It's a very weird perspective to think that Mac's 5% market share actually matters and is a threat to Windows.
I'm utterly unimpressed by what I've seen thus far about Windows 11, but that is just a clownworld take.
I'm utterly unimpressed by what I've seen thus far about Windows 11, but that is just a clownworld take.
Microsoft (rather, some manufacturer shipping MS-bearing machines) is where you go if you don't want, for whatever reason, to pay a premium for that, or you need the best business-oriented integration & management the market provides.
That covers about 99% of all personal and business computer users, between those two—the remaining sliver is mostly Linux and the BSDs. But there's not a ton of market overlap between them, I don't think.
Anyways they are competitors because people do switch between them. Currently I have a MacBook Pro, my next laptop absolutely will not be a MacBook Pro. It's the worst laptop I've ever owned.
And Apple is just getting started. I was amazed at how many Windows only games I could get to work with either CodeWeavers commercialized and drop dead simple to use WINE implementation or the Windows ARM beta running on the Parallels beta.
If Apples new SOC is able to woo more and more people like I think it will to run on Macs at some point developers will notice and the quantity and quality of Mac ports will improve and I may even not need Windows running on my Mac to run all the games I'm interested in. Most of the games I run today have Mac versions already (although that didn't factor into my buying decisions since as I mentioned I also have a Windows box).
I look at this similar to the Blackberry before the iPhone. The year before the iPhone if you would have told me that it Apple was coming out with a phone that would utterly displace Blackberry within the next five years I would have laughed you out of the room - but that's exactly what happened. Nothing is guaranteed, but I wouldn't be shocked to see a significant shift away from Windows for quite a few segments of gaming.
Absolutely for many CPU bound loads the M1 is a great processor. It just lacks any GPU power which is what you need for games.
Your post reminds me of the person who said Microsoft Office was going to go out of business when Iwork web launched in 2015. I think any argument that goes "this reminds me of Iphone" is a poor argument.
Well, yes, if you have any software that is must-have and it's only available for (or best on) one OS, that'll be what you choose.
Incidentally, I'd not put Windows at the top of my list for HTPC. Probably 3rd or 4th under Linux and Android (if I didn't want to pay anything for the OS and wanted more of an appliance, or if I were using anything short of a quite beefy computer—Win10 is high overhead and uses tons of disk) and macOS (if I wanted a desktop experience on the TV and for most advanced media stuff to probably Just Work without having to mess with config files—old Mac Minis are great for this), unless I was also trying to PC-game on a TV.
Yes it matters, and yes it is a threat. At least in certain market.
Mac usage share has increased from near-zero to 30% in the United States over the past fifteen years, while Windows has dropped from 90%+ to 60% in the same time period [0]. The trend is very similar in other wealthy markets. Windows isn't going anywhere, but the era of Windows hegemony in wealthy markets is now over.
[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-st...