[rvz]

> It is baffling to me that Apple, ostensibly a hardware company (that happens to be pursuing services revenue the way a crackhead pursues crack), ridiculously flush with cash, doesn’t throw 2 or 3 of their thousands of FTEs on this.

Why should they when they have macOS already?

> Linux people LOVE laptops, and Apple makes the best laptops by a parsec. It seems like 10x ROI would be a conservative estimate.

How many people who buy Apple silicon laptops do it to run Linux on it? less than 10,000 or 20,000 people?

You should not expect Apple to care about what Linux users want. The closest you are getting from them is being able to boot a custom OS or kernel.

Everything else from the drivers to the secure enclave they do not care.

[drdexebtjl]

No one buys Apple Silicon laptops to run Linux because they can barely run Linux.

But if they could, Apple would sweep the market for Linux laptops. Macbook hardware completely outclasses even the high end options.

[rvz]

> No one buys Apple Silicon laptops to run Linux because they can barely run Linux.

Almost no-one bought Intel Macs for dual-booting Linux either (Unless you are Linus Torvalds and a tiny amount of people who use Linux on Intel Macs).

> But if they could, Apple would sweep the market for Linux laptops.

Not true. They cannot even run Windows on them.

The entire point of Intel Macs was for running Windows on a Mac which that cohort is just as tiny as the Linux on Intel Mac customers.

Dual booting is generally reserved for those who are highly technical, so I would not expect Apple to care about either customer anyway. So that was tested already and Apple still did not care.

So of course they also do not care about Linux users who have Apple Silicon Macs either.

[musicale]

> The entire point of Intel Macs was for running Windows on a Mac

That wasn't the point for Apple. After pointing out that PowerPC hadn't hit 3GHz (as he had promised two years prior) and that there was no PowerBook G5, Steve Jobs clearly explained the rationale for intel Macs:

> As we look ahead, we can envision some amazing products we want to build for you, and we don't know how to build them with the future PowerPC road map.

https://allaboutstevejobs.com/videos/keynotes/wwdc_2005

[drdexebtjl]

Windows on the Mac requires cooperation from Microsoft and Apple, and benefits Apple’s competition. It was always a strategy to get Windows users to switch sides, not to sell hardware.

Linux on the Mac requires only Apple’s initiative, and does not benefit their competitors.

> Not true. They cannot even run Windows on them.

Why does the Linux laptop market care about running Windows?

> Dual booting

I’m not talking about dual booting at all. Before Apple Silicon, if you wanted to buy a laptop to run Linux, the Intel Macbooks have always been a top-tier recommendation.

The market isn’t large, but it’s a soft power they’re giving up. Walk into a big tech’s office and you’ll no longer see only Macbooks, and it’s not because they have to run Windows.

[thewebguyd]

I don't think they would. What market would that exactly be targeting? Devs, who are overwhelmingly just provided macbooks via their employer? They'll still run macOS because IT requires them to.

Linux Gamers? The arm story for proton still needs work (hopefully the steam frame will help). Nvidia+Microsoft are working on it with that new surface ultra, but verdicts out on whether that will boot Linux or not as its specifically a Microsoft partnership.

General non-dev, non-gaming, non-creative users? I don't think they'd buy a mac specifically for Linux either. That market is much better served by Framework, System76, Tuxedo, Lenovo (thinkpads), etc.

And Apple certainly isn't going to win over any FOSS purists either.

I think the intersection of "I want macbook pro hardware" and "I must run Linux natively on it for my workflow" is a lot smaller than you think.

[drdexebtjl]

Developers, of course.

Outside of the US, macOS is not that popular. Where I grew up, no school had Macs on their computer labs, but they did have Linux. You could have lived your entire life near computers and never been in contact with macOS. I had. The first time I saw macOS was in college in a digital media lab.

I like macOS, but I do prefer Linux.

I can't ask for a Framework, System76 or Tuxedo laptop at work because they don't sell them directly and locally (within my country). They don't want to risk importing these machines, sending them back if they're broken, and not having a local replacement. But since the iPod, Apple has had a meaningful global presence, so of course, I can ask for a Macbook.

For a while we could pick Intel Macbooks and install Linux, and maybe I live in a tiny bubble, but many people I know did just that.

[GTP]

> Why should they when they have macOS already?

Because Apple cuts support for old MacBooks eventually, even if the hardware still works perfectly. See also my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48745199

[sneak]

That’s not a sales tactic. Apple supports their old hardware with updates longer than anyone in the industry. The recent ones have been due to the architecture transition, maintaining BC with amd64 has significant costs.

[GTP]

This is what I assumed as well, but online I found people who were able to update a ~2015 MacBook Pro to a version of macOS more recent than the latest supported one, and it still worked.

[musicale]

Both are true. Apple's official qualification, continuous integration, bug fixing, backporting, etc. takes more effort than a hobbyist getting things to (mostly) work. But the main issue for Apple is focus: Apple wants its product development organization to focus on the next new thing, not on the past.

I'm mostly OK with Apple's 7-10 years of support, but I also have older Macs that still work fine and that I wish were safe to connect to the internet while running macOS - without relying on various hacks or workarounds.