Comment by toyg
5 years ago
> Why is Apple so private about the internals of their products?
Because they don't care. The extent they care is directly linked to the amount of money they will make from caring. They won't sell more macs if macs can run Linux better; but they will sell more Apple Music subscriptions if macs keep running macOS.
> They know Linux is important
No, they know Linux is a pain in the ass. The bootloader option assuages the executives' conscience enough to be able to talk to a journalist and keep a straight face when asked about "openness" or being "hacker-friendly", stuff those 1980s-style Linux hobbyists keep talking about and nobody else gives a shit about.
Apple makes money by selling iDevices to consumers and selling Macs to enough developers to build apps for iDevices. Everything else is a bonus, and not worth spending much time on. They do the minimum and leave it as that. There is no inconsistency or secret motive. They just don't care. When they cared, in the early '00s, they did a bit more; now they do less. The attitude is the same.
> Apple makes money by selling iDevices to consumers
For now. They haven't made any "I have to buy this right fucking now!" worthy revolutionary improvements in the iDevices lineup recently, the Western market for smartphones is near saturation - and with Corona tanking the US economy for wide masses, people don't have the hundreds of dollars just lying around to shell off for the latest iteration.
I believe that both the last (horribly expensive at that, and still people kept buying it) Mac Pro and the new M1 lineup is a sign that Apple wants to shift back attention to the non-mobile sector - because the competition there is asleep on the wheels. Everyone uses Intel who has managed to fuck up its lineup for many years now, Microsoft has thoroughly pissed off the privacy-conscious folks with Win10 and (judging by a random walk through a Mediamarkt) build quality in Windows laptops still hovers barely above "acceptable" - cheap plastics, tiny touchpads and abysmal screens are the norm, whereas Apple is only robust aluminium cases, giant touchpads and crystal clear, bright screens.
What I'm really excited for is when Apple decides to put an Mx chip into an iMac, paired with a decent AMD GPU. The thermals and energy profile should be allowing a lot more leeway for resource usage than a Macbook...
> they will sell more Apple Music subscriptions if macs keep running macOS.
The type of person who buys an Apple Silicon Mac to run Linux is not going to buy an Apple Silicon Mac to run macOS. However...
> They won't sell more macs if macs can run Linux better.
They would sell some more Macs. Possibly hundreds of thousands more. A drop in the bucket for Apple, but still money—and all they have to do to get it is answer some questions.