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Comment by 734129837261 | Hacker News Reader

I'd imagine that, as people in poorer regions in the world get access to laptops, we'll see a big increase in free operating systems. Sure, you could crack Windows, but why would you? Windows 11 isn't really good, and cracked software gets no support. Might as well go for a legal Ubuntu with lots of community support and decades of online help for all possible issues. It's a modern OS nowadays.

The real question should be: would most developers WANT to use a Mac, if given the choice?

Personally, I think OSX is the superior of the two simply because it's stable as can be, takes no (and allows almost no) tinkering to get working. Controversial opinion, I'm sure.

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On Linux Mint myself. Moved away from Apple after couple years with OSX. I simply had too much friction on everything. Automation was fickle and poorly documented, package manager(s) bolted on and unstable compared to Debian/Ubuntu base, window behaviour just erratic unless tweaked and tweaked only worked for 80% of OSX apps and update system was a mess, half the stuff sort of updated correctly via app store but other half required their own install/update systems which in turn turned the clock back to Windows land in terms of updates.. not great. Also whatever software is available in OSX land is often half abandoned due to the churn on each OSX update which seems to burn software authors out more-so than is the case on Windows and Linux.

Felt relieved when I sold my Mac hardware on and could get on with computing, may well just be my usage pattern was incompatible with OSX but that was my experience.

> The real question should be: would most developers WANT to use a Mac, if given the choice?

If the decision is between Ubuntu and Mac, they will go with Mac because it usually means better hardware and build quality. I don't think that non-mac laptops have screens that can compete with XDR displays.

> (and allows almost no) tinkering to get working

I think that we tend to overlook or dismiss the amount of tinkering we do in MacOS. Installing certain toolchains can be a real PITA, we have to deal with homebrew, outdated utilities (thank god for coreutils in homebrew), and so on.

Apple makes perfectly decent devices, but I’d be shocked if there was a metric, maybe other than CPU power with good efficiency inside the envelope that they target, where one couldn’t find something where non-Mac laptops “can’t compete” with a Mac.

The XDR display is nice I’m sure, but there are laptops out there with 4K OLED displays…

I dunno. From what I’ve observed, Apple products are mostly nice due to the attention to detail and the fact that the purchaser can be pretty sure that nothing will be truly deficient. Other than that one time with the MacBook keyboards.

So many products are like: fantastic but here‘s some crippling issue. Apple skips that.

- speakers

- chassis flex / build quality

- battery life

Just because a panel is oled and 4k doesn’t mean that it is a good panel. I have a 4k oled tv and its contrast ratios are garbage compared to the laptop.

The panel in the 16inch mbp has variable refresh rate, 10k dimming zones due to the 10k mini leds, 1600 nits peak brightness, 1000 sustained.

It is impossible for the contrast ratios of the mini LED display to be better than OLED. Because the OLED screen can turn off individual pixels, the contrast ratios are infinite. With mini LED, the LED must be set to a particular brightness for a dimming zone. 10k looks impressive, but it is just a 100x100 led grid.

For me, I prefer a screen which can go truly black on a pixel-by-pixel basis. You might like the MacBook screen better, and there are surely some metrics by which is can beat an OLED panel (for example some people like really bright screens which OLED can have trouble providing). But it is not true to say that non-Mac laptops can’t compete with the XDR display. For any given metric, there exists a screen out there that is better, and choosing which metrics to prioritize is a matter of preference.

Not Linux tho. It’s a bloody boss fight to set it up on laptop just to have a clean install.. oh and it’s a different story for every laptop.

Poor areas will just default to yarr matey windows xp due to how easy it is to set up… and become gold mine for hackers to abuse

> Windows 11 isn't really good, and cracked software gets no support

Microsoft does not care anymore. You can use no product key, and you only lose some stuff in the "Personalize" menu and have a watermark. It will get Windows updates still.

LTT video showing it https://youtu.be/M3bezYerYxQ?t=474

or just crack it as you say. Cracked using massgrave activator gets Windows updates just fine. I use it in a VM.

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