Apple Confirms Mac Pro Is Dead, No Future Models Planned

[jlc1978]

Yeah, as long as MS continues to serve their enterprise clientele adequately enough.

Yea, they are so entrenched that it's hard to replace them as long as the tools work. People have invested a lot of time learning Office and creating docs/presentations/spreadsheets that switching costs would be huge and switching disruptive.

But I think it’s more fragile than it seems. In the consumer space, Google Docs has already dethroned them.

Consumer/home users have lots of options since they generally don't need to collaborate much or send professional documents to clients/coworkers. For Apple users, Apple's own suite is more than adequate. For my work, Office is a must since that's what my clients use, so I simply use it at home as well because I know how to use it and switching between suites is a pain. However, many small business could get by just fine with Apple's suite as an all Apple shop.

I don’t know if Google actively procures enterprise clients, but if these trends continue, MS might yet see their dominance in that space challenged as well.

I'm sure they do, they try to sell me on Google Docs for business as part of my subscription. The biggest barrier, is suspect, for many companies is security. I have clients that want their stuff on an encrypted drive, and some who want me to use their furnished laptop (with Win11, of course). Even those who don't care that I use my own machine are reticent about sticking all their stuff on the cloud.

In my case, I can't always ensure I have internet access so cloud based work is a no go from the start. Storage, sure, but that I encrypt before storing using software on my machine.

 

[jlc1978]

We need the 1.5 TB RAM for scientific data processing and analysis

Yea, at some point you'll outgrow Apple's offerings and need specialized niche products; which are markets Apple isn't interested in pursuing. Apple, in many ways, is no longer a computer company, at least not like it was way back when. Computers are an increasingly small part of their business; not unimportant but not steering the ship. They are now part of an ecosystem, which is aimed at consumers and mainstream businesses. They push heavily for small businesses, for example.

 

[Dreamail]

I'm sure they do, they try to sell me on Google Docs for business as part of my subscription. The biggest barrier, is suspect, for many companies is security.

The company I work for uses Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office.
And personally I find it a nightmare. The UI of Google's offerings seem like Microsoft Office from 1990. Way before they revamped it for the Mac with Microsoft Office Mac 1998.
In Google Docs, everything works clunky and nothing works the way you'd expect it.

A positive part is that you can have multiple users collaborate on one document or spreadsheet at the same time.

But the negative part is that Google Drive is a nightmare when it comes to access privileges. Most users don't realize how to use it properly. And even if you do, once you block printing and downloading the viewing experience becomes abysmal.
.mov files look terrible, compared to the same movie as .mp4 - I bet it's a deliberate kick against Apple's format.

Apart from collaboration, there is very little positive in Google Docs, IMHO.
And license costs are constantly increasing. To the point that my company is starting to regret going with Google.
They are actively testing Linux and its alternatives now.


As I had mentioned in other posts, sadly Macs are also on the way out as high-end uses become more and more difficult.

Which is actually crazy if one thinks about it. The M-class chips are world leaders in performance/Watt. But since we cannot use high-end GPUs nor do these Macs offer enough RAM these days, all this M-class chip power becomes useless. We'd love to use them for our 3D renders, or for realtime renders, but with a max of 256 GB RAM/VRAM - impossible.

If Apple does not cater to the high-end market anymore, they are actually painting themselves into a corner, I think.
Soon the M6 or M7 will be so powerful that most consumers will find them sufficient for a whole decade of use.
They will soon stop upgrading their Macs for longer and longer periods.

On the other hand high-end business customers, who would want and need that power, will soon become the only ones willing to upgrade their hardware on a regular basis - but Apple no longer caters to those customers.

That's going to bite them. They are currently developing high performance CPUs that soon none of their remaining customers will want or need.

The only way out for Apple is to completely switch to a service model. And that is probably where they are heading.
You no longer buy Macs, you rent them like an iPhone, with all the software and data backup in the cloud taken care of for you. You own nothing - and supposedly will be happy. Or maybe not.

 

[zephonic]

Apart from collaboration, there is very little positive in Google Docs, IMHO.
And license costs are constantly increasing. To the point that my company is starting to regret going with Google.
They are actively testing Linux and its alternatives now.

Interesting, thanks for sharing that perspective.

None of that has stopped Google Docs from becoming the #1 player in the consumer space, though. It’s free for personal use, lives in the cloud and is OS and device agnostic.

I can’t really compare it to MS Office as I haven’t used that in 15 years, but I don’t have particularly good memories of what that used to be. And when I see my wife’s work computer randomly not connecting to the printer about once a week, well, it seems not much has changed.

My dad got started in the 80’s and still uses…….Word Perfect. Yes, Corel still maintains it, miraculously.

If Apple does not cater to the high-end market anymore, they are actually painting themselves into a corner, I think.
Soon the M6 or M7 will be so powerful that most consumers will find them sufficient for a whole decade of use.
They will soon stop upgrading their Macs for longer and longer periods.

My friend, let me introduce you to a little something known as the OS update. It is a sure-shot way to make your customers need a new device.

The only way out for Apple is to completely switch to a service model. And that is probably where they are heading.
You no longer buy Macs, you rent them like an iPhone, with all the software and data backup in the cloud taken care of for you. You own nothing - and supposedly will be happy. Or maybe not.

I don’t know about the only way, but it seems to me Apple -like their competitors- is indeed shifting to an ‘everything digital life’ model, of which computers are just one part.

I think Apple’s core strength is integration across devices, nobody else really does that as well. I mean, ‘copy and paste’ from one device to another alone is worth it.

 

[jlc1978]

My dad got started in the 80’s and still uses…….Word Perfect. Yes, Corel still maintains it, miraculously.

Back in the day it was a great product. Just be sure he’s opted out of data collection by Corel.

 

[Dreamail]

My dad got started in the 80’s and still uses…….Word Perfect. Yes, Corel still maintains it, miraculously.

He must be on Windows, no?

I liked Word Perfect on Mac, back in the day. Though it was a tad bit buggy.
And then they stopped doing Mac updates in 1997...

1998 Microsoft re-introduced Microsoft Office for Mac. This was the version that one could drag-and-drop install from the CD. It did not come with any installer. Unheard of before and probably since.
The individual programs even "healed" themselves if users accidentally deleted stuff (even fonts) or moved things around.
I quite liked MS Office 1998 for Mac.

My friend, let me introduce you to a little something known as the OS update. It is a sure-shot way to make your customers need a new device.

Good point.

Though the macOS adoption rate is behind Windows. While most Windows users are on 11 by now, macOS users are not all on 26 yet, many are still on 15 or older versions. Heck, I am on 12 (!). And I have my reasons.

As much as Apple wants the Mac to become an iPhone, I am not convinced this will ever happen. Or ever can happen. Apple might lose a large portion of their Mac user base if they push this agenda too hard.
Sure, they may not even care if they lose that many users - as long as they make most of their money from iPhones and services.

But then one could argue that computers in the traditional sense (up until now) are likely soon a thing of the past anyway.
"Computers" will all be AI and cloud based, integrated into glasses or other headwear. At which point the whole computing experience will easily become just a "service" that Apple could sell. Who knows?


Yet as I had mentioned before, certain businesses are very reluctant to change and very particular.

Like lawyers or legal firms. They are not automatically on the latest OS update, simply because these often break some of the other software they rely on. A lot of legal software is ancient... So they are often years behind in their macOS version used.
They are also limited in how much data they can share on the cloud - because of secrecy concerns.
These clients will never be able to agree to a "services" model of computing.

Or CG VFX companies. Many especially larger Hollywood studio clients insist on _total_ secrecy. Some projects are not even allowed to use computers that are connected to the Internet. Certainly no cloud computing. Not even "trusted" cloud services like Amazon's AWS. Using a "services" model is out of the question for these customers too.


In the end it is quite possible that once mainstream computing becomes an AI and cloud-based subscription service, many of the traditional businesses like lawyers or VFX companies will be forced to move to Linux and homebrew hardware boxes.

 

[JayKay514]

Yea, at some point you'll outgrow Apple's offerings and need specialized niche products; which are markets Apple isn't interested in pursuing. Apple, in many ways, is no longer a computer company, at least not like it was way back when. Computers are an increasingly small part of their business; not unimportant but not steering the ship. They are now part of an ecosystem, which is aimed at consumers and mainstream businesses. They push heavily for small businesses, for example.

this this this.

It's not healthy to engage in shoulda-coulda-woulda thinking about the product decision process at a company we do not work at and who presumably know their own customer base.

We all have different use cases, but Apple has clearly done the math on what makes sense for them to sell.

There is clearly a much larger portion of customers whose needs are satisfied by MacBook Pros and the Mac Studio, and a much smaller portion who need a high-end customizable workstation. That smaller market segment doesn't justify the cost of producing the Pro.

I think it's worth considering that Apple Silicon has reversed the usual trend in CPU platforms and motherboard architectures. Usually, CPU features are introduced at the high end (like on Xeon or Epyc), sometimes alongside a new motherboard chipset, and these gradually trickle down to different chips aimed at different form factors and market segments. Same thing with graphics.

With Apple Silicon, features have trickled up from phones and tablets into laptops and desktops, because of the relentless focus on power-per-watt instead of requiring a 1.4kW power supply and a full liquid cooling solution in an eATX case.

Achieving this efficiency requires a SoC, so it can never be as 'open' as older Intel Macs could be. This continues Apple's strategy of tight hardware/software integration. Yeah, it's a walled garden, but it's a great garden.

Also, Mac Pro tower designs have been predicated not just on internal expansion but space requirements for power supplies, heat sinks and multiple cooling fans. Now that the Mac platform is based on something that is much more power-efficient, a lot of that volume isn't necessary.

It's natural to feel a bit of unease and grief when something you rely on for your workflow is discontinued. It means creating a migration plan for when the current hardware isn't supported anymore.

For some that will mean transitioning to Linux / BSD or Windows, where there's nearly infinite hardware choice to suit one's needs. For others, it'll mean looking at pricey Thunderbolt expansion chassis(es?). I hope everyone finds what they're looking for, and that eventually Apple will innovate to meet those needs too.

 

[zephonic]

Yet as I had mentioned before, certain businesses are very reluctant to change and very particular.

Like lawyers or legal firms. They are not automatically on the latest OS update, simply because these often break some of the other software they rely on. A lot of legal software is ancient... So they are often years behind in their macOS version used.
They are also limited in how much data they can share on the cloud - because of secrecy concerns.
These clients will never be able to agree to a "services" model of computing.

How is this for conservative, my buddy was offered handsome pay and retraining by the Dutch tax revenue service if he was willing to learn COBOL and stick around until retirement.
Turns out the entire tax system runs on it, and there is no way to transfer it without breaking. Problem is all the OG's are retiring and the millennials don't know anything about COBOL.

It is my understanding that most of the financial system still runs on COBOL too, for the same reason. And it faces similar problems. So kids, if you're looking for job security, go learn yourself some COBOL.


As an aside, I try to avoid OS updates as much as I can, but developers have also discovered that annual OS updates give them a perfect excuse to stop supporting older versions and push you to the next paid upgrade.

 

[realLucaR]

AI SLOP!

Why does everyone hate AI hahaha

 

[Dreamail]

Why does everyone hate AI hahaha

I don't think people particularly hate AI - unless they perhaps happen to lose their job due to it.

But I think people recognize that someone just pressing a button or typing a few prompts to obtain text / images / movies from an AI tool, is not really anything worthwhile to spend time on.
No human ever spent a single tear of sweat on this, nor did anyone ever intend for anything. It's just classic "filler material" to keep people entertained.
Sure, can be entertaining for 1 second, but is ultimately totally hollow.
And I think people hate having their time wasted with soulless filler material... that is why they grow angry.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

It was a great machine, with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it likely simply wasn't a big enough seller to justify its continuance with ARM based chips.



Which is why the better approach is to see how existing products can sell into teh Pro's market, should Apple chose to go after it.

How do you know if was a big enough seller or not? Maybe it sold plenty, but they decided to kill it anyway.

For many of us, the studio is a laughable substitute for a MP.

I service a couple of legal firms and lawyers.

SNIP

So they are "stuck" with Macs.

100% this. Most of my clients are oil & gas attorneys. Most of the partners have Macs and will never change.

Yea, at some point you'll outgrow Apple's offerings and need specialized niche products; which are markets Apple isn't interested in pursuing. Apple, in many ways, is no longer a computer company, at least not like it was way back when. Computers are an increasingly small part of their business; not unimportant but not steering the ship. They are now part of an ecosystem, which is aimed at consumers and mainstream businesses. They push heavily for small businesses, for example.

This makes the cancellation of enterprise hardware, server OS, and networking products even more baffling. Managing an entire Apple stack was a dream. And everyone who enjoyed the 'just works' aspect of it in the office, all wanted similar setups at home. The enterprise was really a gateway drug to a bunch of home users (in my experience).

How is this for conservative, my buddy was offered handsome pay and retraining by the Dutch tax revenue service if he was willing to learn COBOL and stick around until retirement.

They've been throwing insane money at COBOL devs in the USA for a few decades now. Wonder how long before some AI can do on-the-fly translations from COBOL to something modern?

 

[zephonic]

How do you know if was a big enough seller or not? Maybe it sold plenty, but they decided to kill it anyway.

During the 2017 roundtable (the one that discussed the future of Mac Pro and the famous ‘thermal corner’ quote) Phil Schiller did say that Mac Pro represented “single-digit percent of Mac sales”.

That was before the 7,1 raised the prices substantially, and before the M2Ultra kneecapped it.

They've been throwing insane money at COBOL devs in the USA for a few decades now. Wonder how long before some AI can do on-the-fly translations from COBOL to something modern?

I think the problem is more that no one wants to be responsible for any possible mess that could result from porting it. And COBOL itself is pretty solid, according to my buddy. So they just run the VM’s and keep it going.

 

[jlc1978]

They've been throwing insane money at COBOL devs in the USA for a few decades now. Wonder how long before some AI can do on-the-fly translations from COBOL to something modern?

The issue is not translating, it's figuring out out all the edge cases and kluges built into the system to make it work properly. You could translate the code and seriously break a company's processes.

COBOL is the DC3 of programing...

How do you know if was a big enough seller or not? Maybe it sold plenty, but they decided to kill it anyway.

I don't nor never claimed it is, my reasoning is that if it generated the required ROI they would have continued to assign resources to it's development. That they killed it has me to speculate the ROI was insufficient and perhaps the effort / ability to produce a MP replacement with Apple Silicon and work with typical admin boards was mot worth the effort. Last I heard, from any public announcements, it was in the single digits of overall sales, so it's not surprising.

Given AS' SOC approach, it may be designing it to handle an acceptably robust and fast expansion buss simply was a bridge to far, and since that was one of the main differentiators of the MP, they pulled the plug.

Only Apple knows for sure. A saying from one of my previous lives, "Those who talk don't know and those who know, don't talk", is very applicable to Apple.

This makes the cancellation of enterprise hardware, server OS, and networking products even more baffling. Managing an entire Apple stack was a dream. And everyone who enjoyed the 'just works' aspect of it in the office, all wanted similar setups at home. The enterprise was really a gateway drug to a bunch of home users (in my experience).

Yea, as Apple migrates form a computer company to a broader phone/home automation/services company stuff like that is likely to keep disappearing or be gone forever.

 

[innerproduct]

Removed

 

[AdamBuker]

I still have my PPC G5 Mac Pro and it boots up and still “works” great! I wonder what people will do with these things?

I still run my own personal recording/composing/multimedia studio with a late 2005 2.0 GHZ dual core. I run Logic Pro 8, Audacity, Digital Performer, Garage Band, Final Cut Pro 6, Pixelmator 1.5, Scrivener 2, Aperture. I do have the modern version of most of these on my Apple Silicon macs, but I like using Leopard much more than Sequioa (to say nothing of Tahoe). It’s a stable setup that works. I even have an m.2 AHCI drive installed in a 4x slot that gets between 700-800 MB/sec read/write. I have 16 GB of ram installed. This may not seem like much but this is a computer that is almost old enough to drink. I don’t ever use above 4GB at a time so I can reserve up to 12 GB to serve as a Ram disk. I have two SATA SSDs. I route all of my audio inputs through an analog mixer to a Lexicon Lambda so I’m ready to record anything I want. The system does everything I want and nothing else that I don’t want.

 

[visualseed]

23 pages of people missing it

23 pages of people missing a hypothetical Mac Pro that Apple never built. Nobody is missing a Mac Studio with near-useless PCI slots.

 

[innerproduct]

If there is not a surprise announcement at wwdc this years I guess we old farts that still fool ourself thinking that Apple is basically a counter culture effort for creatives and freethinking individuals might have to finally accept that apple was overtaken by a Compaq executive and is now basically just like all other mega corps where money is the only value held high.
Linux on home built machines is the only reasonable way moving forward perhaps. Sadly quite cumbersome but at least it gives you the freedom of choice.
That way you can opt in to whatever you want or not. I am not sure I want that inconvenience but with the service-focus and consumerism combined with AI integration one might have to reconsider. The killing of the pro line and the recent subs for apple sw is pointing in a direction that is undeniable.

 

[mode11]

If there is not a surprise announcement at wwdc this years I guess we old farts that still fool ourself thinking that Apple is basically a counter culture effort for creatives and freethinking individuals

Counter culture wrt Apple means 'alternative to Windows', not anti-capitalist. Macs have always been high quality, premium priced machines - the BMW of computers. Windows PCs have tended to be rougher round the edges, but cheaper, as the PC is a platform with a marketplace rather than a single supplier.

Due to its early support for stuff like fonts and MIDI, the Mac became entrenched in the creative industries. Apple depended on them during the dark times of the 90's, when it almost went bankrupt. But we are a long way from those times, with Apple now one of the world's richest companies and making most of its money from a smartphone.

MacOS is nice, but was mature by ~ OS X Leopard and hasn't changed significantly since. It's a pretty stationary target for Windows to inch towards. Yes, there is some initial pain in switching and getting Windows set up, but if you're the sort of person who's interested in an expandible tower computer, it's nothing you can't handle. If you have time to bitch about Apple on MacRumors, you probably have the time to set up a PC.

 

[AbeLincoln1984]

The system does everything I want and nothing else that I don’t want.

Amazing.

 

[basslik]

Aww, I'm wistfully sad about this news.

The crippling problem Apple faced with the Pro tower is that the M-series chips themselves are not really designed for external RAM or graphics expand ability. Without that, a tower configuration isn't much more than a rack for hard disks.

My old 3,1 was the most awesome and longest-lasting single computer I've ever owned. Over time it was upgraded to the moon and back. I waited many years for something from Apple to replace it, and even tried a hackintosh (not a good experience), but eventually gave up and moved my heavy computing to a Linux box.

When the 2023 Pro came out, I got overly excited and ordered one, wheels and all, but I changed my mind before it was ready to ship. In retrospect, I'm certainly glad I did!

RIP Mac Pro tower.

My 5,1 has been a faithful beast till this day. 😉

 

[visualseed]

I service a couple of legal firms and lawyers.

These clients are very picky when it comes to document layouts.
If someone or something refers to "the second paragraph on page 3" it needs to be the second paragraph on page 3 in all versions of that document, not the third paragraph, nor on page 2 or page 4, etc. Consistency is key.

I had tried Libre Office for some, as surprisingly a few government agencies now accept Libre Office documents too, but even with the very same fonts installed, the Word and Excel documents they imported looked very different in layout and even page brakes. This was not acceptable.

And since many of these documents are constantly worked on, they need to be fully editable.
PDFs are not a workable solution either.


Thank you for mentioning these other options. I shall try them at some point.

But unless the imported document layout stays exactly the same as with the original MS Word and Excel documents, assuming the same fonts are installed, they are not an option.
At least for these clients.

"Somehow the same" is definitely not good enough. It could cause misunderstandings and even confusion if "the second paragraph on page 3" suddenly in some versions of the document becomes "the first paragraph on page 4" - with lawyers any such misunderstandings can quickly cost a lot of money...
It is not a place where you want to go.

With Windows 11 now requiring Microsoft user logins, reportedly even sending screenshots back to Microsoft at regular intervals, and with the AI copilot constantly harvesting your data (and presumably also sending it back to Microsoft), a lot of my legal clients are very concerned. Concerned about security and secrecy. Which they swore an oath on to protect and uphold.

Yet Linux is not for them either, if they cannot retain their documents in exactly the original MS Office document format and layout.

So they are "stuck" with Macs.

One way Microsoft has made its products industry "standards" is by bending the rules. They break standards (even ones they created themselves) but follow them closely enough that most users unkowingly adopt the workarounds, making companies whos products strictly adhere to standards seem broken. This is why Internet Explorer remained a "standard" for nearly a decade after it was discontinued, and if you’ve ever fought with Word to format text and images on the same page, you know it’s impossible to replicate in another word processor using the same formating elements.

 

[visualseed]

Yea, at some point you'll outgrow Apple's offerings and need specialized niche products; which are markets Apple isn't interested in pursuing. Apple, in many ways, is no longer a computer company, at least not like it was way back when. Computers are an increasingly small part of their business; not unimportant but not steering the ship. They are now part of an ecosystem, which is aimed at consumers and mainstream businesses. They push heavily for small businesses, for example.

Almost every time I’ve needed extreme horsepower, RAM, storage, and so on, it’s been for very specific tasks best handled by dedicated hardware, where the advantages of macOS didn’t really matter and were sometimes even a drawback. Setting up a cluster of linux workstations or servers with terabytes of RAM and connecting to them through a Mac is a better option for most scenarios, including scientific research, than Apple creating an “ultimate pro Mac” for just a handful of customers.

 

[innerproduct]

Counter culture wrt Apple means 'alternative to Windows', not anti-capitalist. Macs have always been high quality, premium priced machines - the BMW of computers. Windows PCs have tended to be rougher round the edges, but cheaper, as the PC is a platform with a marketplace rather than a single supplier.

Due to its early support for stuff like fonts and MIDI, the Mac became entrenched in the creative industries. Apple depended on them during the dark times of the 90's, when it almost went bankrupt. But we are a long way from those times, with Apple now one of the world's richest companies and making most of its money from a smartphone.

MacOS is nice, but was mature by ~ OS X Leopard and hasn't changed significantly since. It's a pretty stationary target for Windows to inch towards. Yes, there is some initial pain in switching and getting Windows set up, but if you're the sort of person who's interested in an expandible tower computer, it's nothing you can't handle. If you have time to bitch about Apple on MacRumors, you probably have the time to set up a PC.

Agreed. You know I grew up with many types of computers but macs were what we had at home and for some time they where ahead for drawing and painting and music. The UI also had a certain quality to it that was not available elsewhere. But I had to get a PC as well in the late 90s to be able to work with 3d graphics and i actually cut my teeth programming 3d graphics on silicon graphics machine at uni. When nextstep became macos and we also got intel machines with graphics card it was really the best of all worlds for a brief moment.
I am not at all against the AS SoC approach , rather I applaud that and there is no lust for the hardware to be large physically in towers. But I do dislike the changes that remove choice like dropping support for OpenGL, not having a pro ”halo” line of products and especially all the sandboxing and service integrations. Oh, and Tahoe is the first OS in over 20 years I have not ”upgraded” to due to many things but mainly for it feeling mostly like a downgrade and also horrible aesthetics.
My hope for wwdc is that there will be be a focus for macos27 to not go towards becoming even more ios-like but rather stabilize to a solid workhorse where AI is not forced down my throat.
If apple would come up with a way to make the studio line a little more pro I would be all for it The biggest issues is probably that there is no way to add ssds that run full speed and changed by the user easily and that having faster networking requires large external chassis. Both of these issues would easily be solved by a ”studio ultra ” that allowed for 2 small PCIe cards.

lets just hope they don’t drop the studio line as well and skip the ultra chips this time around.

 

[JayKay514]

Counter culture wrt Apple means 'alternative to Windows', not anti-capitalist.

Exactly. There's a great book by a couple of U of T philosophy professors, The Rebel Sell, all about how everything that we consider countercultural ends up just proving the logic of markets and Thorstein Veblen's theories of conspicuous consumption... needing to differentiate oneself for status reasons or dissatisfaction with what the market offers.

If you don't like prog rock, you invent punk rock. You don't want to live in a suburban split-level? Here's a factory loft. And vice versa. Eventually these things that are edgy become desirable, mainstream even. See: Gentrification.

To be anti-capitalist, Apple would have to completely change its corporate structure, transforming into something like a non-profit B Corporation that is a worker-owned cooperative.

A bit harder at this point in time, because they'd have to buy back all of their existing shares and/or pay out on options, but in theory they could start Apple 2.0 and gradually transfer assets over to it.

It could still be competitive and pay well, and sell things (albeit not at exorbitant margins maybe), because anti-capitalism doesn't mean anti-commerce (all societies have commerce!).

It might fall to a different company to do that. Imagine if Fairphone + Framework got together as a coop B Corp?

(And in my imaginary world, they'd buy the Atari brand to get a leg up on brand recognition.)

Yes, there is some initial pain in switching and getting Windows set up, but if you're the sort of person who's interested in an expandible tower computer, it's nothing you can't handle.

TBH I use both macOS and Windows 11 for work. Win11 has issues, but as a daily driver it's a perfectly cromulent operating system.

The thing that bugs me about Windows is the levels of cruft. Even though it's been based on NT since XP, it has so many legacy mini-apps / control panels / settings quirks (Registry editing? Really?) that date back decades, for application compatibility reasons.

For instance: I wanted the Taskbar clock to display the full day and date, but the regular settings screen doesn't let you do that. I looked up an obscure control panel you have to invoke using the Run command, and its window uses legacy UI systems, including, apparently, bitmap fonts, as it appeared blurry and aliased.

Literally just this week MSFT announced they're going to update all that legacy UI stuff; I hope they really do a proper de-spaghettification and refactor to make it leaner and faster.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

One way Microsoft has made its products industry "standards" is by bending the rules. They break standards (even ones they created themselves) but follow them closely enough that most users unkowingly adopt the workarounds, making companies whos products strictly adhere to standards seem broken. This is why Internet Explorer remained a "standard" for nearly a decade after it was discontinued, and if you’ve ever fought with Word to format text and images on the same page, you know it’s impossible to replicate in another word processor using the same formating elements.

Are you sure that it was Microsoft that slyly crafted it this way? I ask, because, so often it seemed to me that this cheerful utilization of bug-for-bug compatibility was driven by client company developers who had some sort of religious zeal for this. And, you mention IE -- time and again, developers for companies with web-enabled apps seemed to revel in utilizing idiosyncratic IE behavior in a way that was totally unnecessary. I mean, its -the web-. Stick to the standards and it will just work. But no, they had to build stuff that would only work with old outdated IE versions. A strange cult that I never could fathom.