Hacker News Reader

Comment by elsjaako | Hacker News Reader

The videos being taken down here are about how to avoid: Windows requiring a Microsoft account to install, and Windows only being installable on compatable hardware.

AFAIK an apple account isn't strictly required, but a lot of MacOS won't be functional without one.

How is a Macbook better than Windows in these senses?

View on HN

You can use mac, ipad and iphone without apple account at all. You can use app store without logging to icloud. You can install apps without app store. There is no nagging to use icloud after initial setup. There is no spyware and adware integrated into standard apps or OS itself. Apple does not sell user data.

>You can use app store without logging to icloud.

You can't download anything from the App Store without signing into it. For that, an Apple ID is required.

> There is no spyware and adware integrated into standard apps or OS itself.

Are you sure? Senator Ron Wyden claimed that the US uses the Push Notification system for surveillance, and Apple never denied it: https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/06/apple-governments-surve...

  "In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information," the company said in a statement. "Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests."

At the very least, there is a little bit of spyware integrated into the OS.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com