> The presupposition is that Apple is inherently motivated to actively lock things down, because that's what they do with the iPhone. This glosses over that Apple has no reason to actually do so, only has reasons not to do it on the Mac, and has gone on record saying they won't treat the Mac as the iPhone.
What is the difference between an iPad pro and a MacBook? If Apple can get away with a 30% tax on all commercial software, and arbitrarily manage which applications are "allowed" - why would they not want to extend that to their laptops? If they still get people to buy and developers to develop?
> If they still get people to buy and developers to develop?
Well they won't get away with that at all, especially not in the long run as people abandon ship to platforms that do allow free development and tinkering. Apple is still a hardware company with hardware sales making up the overwhelming majority of their profits (over 75%). It would be beyond stupid to risk that just so they can live out a control fantasy, especially because they don't need to live out that control fantasy to make good money from the Mac App Store.
Well they won't get away with that at all, especially not in the long run as people abandon ship to platforms that do allow free development and tinkering.
Before the M1 Macs shipped, Apple's Mac revenue hit an all-time high of a smidge over $9 billion [1]. During a global pandemic and economic crisis.
The Mac will be 37 years old on January 24, 2021 and yet, it continues to gain momentum, not lose it. Between 1984 and now, not a year has gone by without the same narrative: Apple is doomed if they don't change their ways…
The M1 Macs are probably selling like proverbial hotcakes—we'll find out on January 27th [2].
People seem to forget that the Mac mini, the MacBook Air and the 13-inch MacBook Pro are the entry-level, consumer oriented computers in Apple's lineup. These machines are the opening act.
And even as stunningly fast as these machines are, especially on a performance per watt basis, we haven't even seen the take-no-prisoners, kick-ass professional Apple Silicon Macs yet.
We’ll probably see Macs from Apple that don't have the space and power constraints of the current lineup. If they cranked the current SoC beyond the current 3.2 GHz, added more cores and started at 16 GB of RAM… they would capture another huge chunk of the market, including a significant number of Linux users…
What is the difference between an iPad pro and a MacBook? If Apple can get away with a 30% tax on all commercial software, and arbitrarily manage which applications are "allowed" - why would they not want to extend that to their laptops? If they still get people to buy and developers to develop?