Apple is an existential threat to the PC

That's not even a paraphrase of what I said. Even if it was, using quotation marks for a paraphrase without calling it out is questionable.

Tooling does nothing for users if they are not provided an interface to easily use it, windows instead remains a malware target by design. Of course if they actually did that and put bug bounties on container escapes similar to Chrome web apps they'd likely go bankrupt, way too much crusty code behind win32.

That said, I was kind of assuming they could have a friendly windows with only UWP apps as the core OS, while running the rest on VMs (just like Chromebook has the core OS with web apps, with in the future SteamOS on VM). I hadn't yet noticed UWP was on the way out though, the more things change for Windows, the more things stay the same, use the new stuff and you will get fucked.

Chromebook, ignoring datamining, is shaping up to be almost everything a modern laptop/desktop should be for normies. A hardware certification model which while open to input from third party manufacturers is tightly enough controlled it gives a limited amount of platforms allowing good QA and pain free updates. A core OS which is cloud oriented to make account transfer across devices pain free. A core OS with one of the best app sandboxes in the industry, far ahead of what appcontainer can ever be due to better design not being held back by 3 decades of cruft. In the future, a VM maintained security boundary to run the most important crufty applications ... games That's how you make something which just werks. Please for gods sake learn to follow their example properly Microsoft, Windows SE ain't it, I don't really want a future condemned to chose between Google or Apple.

 

No one will care, because windows will be dead ... well outside Azure DaaS running on Macbooks any way.

For you appcontainer cheerleaders ... when do you think Microsoft will allow win32 apps to declare proper capabilities? (ie. same as UWP, without fulltrust.) Will they have a bug bounty program for appcontainer escapes on the level as the Chrome sandbox? Make some predictions when Microsoft will actually show me wrong about the woeful level of windows security, which is almost entirely reactive. The big two proactive steps forward, UWP/capabilities and the Windows 10X win32 sandbox, abandoned for the moment.

 

It's been a couple of years, but I'm pretty sure I started the thread on how the Chromebook which just werks and the Macbook eating all the margins (without paying back into the hardware ecosystem any more) was going to start squeezing PCs.

With Chromebooks about to get more versatile (SteamOS/Borealis) I just wanted to contrast that Microsoft abandoning it's most ambitious plans to modernize (Windows 10x) and retrenching on good old win32 with rather minimal changes. What is Microsoft's answer to Chromebooks? The crippled Windows 11 SE which doesn't even have the Microsoft store ... it's as much windows as the xbox (which doesn't mean it can't be successful, but it's more about getting kids hooked on Office than windows and Office runs on Macbooks too).

 

Which helped them little in education, where Chromebook made its main playground ... which is where Windows 11 SE comes in, a cloud based Windows, unfortunately entirely divorced from the normal windows ecosystem. Windows doesn't build on top of SE, they can't currently offer a rock steady SE to normal consumers with win32 on top. It's like xbox, hanging on the side being a distraction (took Microsoft decades to realise they could not afford to promote the xbox over windows, but better late than never).

I guess it's possible that SE for education is just going to stealthily transform into a new version of 10x. That would be the best case scenario, offering a cloud centric OS core and collection of apps is the best way currently for Microsoft to differentiate themselves from Apple who seems a bit slow on the uptake in that regard.

Macbook steadily growing and Chromebook retrenching. Changes little about my future outlook.

Salesnumbers don't make win32 without a capability based security system any more secure/private for users, it doesn't make the continuous ditching of slightly more ambitious schemes such as UWP/10x any more excusable. Even ignoring that, lets say Surface slowly takes over entirely from third party Windows hardware so Microsoft can finally target their QA a little tighter, is that really supposed to be good for PCs? I don't want Microsoft to be a second Apple.

M1 Macbook technical endurance prowess already was more marketing than reality even before Alder Lake. 12 hour+ screen time was already achieved for Athena ultrabooks and when Windows wasn't acting up, I'm sure current generation Evo will improve it further ... Windows 11 on the other hand seems to have some problems with battery life on older hardware.

 

Which isn't all that relevant for screen time for web browsing and office use, that's far more about whole system efficiency.

 

I fail to see how it would surprise me since I was the one who brought it up.

Microsoft got caught in supporting Apple with Office when they were far less of a threat and they were in trouble with government. You don't see Apple porting FCP.

As hinted before, see xbox for how long Microsoft can keep shooting itself in the foot. In the end Microsoft apparently did agree with me that the xbox division was hurting PC and took their exclusives away from them.

PS. I'm not saying Microsoft should take Office away from Macs. Apple is by far the stronger brand now, Microsoft is coasting on inertia. Forcing Apple users off Office would just hurt them by pushing competition in the word processing and spreadsheet market.