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Well, they will get more people buying MacBooks, though they won't really use their services.

vorticalbox 26d ago
I do wonder if the margin on Mac isn’t that high vs the price and the services (iCloud etc) make up for that. Amazon do the same with the fire.
- coldtea 26d ago
  We know that the Mac has fine margins.
globular-toast 26d ago
They don't care about people buying MacBooks. They want you in their ecosystem buying i-everything.
utopiah 26d ago
What makes Apple valuable is precisely its full vertical integration. Nobody else does it at that scale except maybe Sony for consoles and Microsoft but both don't have the same usage coverage and thus integration. It wouldn't be economically rational for Apple to bring down its own moat.
- deanishe 26d ago
  Apple isn't Sony. They make an arm and a leg on their hardware. When they switched to x86, it didn't take long for them to release Boot Camp, so they could take Windows users' money, too.
  - esskay 26d ago
    They also make an arm and a leg on services, which is why its not in their interest to make it so you cant use them.
    - xnickb 26d ago
      It's not like users will just stop using the services. Rather Linux users will start considering MacBook as a potential laptop to buy. How could that possibly disrupt their Software/Services infra?
      - esskay 26d ago
        Of course they will. Why would you pay for icloud storage you cant use?
        xnickb 26d ago
        That statement is true for the users that both bought and didn't buy a Macbook (with Linux support). The difference is, the one who bought has paid money for the Macbook. I am not an Apple user. Do you _have_ to pay for iCloud if you buy the laptop? I don't think so.
  - coldtea 26d ago
    Windows dual boot meant millions of potential switchers, if not for anything else, as a list item to tell them "you could still dual boot". Asahi-on-Mac would bring in irrelevant numbers for a company of Apple's size.
    - Melatonic 26d ago
      They could also dual boot windows for Arm. Just like before. Assuming Apple did the boot camp thing again
- worldsavior 26d ago
  People whom want Linux on Macs obviously already don't want to be put into Apple's ecosystem.
  - utopiah 26d ago
    I don't have numbers on that but I bet purchase of brand new MacOS compatible devices is 99% or more from people who already have at least one or more other Apple devices. Sure they are probably thousands if not millions of (in the positive sense) nerds and geeks posting on HN about buying a Mac first hand, not second hand, solely to put Linux on it but even then would be a drop in the ocean compared to the remained sales. Still if you have numbers on that I'd love to be wrong about it.
pjmlp 26d ago
Folks are much better supporting Linux and BSD OEMs than buying Apple than then trying to run Linux on their devices.

I do wonder if the margin on Mac isn’t that high vs the price and the services (iCloud etc) make up for that. Amazon do the same with the fire.

coldtea 26d ago
We know that the Mac has fine margins.

globular-toast 26d ago

They don't care about people buying MacBooks. They want you in their ecosystem buying i-everything.

utopiah 26d ago

What makes Apple valuable is precisely its full vertical integration. Nobody else does it at that scale except maybe Sony for consoles and Microsoft but both don't have the same usage coverage and thus integration. It wouldn't be economically rational for Apple to bring down its own moat.

deanishe 26d ago
Apple isn't Sony. They make an arm and a leg on their hardware. When they switched to x86, it didn't take long for them to release Boot Camp, so they could take Windows users' money, too.
- esskay 26d ago
  They also make an arm and a leg on services, which is why its not in their interest to make it so you cant use them.
  - xnickb 26d ago
    It's not like users will just stop using the services. Rather Linux users will start considering MacBook as a potential laptop to buy. How could that possibly disrupt their Software/Services infra?
    - esskay 26d ago
      Of course they will. Why would you pay for icloud storage you cant use?
      - xnickb 26d ago
        That statement is true for the users that both bought and didn't buy a Macbook (with Linux support). The difference is, the one who bought has paid money for the Macbook. I am not an Apple user. Do you _have_ to pay for iCloud if you buy the laptop? I don't think so.
- coldtea 26d ago
  Windows dual boot meant millions of potential switchers, if not for anything else, as a list item to tell them "you could still dual boot". Asahi-on-Mac would bring in irrelevant numbers for a company of Apple's size.
  - Melatonic 26d ago
    They could also dual boot windows for Arm. Just like before. Assuming Apple did the boot camp thing again
worldsavior 26d ago
People whom want Linux on Macs obviously already don't want to be put into Apple's ecosystem.
- utopiah 26d ago
  I don't have numbers on that but I bet purchase of brand new MacOS compatible devices is 99% or more from people who already have at least one or more other Apple devices. Sure they are probably thousands if not millions of (in the positive sense) nerds and geeks posting on HN about buying a Mac first hand, not second hand, solely to put Linux on it but even then would be a drop in the ocean compared to the remained sales. Still if you have numbers on that I'd love to be wrong about it.

pjmlp 26d ago

Folks are much better supporting Linux and BSD OEMs than buying Apple than then trying to run Linux on their devices.