When will Apple drop macOS support for M1 systems?

[theluggage]

This thread is already two pages too long.

That tends to happen for questions where the correct answer is "nobody knows".

Apple haven't made their own systems-on-a-chip for Macs before.

 

[ricketysquire]

This whole situation pisses me off, it's not about feature updates, it's about security and stability updates. When everything is done online from banking to bill paying to (virtual) doctors visits, it's essential to have a secure platform. Either we go back to doing things face to face (which Im starting to think might be better for us as a society and give tech companies less control over our lives) or we get regular security updates, and know when a company is dropping support for a product.

I'm not a fan of excessive regulations, but when a bunch of insecure devices can be used in botnets to attack critical infrastructure, maybe at least requiring companies to let consumers know how long a product will be supported (from a security perspective) would be nice.

 

[okkibs]

Phones start to fall apart in one way or another after year two, on average. 5 years of support for phones is fine.

Not everyone buys a phone for the full price when it's first released. I usually wait 2 years and then get an older flagship with great hardware on a clearance sale since I can't justify spending 999 bucks on the latest flagship. I use a Pixel 4 XL daily that is even still within its 2 year hardware warranty and has decent battery life with GrapheneOS, is running Android 13 but it's stuck on the TP1A build from 2022.

Since it's working flawlessly and the camera can easily keep up in daylight, I will keep using it for a few more years easily. Except that it will always remain on the 2022 build with no security updates beyond 2022 either.

Also have a Pixel 6 Pro here bought this year, that has 5 years of software support... but since I got it this year, it's already down to 4 years. Many people will never see that full 5 year support window.

You have clearly not run Windows 10 on a Haswell or Broadwell laptop then. I've NEVER had issues. Mind you, all of my PCs are business class and fetching drivers is a breeze.

I have at a previous employer managed the fleet of business laptops. Business class means nothing when the manufacturer is HP: The Probooks were trash from day one, nonstop loud fan, the fans often broke, we tried swapping one out ourselves and found out the entire keyboard had to come out from the top which was a big pain, then the M.2 drive failed and replacing was impossible because the screw head came stripped from the factory, and the 15" laptops came with slow Intels that you'd expect in a 13" device not a 15". The Elitebooks were similarly bad as well, the Zbooks were okay but didn't see many of those. Latitudes are similarly bad, for example we had 7xxx series palmrests crack for no reason on lightweight 12" models (all 7250 I think). Thinkpads did better, if I didn't use Macbooks I'd get a Thinkpad for sure.

Granted, that's all hardware troubles, but it's a big part of why I prefer Macbooks, they don't fall apart right out of the box. My 2015 MBP might be slow with a noisy fan (that's a given with the hot slow dualcore), but it looks brand new, has a wonderful retina display that is better than many FullHD panels 13" and 14" laptops come with by default (unless you upgrade that to the 4k options) although maximum brightness is limited with 350 nits. And it's got the force trackpad already that remains the best trackpad on the market to this day and beats any and all non-Apple laptop trackpads of 2023.

Other than maybe a Thinkpad with a 4k option you won't find a single laptop from 2015 that is even on par with a 2015 MBP. The 15" even had the Intel-only option that is reasonably silent today and has at least enough performance for basic usage with its quadcore. I even checked and the only Thinkpad back in 2015 I can find is the T450s and that came at best with a 300 nits IPS FullHD panel, so it has a worse display than the Macbook.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Not everyone buys a phone for the full price when it's first released. I usually wait 2 years and then get an older flagship with great hardware on a clearance sale since I can't justify spending 999 bucks on the latest flagship. I use a Pixel 4 XL daily that is even still within its 2 year hardware warranty and has decent battery life with GrapheneOS, is running Android 13 but it's stuck on the TP1A build from 2022.

Since it's working flawlessly and the camera can easily keep up in daylight, I will keep using it for a few more years easily. Except that it will always remain on the 2022 build with no security updates beyond 2022 either.

Also have a Pixel 6 Pro here bought this year, that has 5 years of software support... but since I got it this year, it's already down to 4 years. Many people will never see that full 5 year support window.

That's kind of my point. Most phones fall apart before you're even considering something like Graphene (if Android). By the way, I may PM you about Graphene. I have a couple old Android phones lying around and it might be time for an experiment.

I have at a previous employer managed the fleet of business laptops. Business class means nothing when the manufacturer is HP: The Probooks were trash from day one, nonstop loud fan, the fans often broke, we tried swapping one out ourselves and found out the entire keyboard had to come out from the top which was a big pain, then the M.2 drive failed and replacing was impossible because the screw head came stripped from the factory, and the 15" laptops came with slow Intels that you'd expect in a 13" device not a 15".

ProBooks are not of the same caliber as EliteBooks (let alone Lenovo ThinkPads and 5000/7000/9000 Dell Latitude series). EliteBooks circa G3 and G4 were cheap and platic-y. Plenty durable, but still cheap-feeling. It wasn't until they started copying the MacBook Air playbook that they started to get better.

And yeah, even the 15-inch models are still ultrabooks. Those aren't the kinds of machines you compare to a 15-inch MacBook Pro. Different machine intended for different audience (accountants or folks in banking who will make use of the 10-key numeric pad).

The Elitebooks were similarly bad as well, the Zbooks were okay but didn't see many of those. Latitudes are similarly bad, for example we had 7xxx series palmrests crack for no reason on lightweight 12" models (all 7250 I think). Thinkpads did better, if I didn't use Macbooks I'd get a Thinkpad for sure.

You're dealing with an earlier era of Latitudes. 7x80, 7x90, and 7x00 were all pretty good. They only started sucking once RAM was no longer upgradeable. But even then, that's what the 5000 series is for. And with a 54x1 and 55x1 models, you WOULD at least get the kind of CPU that would've been a low-end option for a 15-inch or 16-inch Intel MacBook Pro.

I wasn't a huge fan of Lenovo's build quality. Plus, once the Intel models got Thunderbolt circa 8th Gen Intel, it became a nightmare. I pretty much strictly stick with AMD based Lenovo and HP laptops these days (though a lot of that is also that Dell's means of updating the ME firmware seems to be the easiest one to navigate).

Granted, that's all hardware troubles, but it's a big part of why I prefer Macbooks, they don't fall apart right out of the box. My 2015 MBP might be slow with a noisy fan (that's a given with the hot slow dualcore), but it looks brand new, has a wonderful retina display that is better than many FullHD panels 13" and 14" laptops come with by default (unless you upgrade that to the 4k options) although maximum brightness is limited with 350 nits. And it's got the force trackpad already that remains the best trackpad on the market to this day and beats any and all non-Apple laptop trackpads of 2023.

Force Trackpad is okay. But that's a matter of taste. Also, you may have had bad luck with PC models. I have a Latitude 7390 that's had no issues whatsoever, a ZBook that has had no issue whatsoever, a few EliteBooks that not only have no issues whatsoever. Like all computers (Apple especially included), some models and generations suck more than others. I love the Early 2015 13-inch MacBook Pro and will always have a soft spot for it. I own one and it is not a good ride on the Monterey train.

Other than maybe a Thinkpad with a 4k option you won't find a single laptop from 2015 that is even on par with a 2015 MBP. The 15" even had the Intel-only option that is reasonably silent today and has at least enough performance for basic usage with its quadcore. I even checked and the only Thinkpad back in 2015 I can find is the T450s and that came at best with a 300 nits IPS FullHD panel, so it has a worse display than the Macbook.

I'm not contesting that Apple's displays aren't nice for 13-inch MacBook Pros. Just that they're SO MUCH better than what I could get from a business class laptop (if I'm already not buying one with a GPU and CPU good enough for gaming and video editing anyway).

 

[okkibs]

That's kind of my point. Most phones fall apart before you're even considering something like Graphene (if Android).

GOS isn't meant as a replacement for stock google rom after Google EOLs the device, since it ends support at the same time. I ran GOS on it from day one, it wasn't falling apart then and it's not falling apart now. I don't know why you keep claiming phones are falling apart - the Pixel 4 series always had mediocre battery life with the stock google rom, so it's not like the battery is shot. And even if it were, there are actually genuine replacement parts for this (and other) Pixels readily available on the ifixit store. (For 45 bucks you'll get a battery kit that includes tools and restores water resistance).

The one and only reason I will replace this phone in a few years is that I am stuck on Android 13 permanently. Literally any new Android phone is at best a side-grade since I'd be giving up the proper biometrics face unlock (dual infrared), only iPhones currently have that.

EliteBooks circa G3 and G4 were cheap and platic-y. Plenty durable, but still cheap-feeling. It wasn't until they started copying the MacBook Air playbook that they started to get better.

Maybe they are better these days, I switched jobs years ago and thankfully haven't had to use any HP devices since then at all, mostly been using MacOS and very happy with Appple Silicon. In my opinion the current MacbookPros are light years ahead of other laptops, they are good enough to compete with workstation grade laptops yet the 14" has a small-enough footprint to carry it around daily in a backpack (with a tiny "GaN" tech USB-C power supply). There is no other laptop on the market that has this combination of performance, battery life and build quality. And with AC+ mine is under warranty as long as I want with yearly extensions, which is important to me for business use.

Just that they're SO MUCH better than what I could get from a business class laptop

Fair enough. I've just seen too many non-glare screens on business laptops that are dull, have IPS glow.... the 2015 Macs had relatively glossy reflective screens that weren't optimal. At least if you buy a miniLED-MBP today you actually do get the best laptop screen on the market in terms of contrast, and max brightness (I have 1000 nits in SDR content unlocked with an extra app for outside). And reflections are down to a minimum too, I don't wanna go back to these "matte finish" displays most other laptops come with. The Macbooks do have unfortunately the bad ghosting issue, which can be an issue depending on what you do with it.

I own one and it is not a good ride on the Monterey train.

Why is that? I added the sintech adapter and a fast SN550 M.2. The dualcore is very slow, but that has nothing to do with Monterey. I consider Monterey one of the best MacOS versions, Ventura is more bugged and the older versions are just dated at this point and not usable. I had issues with Big Sur too, I think you mentioned you preferred Big Sur. But you can run Big Sur if you really want to, so that shouldn't be an issue. The real issue is the dualcore, it's slow yet has an insane 28W TDP.

I pretty much strictly stick with AMD based Lenovo and HP laptops these days

I heard Ryzen Lenovos are good. Sadly they seem to be riddled with noisy coil whine like many business laptops are. I will always find a reason for preferring a Macbook... but I'd get a Ryzen Thinkpad X1 carbon, if I were to switch from MacOS.

You're dealing with an earlier era of Latitudes.

Fair enough, yeah I haven't had to deal with any business laptops for years now, fortunately my current workflow allows me to solely use MacOS for everything.

 

[ericwn]

Whatever it is, it won't be long enough.

Personally I think Apple should be held responsible for supporting the latest OS on their Macs/iPhones/iPads/watches/ATV/etc. for 10 years at the bare minimum. Anything short of that is causing massive amounts of unnecessary electronic waste. As one of the richest companies in the world, Apple can certainly afford that, they just don't because they're not being legally forced to. Hopefully the EU of whoever else will impose it on them eventually.

In any case, hopefully the OpenCore Legacy Patcher project will continue to exist beyond x86 Macs, as I have a feeling it will continue to remain very relevant still.

I’ll take good recycling capability of a computer over any 5-10 year old machine that one would have flying around at home.

 

[Yebubbleman]

GOS isn't meant as a replacement for stock google rom after Google EOLs the device, since it ends support at the same time. I ran GOS on it from day one, it wasn't falling apart then and it's not falling apart now. I don't know why you keep claiming phones are falling apart - the Pixel 4 series always had mediocre battery life with the stock google rom, so it's not like the battery is shot. And even if it were, there are actually genuine replacement parts for this (and other) Pixels readily available on the ifixit store. (For 45 bucks you'll get a battery kit that includes tools and restores water resistance).

I say "phones fall apart" more to refer to physically. You can baby the hell out of your phone and your battery will still inevitably degrade. That just happens naturally. It's also the case that phones are the one piece of technology that are used all the time and therefore wear out quicker. That all being said, a five year old iPhone will never run as smoothly as a one year iPhone. That's software.

When it comes to repairing phones and/or replacing batteries, yeah, that's always an option. Though, when it comes to doing it yourself, I'd never consider doing that with an iPhone the way I would with a Pixel and that's because, like you said, the parts, tools, and everything are all there. Apple does not make that stuff worth doing on purpose.

Maybe they are better these days, I switched jobs years ago and thankfully haven't had to use any HP devices since then at all, mostly been using MacOS and very happy with Appple Silicon.

I'd rather Windows in the workplace. The hardware is fine. You never NEED Apple Silicon levels of performance nor battery life (most people work stationary whether remote or in the office). And unlike Apple, who is tone-deaf about macOS in the enterprise, Microsoft's frameworks (a) work, (b) work well, and (c) are what the rest of the industry works with and is built around. Macs were never meant to be for businesses and Apple still doesn't know how to best position that without the likes of JAMF and Kandji, and the like.

In my opinion the current MacbookPros are light years ahead of other laptops, they are good enough to compete with workstation grade laptops yet the 14" has a small-enough footprint to carry it around daily in a backpack (with a tiny "GaN" tech USB-C power supply). There is no other laptop on the market that has this combination of performance, battery life and build quality. And with AC+ mine is under warranty as long as I want with yearly extensions, which is important to me for business use.

AppleCare+ pales in comparison to Dell ProSupport Plus or the HP and Lenovo equivalents. AppleCare for Enterprise comes close, but there's still a lot of nonsense that you have to deal with in terms of setting that up that you do not have to jump through with Dell, HP or Lenovo. Yes, a 16-inch MacBook Pro nowadays hits ZBook and Dell Precision laptop levels of performance. And at that cost, IT SHOULD.

Why is that? I added the sintech adapter and a fast SN550 M.2. The dualcore is very slow, but that has nothing to do with Monterey. I consider Monterey one of the best MacOS versions, Ventura is more bugged and the older versions are just dated at this point and not usable. I had issues with Big Sur too, I think you mentioned you preferred Big Sur. But you can run Big Sur if you really want to, so that shouldn't be an issue. The real issue is the dualcore, it's slow yet has an insane 28W TDP.

I don't know what to tell you. macOS Big Sur doesn't tax a 2015 Intel Mac the way that macOS Monterey does. Monterey had a lot of security holes throughout its time and a lot of memory leak issues, some of which still remain in the OS today. They also had a few really annoying bugs in their MDM framework that screwed us on a few occasions. There was a lot going wrong with it. Consider yourself lucky that you didn't experience them. But, otherwise, I'd say that if you're on an Intel Mac older than 2016, your mileage with Monterey is substantially worse than Big Sur before it. Apple might not have cared about keeping it optimized for older machines. Much of macOS is already clearly positioned for T2 and Apple Silicon Macs anyway.

I heard Ryzen Lenovos are good. Sadly they seem to be riddled with noisy coil whine like many business laptops are. I will always find a reason for preferring a Macbook... but I'd get a Ryzen Thinkpad X1 carbon, if I were to switch from MacOS.

macOS tends to breed those that don't care what other options are out there, even if they're just as good in practice.

I'm not a fan of the poor quality control on the software. There hasn't been as rock solid of a version since macOS Monterey (though Big Sur was pretty good, even if so much of it was initiatives and changes that hadn't yet fully taken shape). The fact that Monterey and Ventura have had the kinds of issues that they've had so far is egregious. If the OS is not ready to come out of the oven, keep it in the oven for longer. No one would complain if Apple skipped a year with macOS releases. Certainly, I wouldn't.

Fair enough, yeah I haven't had to deal with any business laptops for years now, fortunately my current workflow allows me to solely use MacOS for everything.

I'm a dual-platform person. I enjoy Mac and Windows all the same outside of work. In work, I prefer Windows shops. But that's because Microsoft has the dominant corporate ecosystem when it comes to desktop/laptop endpoints and I'm often at odds with stakeholders about what it really takes to make a Mac environment work optimally (Mac users never consider what IT has to do to make this happen and it's often a lot of work).

 

[okkibs]

That all being said, a five year old iPhone will never run as smoothly as a one year iPhone. That's software.

It still takes photos just as well and most of the other things it was able to do at release. I'd actually argue that the issue is with the hardware, new video codecs won't be supported in hardware, higher video resolutions will tax the hardware more, websites have become more "dynamic" (overloaded with bs, of course) so overall the more demanding newer software increases load and decreases battery runtime on older devices.

That's just how it goes and there is nothing to blame here, software or hardware. For example, my early 2015 MBP can't play 4k HEVC video, but that isn't an issue with MacOS or software, or with the hardware either. It couldn't have had that feature to begin with, since Intel, AMD and Nvidia didn't have hardware support for it at that time.

Apple does not make that stuff worth doing on purpose.

Apple offers a battery replacement cheap enough even with the price increase. Imagine throwing out a perfectly fine flagship phone like an iPhone 12 Pro right now after you've had it for 2.5 years when it merely needs a new battery for $89. Or after 3 years, or 4.

AppleCare+ pales in comparison to Dell ProSupport Plus or the HP and Lenovo equivalents.

Please tell that to the onsite support technicians that replaced mainboards for firmware bugs, technicians that when replacing displays use an inferior replacement part with a dimmer panel and then pretend that this is okay, or straight up break their promised time windows because the replacement part is momentarily unavailable. I've had my fill with that, in contrast I have an Apple Store essentially across the street and the few times I've needed the support (battery replacements mostly) making an appointment for an hour later and walking in there to hand over the Mac takes a couple minutes, and picking it up is quick as well. The longest I had to wait for was a battery replacement during the pandemic which took two weeks, but since I can justify keeping spares for business use it didn't matter to me. The few repairs I needed (staingate for example) were done faster than the "next business day" Lenovo one. And with non-business devices, last time in Germany I RMA'd an Ideapad and that was handed in to the known-terrible partner "medion" and was never seen again.

I'll take my chances with Apple's warranty. Since I only need to deal with my own devices now, I rarely have issues, the last repair was for staingate on that 2015 model which was completed in just three days. Not a single hardware issue since then. The 14" especially has been rock solid from day one.

Microsoft has the dominant corporate ecosystem

Implementation of that ecosystem depends on the individual business, I worked for a fortune 10 that couldn't implement on-site sharepoint in a way that doesn't constantly locked everyone on my team out from files, simple things like document checkout being completely broken and files getting locked having to wait for the next day for some random lock to disappear over night... it didn't get much better when they switched to O365, had recurring "access denied" issues where I was explicitely granted access but when checking the permissions lists my user just wasn't on it and support insisted I just need to request access. It was a ********. Probably (hopefully) has matured by now, but I am no longer interested in the cORpOratE eCOsyStEm.

I straight up don't wanna see a Windows desktop again (see also: the abomination that's the windows 11 explorer right click context menu and other shenanigans) or deal with O365. The only Microsoft product I use is Excel on the Mac because that's actually a good product that works. I would have liked to use Onenote but that doesn't even have offline notebook support on MacOS so into the trash it went.

If for any reason I stop being an Apple fanboy I'll try to make a linux distribution work before I consider Windows. I'll assume if MacOS turned to straight up garbage then Windows has imploded by then anyways.

 

[Yebubbleman]

It still takes photos just as well and most of the other things it was able to do at release.

That's absolutely debatable. The camera hardware doesn't change. But the software running slower than earlier releases absolutely affects how well that happens.

I'd actually argue that the issue is with the hardware, new video codecs won't be supported in hardware, higher video resolutions will tax the hardware more, websites have become more "dynamic" (overloaded with bs, of course) so overall the more demanding newer software increases load and decreases battery runtime on older devices.

Newer video codecs aren't being released and then implemented into the OS at THAT fast of a rate. Apple only optimizes for the more recent iPhones. They do not bend over backwards to make iOS work on the older stuff. There's no incentive for them to do so. They're merely content with being able to brag about their phones getting so many years worth of updates. Incidentally, I don't need an OS to require those things. I need my phone to work as well as the day I got it. Other than the battery naturally degrading, there's no reason why the same hardware should perform worse over time.

That's just how it goes and there is nothing to blame here, software or hardware.

Software is absolutely to blame. Yes, that's how it goes, but we don't need to act like our phones wouldn't be faster for longer if they didn't receive major OS releases that no one ever asks for every year. If we were talking about Android, it'd be more complicated. There have been Android phones designed with the goal of maximizing software support for as long as possible. The thing that eventually causes those phones to stop working is that the SoC maker stops supporting the SoC, making further development for that phone impossible.

For example, my early 2015 MBP can't play 4k HEVC video, but that isn't an issue with MacOS or software, or with the hardware either. It couldn't have had that feature to begin with, since Intel, AMD and Nvidia didn't have hardware support for it at that time.

That MacBook Pro doesn't have hardware HEVC decoding. But that's not to say that you can only play HEVC video on machines that have hardware HEVC decoding.

Apple offers a battery replacement cheap enough even with the price increase. Imagine throwing out a perfectly fine flagship phone like an iPhone 12 Pro right now after you've had it for 2.5 years when it merely needs a new battery for $89. Or after 3 years, or 4.

There are people that upgrade flagship phones every year, let alone every other year. I don't believe people THROW OUT flagship phones like that. Certainly they're foolish to not sell it instead. But that's what people do. Either that or they live with the degrading battery. And mind you, A LOT of people don't take such good care of their phones. 2.5 years will likely entail a phone falling apart from physical abuse more than the battery degrading. That's kind of my main point with that. Very few people will show you a phone purchased five years ago that isn't physically falling apart from physical wear and tear. Certainly, it's next to none for those that don't use something like a LifeProof Fre or Otterbox Defender.

Please tell that to the onsite support technicians that replaced mainboards for firmware bugs, technicians that when replacing displays use an inferior replacement part with a dimmer panel and then pretend that this is okay, or straight up break their promised time windows because the replacement part is momentarily unavailable.

You know that AppleCare for Enterprise and Dell ProSupport Plus and all of those other warranty plans contract out to the same technicians, right?

I've had my fill with that, in contrast I have an Apple Store essentially across the street and the few times I've needed the support (battery replacements mostly) making an appointment for an hour later and walking in there to hand over the Mac takes a couple minutes, and picking it up is quick as well.

I can tell you've never had the experience of dealing with either an iMac Pro or a 27-inch iMac that fell out of warranty at your workplace. I could pay extra money to Dell or HP or Lenovo to get them to send someone onsite. I cannot do that with Apple. I've spent more time at my local Apple Store with company hardware because THE ONLY SUPPORTED out-of-warranty option that Apple offers for desktops is the Genius Bar and AASPs. Not even remotely enterprise friendly.

The longest I had to wait for was a battery replacement during the pandemic which took two weeks, but since I can justify keeping spares for business use it didn't matter to me. The few repairs I needed (staingate for example) were done faster than the "next business day" Lenovo one. And with non-business devices, last time in Germany I RMA'd an Ideapad and that was handed in to the known-terrible partner "medion" and was never seen again.

IdeaPads are not business class devices nor do they come with enterprise class warranty options. Incidentally, I'm not talking about consumer PCs and consumer warranty plans.

Implementation of that ecosystem depends on the individual business, I worked for a fortune 10 that couldn't implement on-site sharepoint in a way that doesn't constantly locked everyone on my team out from files, simple things like document checkout being completely broken and files getting locked having to wait for the next day for some random lock to disappear over night... it didn't get much better when they switched to O365, had recurring "access denied" issues where I was explicitely granted access but when checking the permissions lists my user just wasn't on it and support insisted I just need to request access. It was a ********. Probably (hopefully) has matured by now, but I am no longer interested in the cORpOratE eCOsyStEm.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that SharePoint is great. It requires someone who knows what they're doing to set it up properly and, the fact of the matter is that SharePoint expertise is much more rare than SharePoint implementations. I don't know that makes it a bad product. Just one that ought to not be taken lightly.

I agree that mileage may vary in terms of how well one implements Microsoft's technologies (Active Directory, Azure, Azure AD, Intune, SCCM, etc.). From my experience, even the crappy ones still function fine for the end users (end user satisfaction being a critical part of IT) without being totally on fire (another critical part of IT). It's a class that you can get a C grade in and still pass.

I'm not sure how closely you've had to deal with Apple in the enterprise since 2016, but that is not the case. You need to have all of your Macs on a supported macOS release (a good thing for security hygiene anyway), you need to have all of them in Apple Business Manager, you need to have an MDM provider you have the resources to properly use, and even then, you might still end up with an environment that's all over the place. JAMF Pro is amazing, but it requires at least one dedicated person whose sole job is JAMF Pro. No different than SCCM, no different than Intune, no different than Windows Server; the only difference is that if your JAMF Pro is not well maintained, the users will be able to tell. The overall point being that if you are not completely on top of your **** with a Mac shop, it will show and it will be ugly and problematic quickly. Where you could get a C grade and pass Microsoft IT without doing things 100% according to best practices; Apple IT demands an A at the minimum; but even that's more like the C grade you'd get with a similar quality Microsoft setup. Add to that the fact that Microsoft publishes their documentation openly while Apple only gives you what they think you'll need (making supporting them from the IT standpoint a royal pain).

Like, don't get me wrong. Few things are sexier than one's own Apple Silicon MacBook Pro. But throw a bunch in a business and it's far from the "it just magically works" that you expect from it outside of work...at least not without way more expertise than is necessary to manage Windows in the workplace.

I straight up don't wanna see a Windows desktop again (see also: the abomination that's the windows 11 explorer right click context menu and other shenanigans) or deal with O365.

I'm not a fan of the extra click in Windows 11's right-click context menu. But it's far from the worst thing out there. I can think of at least three macOS conventions in Ventura that bother me more. To each their own, I guess. I'd also rather a poor design decision than a feature break for no reason. With Windows 11, I've only seen the former. With five of the last eight releases of macOS, I've seen both and it's utterly mind-boggling.

The only Microsoft product I use is Excel on the Mac because that's actually a good product that works. I would have liked to use Onenote but that doesn't even have offline notebook support on MacOS so into the trash it went.

Excel on Mac is fine. Pales in comparison to Excel for Windows...if you are a spreadsheet power user, that is (I, myself, am not, so Excel for Mac is totally fine). Never much got into OneNote. The few times I had to use it, I really didn't like it.

If for any reason I stop being an Apple fanboy I'll try to make a linux distribution work before I consider Windows. I'll assume if MacOS turned to straight up garbage then Windows has imploded by then anyways.

Windows will not implode. macOS's quality control record is abysmal compared to that of Windows 10 and Windows 11. I'm not saying you should reconsider your stance on Windows, though you may want to consider that a lot of your anti-Windows hate here is the fanboy prejudice that usually entails believing your chosen platform can do no wrong. Both of them make mistakes. Personally, I use both platforms. I will call them each out when they do things I don't like. Having had to manage both in the enterprise (and at home) for many years, I'm totally open to preferring one over the other and then switching as I become more fed up with them. Windows isn't a bad OS and neither is macOS. But, the experience of being a Mac admin in 2023 is far from smooth sailing.