FWIW, the last time Apple released a new product with the prefix “i” was the iPad in 2010. They favour “Apple” now, as in “Apple Watch”, “Apple TV”, and “Apple Vision Pro”.

They found that you can’t copyright/trademark “i” as a prefix in and of itself. That means that while nobody else can bring out a product called “iPhone” or “iPod”, they absolutely can bring out a product called, say, “iLaptop”. And that’s what people did for all kinds of products, hoping that people would buy them, mistakenly thinking they were Apple products.

So Apple abandoned it as branding on everything that wasn’t already well-known for that branding.

Your point is right in spirit, but wrong on that one specific point.

except this existed before copilot

If there was no user interaction needed I'd agree but here, AFAICT, the user still needs to ask. If it's truly entirely pointless then once the novelty fades away it won't be used which deprived of precious data points, namely user feedback. For non interactive use I imagine streaming provides already a lot.

🐧

1. It is still a fully fledged x86-64 Windows. You can install literally any program designed to work on Windows, legacy or not.

2. It is still Windows, only they have stripped out everything non essential for reliability for high uptime, think ATM machines. This would be like saying Gentoo or Arch isn't designed to be used on home PCs.

3. You can install the MS App Store and Xbox app, and others should you want to. It just doesn't come with them. I have switched all my friends to this Windows and half of them use it with Xbox Games Pass, and one like the ease of getting everything from the MS App Store.

4. The common person might not want to use Linux for any number of reasons. This is as good as it can get for those who do not want to switch. Not wanting to switch is fine, and shouldn't be shamed.

5. For privacy since it's an Enterprise version, you can disable all built in telemetry. It just takes some entries in things like group policy and registry editor.

Not everyone is going to want to switch to Linux just yet, and that's OK. For those people, this is as good as it gets for Windows.

I've used windows 11 ltsc with games including ones that use anticheat like Finals and didn't run into compatibility issues yet.

Feels like normal Windows experience except no copilot, no Microsoft store, no ads, no preinstalled tiktok/messenger. Just a regular clean Windows install without the need to run debloating scripts. All the ai updates that keep being pushed on regular Windows like paint and notepad aren't present. Its just normal old paint and normal boring notes.

Its an experience closer to Windows 7 era before online accounts were integrated into the OS and nagging people to login.

Of course Linux is the better option.

My version numbers on 11 IoT seem to be bleeding edge for core fuctioning. It's PERFECT for PC gaming, honestly. No Xbox, no gamebar, no AI, no shit getting installed after new updates.

The no license legally is why I linked massgrave. Permanent hardware activation. If they wont sell the license for the only good current Windows, then fuck them.

I keep hearing it's certified UNIX, and if you don't know "what they call it" despite me saying so in the post you replied to, I question your comprehension of the material in general.

Now, I'm not a UNIX guy, and I always thought it was bizarre that people said that. So I looked it up. I neither like nor trust Google, so I searched "macOS UNIX certification" on DuckDuckGo, which I believe uses Bing? Still not ideal, but at this point any search engine is going to get us some meaningful searches.

DDG's AI companion says this: MacOS has been certified as UNIX compliant, specifically as UNIX® 03, which means it adheres to an older version of the Single UNIX Specification. This certification indicates that macOS meets certain programming interface standards, but it does not necessarily reflect the latest UNIX standards.

The top link is from The Open Group which declares itself to be the official register of UNIX certified products. They list Apple macOS 26.0 Tahoe at the top (probably because Apple comes first alphabetically).

The Register is a little more dubious on the subject. It claims that macOS 15 Sequoia (the previous version; before they went to year-name releases rather than sequential) was also UNIX certified, but it goes on to say there are different certifications which are upgraded each year, and Apple only qualifies for UNIX 3 from 2002. It seems like there are much newer certifications Apple could maybe go after, but hasn't. It goes into what the certification means, but this isn't that interesting to me. But there is the link for anyone curious enough to dig.

Finally, OS News claims the certification is a lie but this is mainly clickbait. It says the same thing as The Register, that Apple only achieves the UNIX 3 certification. Then it goes on to accuse Apple of cheating to get to that point, and goes into some code — way past my expertise.

Today, I am a little bit more educated on macOS UNIX certification than I was yesterday. Maybe some of you are, too. Or maybe not, I really don't know. We're all on different paths. However, I am not convinced to change my assertion that it should be "Linux and macOS against Windows" rather than "Linux and Windows against macOS." The latter just seems wrong — why would Linux and Windows users align at all? Other than more similar hardware. Whereas Linux and macOS are both improvements over Windows.

Another thought occurs: is it even Linux users who are going against Mac users? I think it's probably mostly just Windows users trying to spread FUD.

Anonymised telemetry is different from collecting information to sell for marketing, though.

Of course, in the realm of privacy, everyone should know their own threat model. Anonymised telemetry is not a threat to me. But if it's a threat to you (nebulous term — the person to whom I am replying, or anyone reading), then none of the big tech companies offer viable alternatives. You (same audience) cannot say Apple's telemetry is a problem and then use anything from Microsoft, Google, or Meta.

For my threat model, Meta/Facebook has always been a bridge too far. Google has too, for the most part. I used to think Microsoft was fine, but no longer do. But, that's just me.

Yes, it is. Mostly what Windows 11 won't run on is not a matter of the machine's capability of running the software, it's more about the hardware security to back Microsoft's DRM shit.

Even if Linux Mint isn't especially lightweight, there's a Linux distro for just about everybody out there. You could probably find one that runs on 00's or maybe, possibly, even 90s hardware, it would look like shit, it might look like OSes from back then, but it still could have modern support for whatever you want to tack onto it. I will never underestimate the versatility of Linux and its community.