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Windows 10 Deadline Boosts Mac Sales
- crims0n 1y agoApple is well positioned for this, it has never been so cheap to own a Mac before, and the price/performance you get at that price is unprecedented.
- pjmlp 1y agoDepends on where on the globe.
- tonyedgecombe 1y agoWhat an own goal by Microsoft.
- locusofself 1y agoSo I work at Microsoft and will admit that the company has had many Own-goals over the years, but think about it this way. Apple provides software updates for a given model of mac for 7-8 years on average. Windows 10 came out more than 20 years ago. How long should they put resources into it?
- windows_hater_7 1y agoMust be insider information. I thought Windows 10 came out 10 years ago.
- vasachi 1y agoFirst, they released it only 10 years ago, and second, Microsoft marketed it as the last windows version. So yes, this is a own goal)
- wongogue 1y agoThey never did that. It was an offhand comment by a developer which was picked up by the media.
- Mountain_Skies 1y agoPicked up by the media and Microsoft did absolutely nothing to correct until they decided they wanted to create Windows 11. They were completely aware of what was in the press and if the media message was "Microsoft says switch to Linux" they absolutely would have corrected the message. That they let this misconception to become as widespread as it did shows they were happy for people to believe it. That makes them absolutely 100% responsible for it.
- jack_tripper 1y agoWhy let facts in the conversation when we can have FUD dominate it?
- grugagag 1y agoWindows 10 didnt come 20 years ago. You work for Microsoft and didnt know this? Win 10 was released in 2015 fyi
- usui 1y agoThree other comments are dunking on the OP writing "Windows 10 came out more than 20 years ago". It's probably a typo for "10 years ago" and OP is comparing it by saying Apple does 7-8 years.
- geor9e 1y ago>Windows 10 came out more than X years ago. You're framing this completely wrong. I have a gaming PC that runs Elden Ring, but it lacks TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, and the right generation of CPU from Intel or AMD. So Windows 11 literally cannot be legitimately installed. And now, Windows 10 is being purposely left with security holes. Microsoft is dictating that an Elden Ring‑capable gaming PC belongs in a landfill. Does that not sound absolutely ludicrous to you? Microsoft is free to obliterate its compatibility and shun its customer base if it wants to. That's its right. But whoever has convinced you that TPM 2.0 is so important that millions of gaming PCs should be turned into zombie‑virus‑infested abandonware—sorry, I just do not sympathize. The fact that there’s a third‑party hack to flip the bit that requires TPM 2.0 just proves that Microsoft could fix this situation with no effort whatsoever.
- jack_tripper 1y ago>You're framing this completely wrong. Why? Old Mac hardware are also powerful enough to run Apple's latest OS, yet they won't bother backporting it. You have to throw away your Intel Macs. Same for ChromeOS hardware.
- geor9e 1y agoI mean, you're right, but Microsoft's planned obsolescence here is a shorter cadence than Apple's. All the newest Mac hardware that came out in 2018 still gets security updates to this day. But there's plenty of brand-new Windows hardware that came out in 2021, which now must be thrown away because it didn't qualify for a future operating system they had planned. So we can gripe about it for the next three years before "what about Apple" becomes totally valid. Still feels messed up that the global monopoly holder for PCs decided e-wasting a billion of them would fly under the radar. Hopefully most people realize they can download a little bit flip hack to undo Microsofts check.
- jack_tripper 1y ago>All the newest Mac hardware that came out in 2018 still gets security updates to this day. Yeah but that's because Apple also made the HW and sold it to you directly so they're responsible for both SW and HW. Microsoft did not make or sell you the HW in most cases, they sold you an OS (unless you bought a prebuilt with an Windows OEM license, in which case Dell/Lenovo/etc is responsible). I'm not excusing Microsoft's behavior, I'm just saying why they're not comparable to the way Apple does it. >But there's plenty of brand-new Windows hardware that came out in 2021 Like which?
- chairmansteve 1y agoThe problem for me is the 11 interface is rubbish. It seems badly designed and unfinished. Everything was just shuffled around with no thought to usability. There is a limit to the number of icons on the start menu. The taskbar works differently in arbitrary ways and has less features than 10.
- sylos 1y agoAre you ai? Windows 10 is a decade old.
- exitb 1y agoWhat’s a one paragraph explanation of why 11 is considered so much worse than 10 for someone who didn’t use Windows since 7?
- throwaway48476 1y agoThe start menu is now written in Javascript and horrifically slow.
- wongogue 1y agoTo clarify: Not that it is any better — The recommended section which serves OneDrive files is a ReactNative component.
- kristianp 1y agoThe start menu is already slow in Windows 10. I don't think that's new to Win 11.
- commandersaki 1y agoNot sure if this is /s or real.
- gostsamo 1y agoCopilot, ads, shit, copilot, telemetry, forced MS accounts, copilot, forced ms edge, copilot, forced obsolescence, copilot. I might be missing some other stuff like copilot and clean of shit versions like ltsc, but those are on the top of my head.
- jdsully 1y agoOne word: Ads
- eastbound 1y agoMicrosoft promised 10 was the last.
- tonyedgecombe 1y ago
- dehrmann 1y agoIf I were CEO, I'd notice that smart phones, tables, Chromebooks, and a more successful Apple have shifted the market. Windows is only 10% of revenue, so I'm not about to throw it away, but it's declining, and it's my focus. I'd let the engineers do the big breaking change that they've been clamoring for and make sure a key goal is cost savings from dropping legacy platforms. This sets up Windows to go into maintenance mode in 2035.
- Razengan 1y agoDon't worry the bugs of Tahoe will turn it back down :)
- wslh 1y agoCompletely agree, Apple made a vast of unforced errors: beyond UI tastes there are bugs that could have been detected by a below average QA team.
- mrits 1y agoWhat makes you think they weren’t detected? I’ve never heard of a company that fixed everything before a release
- eep_social 1y agoApple has trained us to expect better. I pay the premium price with those expectations in mind. I, personally, would _like_ a new laptop and am lucky to be able to afford to buy at any retail price point but I cannot justify spending on Apple at this time. Maybe they’ll course correct but it seems unlikely to happen quickly enough for me. Johnny Ive ruined the product side of the company and IMO they may never recover as Tim Cook doesn’t have the kind of vision it would take to pivot to making consumer first products again.
- wslh 1y agoI assume you are not using the Apple devices in the same way as me. If my very small companies detect the kind of issues Apple have now in my own developed software, I would be very angry if there are not fixed.
- Razengan 1y agoThere are scores of Japanese &&/|| console games that were perfect on release and never received a patch or report of a bug in their lifetime. Granted, most of them are pre-internet.
- Nextgrid 1y ago
- graypegg 1y agoHmm, considering this is on mac rumours, the title does make sense. But it sounds like the more accurate title would be "Windows 10 Deadline Expedites Fleet Renewels". The +17% in lenovo shipments, along with increases for HP and Asus, will all come with Windows 11 installation count bumps, presumeably. That would be the windows 10 deadline working as intended... damnit!
- hinkley 1y agoNobody looking at graphs will be able to determine if the Mac purchases are defection or full fleet renewal at hybrid companies unless the numbers are large. You can’t compare percentages like this when they don’t have the same denominator.
- jack_tripper 1y agoSeme though. What are the odds the increase in Mac sales just correlate to old Intel Mac users finally upgrading to AS?
- GeekyBear 1y ago> considering this is on mac rumours The findings they are discussing are from Counterpoint Research: > According to Counterpoint, Apple's global Mac shipments grew 14.9% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2025, supported by demand for new MacBook models and rising enterprise adoption of Apple hardware.
- varispeed 1y agoInteresting that environmental organisations are not protesting at Microsoft HQ. It's a massive middle finger to nature.
- gostsamo 1y agothey protested it both in the US and the EU.
- vachina 1y agoProtests rarely work.
- barbazoo 1y agoClearly they must not be serious about the environment then /s
- Mountain_Skies 1y agoDatacenters are the much bigger issue now. At least most of the greenwash nonsense has stopped. It wasn't that long ago that Microsoft was bragging about slowing down your PC to help the environment. Between Windows 11 binning tens of millions of computers and all the energy hungry datacenters, the corporate green messaging has been blown apart.
- debugnik 1y agoOrganisations of all kinds did, and now ESU updates are free for consumers in the EU: Microsoft conceded that they had to be according to some EU directive, although it was related to software and not to environmental factors.
- varispeed 1y agoMy understanding is that this is limited and only to one year? Next year will be back to square one.
- debugnik 1y agoMicrosoft is selling the ESU in cumulative year-long batches, so they're only offering Year One for free for now. But depending on how many people are left on Windows 10, it wouldn't surprise me if they extend it by Year Two just to stay clear of the Digital Markets Act. As for limits, I think it's only a limit of PCs per account, but I think you've got that limit already for licenses anyway. And of course it won't last forever, sooner or later we'll be on square one again. I've personally already migrated my devices to Linux, except for a partition to play games that require anti-cheats, and I'm explaining to my family what their options are.
- throwaway48476 1y agoI hear Intel in unhappy because enterprise fleets are replacing win 10 with macs.
- high_na_euv 1y agoWeird, because on earning call 2 days ago they claimed that w10 eol is significantly boosting sales
- jayd16 1y agoClicking through the link, both Macs and PCs are up. And Intel can even be upset it's not more of an Intel mix, so all of that can be true at the same time.
- not_the_fda 1y agoBoth can be true. w10 eol can drive sales of new hardware and a subset can be using the opportunity to switch to Mac.
- ck2 1y agobut why wouldn't enterprise just run W10 LTSC until 2038 ? there will probably be ATMs running LTSC even past 2038
- ac29 1y agoWhere are you seeing support until 2038? I see support until 2027. Even if it was 2038, Win10 LTSC only supports hardware from the time it was originally released. That might or might not be a problem today, but it definitely will be problematic long before 2038.
- ck2 1y agosorry my brain mis-remembered 2032 wrong W11 LTSC is 2034 even the commercial ESU for Windows 10 general release will go to October 2028
- tim333 1y agoMy 89 year old mother switched to Mac. She's not that techy but when Microsoft depreciated her Windows 10 system she asked friends what's good and now has a Macbook. I'm not sure this has been a good move from Microsoft.
- lossyalgo 1y agoThe TPM 2.0 requirement is also bullshit. I'm sure there are good excuses but I know several people who have older PCs that still run perfectly fine and now have to move to Linux/Mac or buy a new PC. I've been offering to help them move to various Linux distros but in the end, there are going to be soooo many old PCs ending up in landfill because of this decision. I also would have much preferred to stay on 10 (for various reasons) but my work VPN is locking out anyone using it (even though MS just extended the support deadline for another year).
- hypercube33 1y agoFor kicks I put Windows 11 on one of my retro laptops - a dell e6500 with 8gb of ram and it ran super well. I don't think it meets the tpm v2 requirements but it's wild we can't virtualize a decent tpm.
- vdfs 1y agoMany motherboards have builtin software TPM
- cbm-vic-20 1y agoMy older Dell XPS Windows 10 laptop was due for an upgrade, and it was new enough that it supports Windows 11. Microsoft's end-of-life of 10, constant prodding to upgrade and Dell's terrible redesign of the XPS series made me look at my options. I ended up with an M4 MacBook Air and couldn't be happier.
- bjackman 1y agoIt seems like if you aren't gonna use Linux and you aren't severely cash-constrained, Macbooks are almost the only credible choice at this point? Pretty annoying coz Linux is non-negotiable for me. I've just bought a laptop and it feels like I'm getting much worse value for money than I would with a Mac. If you really need something cheap... Seems you are basically just screwed at this point, unless you are able to use Linux. Admittedly, I installed Ubuntu for my 70 year old mother a few months back and I haven't had a single support request so far. She's on a 2013 MacBook Air.
- rraghur 1y agoWas in the market for a Linux laptop for son who's entering college.... Dug through lenovo and saying that it's hard to find decent info on Linux support is an understatement... Finally got an e14 g6 AMD.... It's not supported by lenovo for Linux but everything got Auto detected and worked except fingerprint The bummer: suspend to ram is terribly broken and for a laptop that's a deal breaker Yeah I'm aware of framework and system 76... They aren't here. The pricier lenovo options exist but at that point is just go with a mac
- cbm-vic-20 1y agoUbuntu is an easy transition for older folks more comfortable with Windows XP through Windows 7. The desktop experience is much more familiar than Windows 11, and they aren't getting spammed with ads for Microsoft services and AI slop that they're skeptical of and not interested in.
- sedatk 1y agosome Dell XPS series come with "Intel PTT" option in BIOS which provides TPM 2.0 functionality. That might open up the upgrade path, FYI.
- egeozcan 1y agoAs a person who switched from windows to mac (while linux being an all-time constant) for other reasons, it still feels like a weird migration because windows is a system full of glaring bugs that everyone experiences but knows how to work around while mac is (feels like) a system absent of huge flaws but there are many more smaller bugs that very small number of users experience that are seemingly impossible to work around. One thing that's driving me crazy: So for example you have 5 virtual desktops on Mac, and you use a keyboard shortcut to move left and right. So, if you start from the 1st and go to the 3rd and then immediately try to go back to the 2nd (1->3->2), animations need to complete on the 3rd until you can change direction. Doesn't happen if you start from the 2nd and go to the 4th then change direction to move to the 3rd(2->4->3). Same when beginning from the 5th to the 3rd then back to 4th (5->3->4). Doesn't happen with 4->2->3. Also, the windows which are visible on all desktops are shown until the animation is complete then the last focused windows on that desktop will be shown. And even with reduced motion, some fade animation is still there. Infuriating stuff for otherwise a magical experience.
- itopaloglu83 1y agoYeah, this is also true when switching applications, the keyboard events are sent to the previous application until the animations are completed. The result? If you switch to an app to close it and use the Cmd + Q to quit it, but if you didn’t wait for the animations to finish, then you just quit the app you came from. I think this bug was introduced like 2-3 years ago.
- vdfs 1y ago> you have 5 virtual desktops on Mac The easiest workaround that come to mind is to not use 5 virtual desktops
- overcyn 1y agoYou can set hotkeys to go directly to a specific virtual desktop. I have ctrl-1 though ctrl-9 setup for the reason you called out.
- commandersaki 1y agoI've been using Tahoe since the beta and Clipboard Search / History a new feature showcased in one of the Apple events and never worked. I finally gave in and contacted Apple support which is not an option during beta, and after a bit of back and forth and getting nowhere they were going to set me up with a specialist call; I asked to schedule it in 30 mins. I decided to do a last ditch effort to see if anyone was out there having the problem, and lo and behold the solution is Spotlight needs to index Documents which I had toggled off because I normally don't want to see those. Tahoe has so many signs of rushed engineering and lack or attention to detail; at least have some state machine notification thing between toggling Documents / Clipboard Search to inform the user they need both. But it is a heaps handy feature now that it is working.
- havaloc 1y agoWhen Windows 8 and the start page came out, I convinced a lot of my end users (most of my 75 end users did over time) to switch as they'd have to learn something new anyway. Now with Windows 10 going away, they are picking up the stragglers. Made my life easier.
- pjmlp 1y agoDon't expect macOS quality to be any better though, especially if buying laptops running Tahoe.
- RexFactorem 1y ago[dead]
- outlore 1y agoThe Windows hullabaloo actually made me want to move off Mac and try Linux. I tried daily driving Bazzite and Omarchy. It's funny how the smallest things can cause resistance to change. For me, the lack of inertial scrolling with mouse wheel and the different copy/paste shortcuts were the dealbreakers. Even though the tiling windows, lack of bloat etc was super nice
- __loam 1y agoIt sucks that DHH is getting so much attention on what is basically his personal rice in Omarchy, to the point that he's becoming a sort of face for "Linux with nicish defaults". He is a bigot who regularly engages in reactionary politics on his personal blog (https://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-problem https://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-pro...). I don't want this man representing the Linux community writ large.
- j45 1y agoWindows Vista by all accounts was far worse, and people definitely switched to Mac then because one of the best laptop Windows XP could be installed on flawlessly at the time was a MacBook Pro.
- aslihana 1y agoIt is really weird but at first it made me think of Bootcamp&Windows would be back etc.
- commandersaki 1y agoIf Apple had released the rumoured budget macbook using the A-series chipset and take a shot at Microsoft in the marketing, I think they would see a surge of orders and converts.
- bigyabai 1y agoDoubtful. They've already tapped out the white-collar classroom market with iPads, and macOS isn't getting good enough to convert Windows diehards. Frankly I think Cook is making the right decision here, the A-series Macbook is basically guaranteed to be a loss-leader compared to other hardware so you might as well drive current customers to more expensive (eg. redesigned Air) models instead.
- febed 1y agoThe biggest issue with Windows 11 for me is the noticeable performance lag in basic apps like Notepad and File Explorer. Simple tasks, like opening files or navigating folders, feel sluggish, and I can visibly see windows rendering in slow motion. I’ve heard this might be due to Windows 11’s UI elements being redrawn over lower level UI. I’m considering switching to Linux as my daily driver.