I find it hard to believe that, outside of work computers, many people would be choosing Windows over Mac or Linux, especially is AI is their goal.
I’m also curious why the comments are turned off for this article unless it is a paid ad for Microsoft.
This story is exclusively for subscribers of Notepad, our newsletter uncovering Microsoft’s era-defining bets in AI, gaming, and computing.
It’s worse than a paid ad. It’s an ad. You have to pay to see.
If you look at the price for a Mac versus a Windows computer, I think it’s pretty obvious why people might choose a Windows device. For Linux, you really have to know where to look to buy a laptop that is shipped or warrantied with Linux. People tend to buy Windows computers because that’s what’s advertised available, familiar and in their price bracket.
Disclaimer: my main laptop is Mac. I have a secondary one running Linux and although I have a work laptop running Windows, that wasn’t my choice and I don’t have Windows on any personal devices.
I find it hard to believe that, outside of work computers, many people would be choosing Windows over Mac or Linux, especially is AI is their goal.
I’m sorry, why? Microsoft basically owns OpenAI and has begun integrating it into their products. Apple doesn’t have any AI capabilities beyond Siri.
They only announced replacing siri with an ai alternative about a month ago. The lack of copilot features is making osx the obvious winner now. Incompetence is making apple the good guy for a short period.
I have a 3 year old MacBook that runs my local LLM and Image Generator. I read this article from the perspective that the new PC chips would be for people who want to run their AI locally, but I suppose you’re right, Microsoft is going to push their Copilot as hard as possible.
I find it really frustrating to not have a touchscreen on a laptop (e.g. scrolling and zooming Google maps).
I don’t understand what I’m getting for the price difference compared to a similar windows laptop.
I don’t like how the Ctrl/Fn/Alt/Cmd keys are used, but that’s just because I’m used to Windows. (Remapping then doesn’t help because commands are divided differently been those modifiers).
I do like that it has a native bash shell instead of having WSL with its separate filesystem. But I doubt that that is a common reason people choose macs.
There is pinch to zoom and multitouch gestures on the trackpad, which I consider a lot more convenient than a touchscreen since my hand is already there.
I haven’t actually bought a Mac in a long time since I get them from my job, but the Windows laptops I’ve used and seen don’t have the build quality, and having a big network of retail stores is a nice insurance policy. And if I was going to buy a Mac I’d buy refurbished anyway.
I’ve been a Mac user since the late 80s so I have the opposite problem with keyboard commands on Windows and Linux that you do.
Most of the people I’ve seen who use Macs - mainly developers working with Linux servers - do use it because it has a shell. (Though Apple switched to zsh not too long ago.)
Windows beats Mac on price.
Windows beats Linux on compatability.Really all there is to it.
If you want to spend 3x the money, get a Mac.
If you’re comfortable dealing with software incompatibility, install Linux.
My MacBook Air is 9 years old and still running strong. I’ve more than gotten my moneys worth out of it.
Unless your laptop isn’t brand new, at which point Linux absolutely beats Windows on compatibility.
Or, you know, want to visit a website:
https://www.linux.org/threads/solved-some-websites-not-loading-in-linux.39289/
… Thats someone having a problem with being given an incorrect certificate for a website because their ISP was blocking the website they were trying to access. Even though its on a linux support forum its neither a linux nor firefox issue.
Worked under Windows, not an ISP problem.
These are the sorts of things you have to accept as a Linux user and figure out workarounds.
It happens all the time with job search sites and government sites. Happens to Safari users on Mac as well.
If you read the thread they were using google dns to get around ISP blocks. They had set it up for ethernet but not for wifi (i presume they had already set it up fpr windows). Not using the service you want but havent set up is not an OS problem.