Speaking personally, I don’t think they’re dumbed down. They’re pretty straightforward to use, sure, but they do what I need them to.
In terms of the hardware; I have a 2011 MacBook Pro at home that’s still just about as solid as the day I bought it. The battery’s dead, but that’s to be expected for its age. I’m typing this on a 2014 Mac mini that’s running the latest macOS perfectly through OCLP. My main computer is a 15" M2 MacBook Air that is a genuinely impressive machine. If anything, Apple have kinda shot themselves in the foot, making devices that last far longer than their software support allows.
I was running Linux on my desktop from 2009 until I finally decided to swap the hardware last month. It started as my computer for school, I later added a GPU to play games, upgraded the GPU, then removed the GPU to turn it into a NAS (in 2017) when I upgraded the hardware (CPU was lagging in games). So I got ~8 years out of it as a desktop, then another 7 years as a server, and I only replaced it because I had better hardware doing nothing (faster and lower power).
Likewise with my laptop. I bought a Lenovo T series in 2012-ish (replaced a POS HP that was falling apart from 2009), accidently killed it with water damage (a lot of water, like a full cup) in ~2017, then got a Lenovo E series to replace it, which I still use today. The E series has been dropped multiple times (once from almost 2 meters onto a hard floor), stuffed in bags, used by kids, etc, and the only issue is a small chip in the back (fall damage) and a slightly loose USB-C charge port (mostly from kids tugging on it; still works fine). I still get 3-ish hours battery life and my kids love playing minecraft and Lego games on it. I expect it to last years still.
I’ve never had to replace a computer because of Linux support. It’s never even come across my mind as a thing to think about. Everything just works, even if I move my boot drive from one computer to another (upgrading my 2009 system to my 2017 system was just moving the boot drive).
I don’t think Apple hardware is special, they just don’t ship crap like the budget end of the market. If you buy something quality, it’ll be just as reliable, if not more. If I cared to fix my Lenovo T series, it would probably be with me today, but the newer, faster model was <$500 so I didn’t bother.
OCLP is pretty darn cool, for sure. Note the quotation marks on the “supported”.
I’m rather anoyed that I’ve accrued so much Apple hardware passed down to me, which is absolutely mint condition, but is “no longer supported”. It just means that the vendor no longer finds it profitable to keep it secure, and sort of shrugs it off; “just buy a new one lol, and bin your perfectly good hw”. Wasteful.
Speaking personally, I don’t think they’re dumbed down. They’re pretty straightforward to use, sure, but they do what I need them to.
In terms of the hardware; I have a 2011 MacBook Pro at home that’s still just about as solid as the day I bought it. The battery’s dead, but that’s to be expected for its age. I’m typing this on a 2014 Mac mini that’s running the latest macOS perfectly through OCLP. My main computer is a 15" M2 MacBook Air that is a genuinely impressive machine. If anything, Apple have kinda shot themselves in the foot, making devices that last far longer than their software support allows.
That’s true of Linux too though.
I was running Linux on my desktop from 2009 until I finally decided to swap the hardware last month. It started as my computer for school, I later added a GPU to play games, upgraded the GPU, then removed the GPU to turn it into a NAS (in 2017) when I upgraded the hardware (CPU was lagging in games). So I got ~8 years out of it as a desktop, then another 7 years as a server, and I only replaced it because I had better hardware doing nothing (faster and lower power).
Likewise with my laptop. I bought a Lenovo T series in 2012-ish (replaced a POS HP that was falling apart from 2009), accidently killed it with water damage (a lot of water, like a full cup) in ~2017, then got a Lenovo E series to replace it, which I still use today. The E series has been dropped multiple times (once from almost 2 meters onto a hard floor), stuffed in bags, used by kids, etc, and the only issue is a small chip in the back (fall damage) and a slightly loose USB-C charge port (mostly from kids tugging on it; still works fine). I still get 3-ish hours battery life and my kids love playing minecraft and Lego games on it. I expect it to last years still.
I’ve never had to replace a computer because of Linux support. It’s never even come across my mind as a thing to think about. Everything just works, even if I move my boot drive from one computer to another (upgrading my 2009 system to my 2017 system was just moving the boot drive).
I don’t think Apple hardware is special, they just don’t ship crap like the budget end of the market. If you buy something quality, it’ll be just as reliable, if not more. If I cared to fix my Lenovo T series, it would probably be with me today, but the newer, faster model was <$500 so I didn’t bother.
The 2011 MBP “supported” macOS isn’t receiving security updates anymore, for almost 4 years now. It’s pretty much an Apple Brick.
…unless you install an OS that continues to receive security updates. Insert penguin here.
Until last week it was running Sonoma. Then I put Mint on it, which somehow buggered up the macOS partition.
Long story short, it’s not run High Sierra for a couple of years now, not since I discovered OCLP.
OCLP is pretty darn cool, for sure. Note the quotation marks on the “supported”.
I’m rather anoyed that I’ve accrued so much Apple hardware passed down to me, which is absolutely mint condition, but is “no longer supported”. It just means that the vendor no longer finds it profitable to keep it secure, and sort of shrugs it off; “just buy a new one lol, and bin your perfectly good hw”. Wasteful.