> to get more attention than its content justifies

That your Mac can get to the point by an Apple OS update that you need to enter recovery mode? (Even as someone who is exclusively Apple, I have seen the mockery Microsoft has endured for similar).

Or worse, to the point that unless you have access to a spare Mac or the _currently closed_ Apple stores, you are shit out of luck?

"Eh, no big deal, not worth reading or commenting on".

I'd go with the fact that Apple has always been a little finicky, but initially quite fixable; then it became more and more locked down and users had to accept that fact: some left, some stayed. Nowadays pretty much nobody around here is surprised by the shenanigans you may have to go through on Apple platforms outside of the core mainstream experience.

The fact that an OS update can brick a device is a non-event, it's happened before and will happen again. Apple is not perfect, no one is. They do a pretty good job most of the time, comparatively¹.

The fact that in the case of Apple you have to suffer the aforementioned shenanigans to maybe solve the problem is, well, coincidental. It's not an event in itself either.

Note this is why production machines in professional environments usually wait a few weeks-months to update. Also why security updates are generally offered on their own (shouldn't wait to install those).

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1: Note that, I personally can't stand being at the mercy of 1 corporation so I took matters in my own hands and run Linux: it rarely fails. When it does, it's usually my fault, so I can assign blame, learn my lesson and move on. Otherwise, I'd have to accept that every so often, a proprietary vendor update may brick the device.

Oh c'mon, the real issue here is Apple's abysmal quality control (and really it's an industry-wide trend). They're phoning it in with real, tangible effect, but based on the upvotes here at the time of writing, HN seems to consider the debate around what "bricked" implies to be the most important conversation.