at home. No easier handoff, no interaction, hardly any "just-works" connectivity.

Windows is mostly a vessel for the (legacy) applications it can run, and for these Browser-based Microsoft Online-Applications (which work equally-well on other platforms)

They didn't invest in creating "just works" frameworks for their PCs which amplify the ecosystem the more compatible devices you have, instead most of their focus is now on "just-works" stuff in the cloud.

So if Microsoft would make a clean cut on backwards-compatibility, I'm not sure there would be a reason left for most B2C users to even stay with Windows.

The "you can make it work if you invest a bit of time or google it" paradigm is nowadays well-covered by Linux already, and it's getting even harder for brands to compete on price/quality with Apple's scale, for almost any portable device...

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brailsafe 14 days ago
Ya I agree. I'm primarily a Mac and Android user, but also use Windows for gaming, and Windows has never been particularly good at anything. It's never been a smooth user experience.

Recently I upgraded my motherboard and tried reinstalling Win10 Pro, but couldn't activate it despite saving the product key. They have at least THREE obscure flows for re-activation depending on how it was originally activated. The license in my flow needed to have been bound to a Microsoft account that I never previously needed, because it ties itself to the hardware. I had to dismantle and rebuild with my old installation, activate it with my old motherboard on a Microsoft account that I wasn't planning to use to login with, then rebuild again with my new components, sign in to activate, and then disable sign in to be able to use a local user account. Insane.

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msh 14 days ago
For me this feature is worth upgrading over: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/you-can-finally-manag...
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brailsafe 14 days ago
Hmm, that actually is an important difference. I was considering trying to set something like this up so I didn't have to bring two laptops with me while traveling, but was skeptical it would go smoothly, apparently for good reason.
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