this is sad [LWN.net]

this is sad

Posted Jun 20, 2016 10:32 UTC (Mon) by krake (guest, #55996)
In reply to: this is sad by khim
Parent article: Klumpp: A few words about the future of the Limba project

> What you said is true for macOS, too. And it's more expensive in purely monetary terms, too. Still it's vastly more popular than Linux.

It might a similar situation from the technical point of view but not from the user point of view.

With macOS or Mac computers or Apple in general there isn't an assumption that random things will work.
It is even more or less the other way around, i.e. people will assume it does not work unless the thing in question is either an Apple device as well or specifically blessed by Apple.

People who have switched from Windows to Mac do not assume their old computer will work with macOS, they specifically buy a new one that has it pre-installed.
They will be annoyed if some of their peripherals don't work anymore but buy new ones that do instead of switching back.

So what callegar said is effectively not true for macOS

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this is sad

Posted Jun 21, 2016 8:32 UTC (Tue) by hitmark (guest, #34609) [Link] (1 responses)

And that may well indicate a big obstacle.

Most non-techie computer users equate hardware with software.

We have probably all snickered to the tech support tale of "what OS are you using? Dell". Basically most people treat a computer like they treat a TV or similar, is a sealed whole and not a sum of parts.

So if you were to put two computers of the same brand side by side, one running Window and one running Linux, customers may well get confused as they equate the brand with Window out of habit.

Similarly you have HTC used the same look of watch widget for their phones since the Windows PocketPC days.

this is sad

Posted Jun 21, 2016 15:44 UTC (Tue) by krake (guest, #55996) [Link]

Indeed.

Amplified by the continued wrong/misleading/restrictive use of the term "PC" to only mean a Windows PC, when in fact an Apple PC is as much a PC, or one running Linux, etc.