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Not everyone who receives a computing device is the same one who set it up. I’ve told this story before but I’ll repeat it because it’s illustrative. Back when

Not everyone who receives a computing device is the same one who set it up. I’ve told this story before but I’ll repeat it because it’s illustrative. Back when MacBooks ran intel processors and bootcamp was both new (and explicitly unsupported) I spent a few hours assisting a new and very irate customer in figuring out why their new MacBook was having all sort of problems that as they described it were not possible in macOS or had already been solved by software/firmware updates. Turns out they’d bought their new MacBook and given it to their nephew who was “smart with computers” to set up. Said nephew decided on their own that what their aunt needed was not a MacBook running macOS but an expensive windows laptop. So they installed bootcamp, installed windows, shrank the mac boot partition to the smallest it could be and configured it to boot directly into windows. As a result, all their usual issues with windows were still present and firmware updates weren’t being installed because it never booted to macOS to run the macOS software updates. I spent a few hours with the woman explaining what her nephew had done, the general concept of an OS/dual booting and fixing things so she could use the MacBook as a mac, without losing data in a drive re-partition. The reality is that not every end user is making informed decisions about their devices, and not only does that harm the user, but it also harms Apple. From their perspective I spent hours supporting unsupported software and trying to repair their brand and reputation in the eyes of an irate customer for something that wasn’t even their fault, and caused by giving other people the choice to leave the curated path. That customer later became one of our better customers, but if they hadn’t happened to get the store employee who understood bootcamp, and who had a manager that would allow them to spend that time supporting unsupported software, they might have both never been a customer and been an active detractor.

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xp84 2y ago
It's really illustrative into the mind of Apple fans that your takeaway from this wasn't that "dumb opinionated teenagers make stupid choices" and rather that "It's a good thing we're rid of Boot Camp, and it should be physically impossible to end up with a poorly configured Apple device, the heck with the consequences for people who know what they're doing. You can't protect people from their absolute ignorance or in that case active sabotage. And the costs to society of having our only two mobile platforms both engaging in lots of anticompetitive behavior, are huge. Not to mention that if I want any choice at all in anything I apparently have to 'choose' Android, which I don't even like to use, due to the fact that in the US (and backed up by every job I've had) companies develop the iOS version of their app with great care, and farm out the Android version to some distant contractor, and since no executive has an Android device to even try it, no one above IC level even knows their Android app is a buggy pile of trash. All of this is not even due to any inherent qualities or policies of either platform, just that rich people all buy Apple devices.
- acdha 2y ago
  I think you’re trying too hard to squash a nuanced post into some fan binary where you’re either for or against Apple, starting with making a strong claim which the person you’re replying to never made.
  - xp84 2y ago
    GP post wasn’t that nuanced; it strongly implied that since granny gave her Mac to her silly nephew for setup and had a bad time, that justifies stripping the supposed owners of all Apple devices of meaningful control of those devices. An unsurprising take from someone who sounds like he may be a onetime or current Apple employee. I think what makes someone a “fan” is that complete trust of Apple to do “What’s Best,” a completely coincidental perfect harmony between “What’s Best” and Apple’s financial interest, and the suggestion that the platform(s) simply aren’t “for” people like me who want any choice whatsoever, and we should just F off to Android if we don’t like it because ceding us any control would somehow explode the “safe, easy” walled garden by its very availability, a completely bogus argument.
    - acdha 2y ago
      You’re again putting words in their mouth. That post illustrated that this is not a simple binary, having real costs to that flexibility. I think your feelings are valid emotions but they’re leading you astray by thinking that Apple’s customers are not making a rational choice. I also note that you can install non-Apple operating systems on the latest hardware and they even put engineering time into supporting that and making it safer for Mac users to do so.
      - xp84 2y ago
        I’m not even slightly worried that Apple’s customers are making anything but the best choice for them. At least the ones who are super happy with how “easy and safe” their system is. All people like me want is for there to be a switch to let us have the ultimate say over our computers. This used to be standard even on Macs until a few years ago. I admit, however, complete ignorance on how I’m supposed to install, say, Windows, on an M* Mac. As far as I knew, the T2 security chip or whatever is the decider of that, and I wasn’t aware that Apple made any promises that they’d allow such a thing as an OS that isn’t signed with Apple’s certificates. What you’re saying is news to me so I’ll have to look it up. Still though, I actually still mostly like “macOS” and want to keep using it, but would like to have the right to do things like turn off their dozens of permissions warnings, and assume full responsibility for not installing malware.

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xp84 2y ago

It's really illustrative into the mind of Apple fans that your takeaway from this wasn't that "dumb opinionated teenagers make stupid choices" and rather that "It's a good thing we're rid of Boot Camp, and it should be physically impossible to end up with a poorly configured Apple device, the heck with the consequences for people who know what they're doing. You can't protect people from their absolute ignorance or in that case active sabotage. And the costs to society of having our only two mobile platforms both engaging in lots of anticompetitive behavior, are huge. Not to mention that if I want any choice at all in anything I apparently have to 'choose' Android, which I don't even like to use, due to the fact that in the US (and backed up by every job I've had) companies develop the iOS version of their app with great care, and farm out the Android version to some distant contractor, and since no executive has an Android device to even try it, no one above IC level even knows their Android app is a buggy pile of trash. All of this is not even due to any inherent qualities or policies of either platform, just that rich people all buy Apple devices.

acdha 2y ago
I think you’re trying too hard to squash a nuanced post into some fan binary where you’re either for or against Apple, starting with making a strong claim which the person you’re replying to never made.
- xp84 2y ago
  GP post wasn’t that nuanced; it strongly implied that since granny gave her Mac to her silly nephew for setup and had a bad time, that justifies stripping the supposed owners of all Apple devices of meaningful control of those devices. An unsurprising take from someone who sounds like he may be a onetime or current Apple employee. I think what makes someone a “fan” is that complete trust of Apple to do “What’s Best,” a completely coincidental perfect harmony between “What’s Best” and Apple’s financial interest, and the suggestion that the platform(s) simply aren’t “for” people like me who want any choice whatsoever, and we should just F off to Android if we don’t like it because ceding us any control would somehow explode the “safe, easy” walled garden by its very availability, a completely bogus argument.
  - acdha 2y ago
    You’re again putting words in their mouth. That post illustrated that this is not a simple binary, having real costs to that flexibility. I think your feelings are valid emotions but they’re leading you astray by thinking that Apple’s customers are not making a rational choice. I also note that you can install non-Apple operating systems on the latest hardware and they even put engineering time into supporting that and making it safer for Mac users to do so.
    - xp84 2y ago
      I’m not even slightly worried that Apple’s customers are making anything but the best choice for them. At least the ones who are super happy with how “easy and safe” their system is. All people like me want is for there to be a switch to let us have the ultimate say over our computers. This used to be standard even on Macs until a few years ago. I admit, however, complete ignorance on how I’m supposed to install, say, Windows, on an M* Mac. As far as I knew, the T2 security chip or whatever is the decider of that, and I wasn’t aware that Apple made any promises that they’d allow such a thing as an OS that isn’t signed with Apple’s certificates. What you’re saying is news to me so I’ll have to look it up. Still though, I actually still mostly like “macOS” and want to keep using it, but would like to have the right to do things like turn off their dozens of permissions warnings, and assume full responsibility for not installing malware.