> the moment they officially acknowledge Linux support, then it becomes a support surface

untrue. There are no obligations from other hardware vendors, yet you can sometimes get good drivers from them, or at least specs. I think Apple indeed want their hardware to fade out to enforce buying another. Imagine that 20% of your returning customers no longer return after 3-5 years of planned obsolence

> However, the moment they officially acknowledge Linux support, then it becomes a support surface.

Apple documents lots of things the genius bar won't help with. For example, Apple provides instructions for compiling custom builds of the XNU kernel. Even so, if you replace the stock kernel and your Mac kernel panics, the genius bar isn't going to help you. (Maybe they'd help you wipe the computer and restore everything to stock, but I imagine they'd do that if a Linux user walked in too, today.)

I suspect Apple hasn't shared documentation because it would take time to clean up for external release (legal stuff, plus not accidentally leaking future products). What I think Apple should do is make an engineer available to talk on the phone for a couple of hours a month, which should amount to a rounding error in their budget.

They don't have to support it, just document the system or release their own kernel code. They don't even have to mention Linux.

> Apple hardware margins are healthy enough that selling macbooks to linux users is pure profit, so no services lock-in needed.

What do you mean by needed? A lock-in is more profitable so is needed to maximise profits.

And risk of loss of control on the software ecosystem.

I don't know if that's true. Linux users are curious and will try more stuff but people mistake that they file bug reports (and usually detailed ones...) with complaining more.

Apple's MO is that it's their baby. End of. They don't do open. Their compiler is closed source, and so on.

Hmmm, both my grinder and espresso machine are quite reparable with parts you can order from the manufacturer. Very much unlike my iphone…

This is an interesting thought exercise. I immediately thought of the counter argument that Apple's driver quality is worse, especially for laptops nearing end of life (for the sake of argument assume this were true).

Could I then submit a warranty claim and demand Apple replace my aging laptop with their latest model?

They are operating under a patchwork of NDAs. It would take some effort to determine what they can disclose.

If they think macOS is one great idea, that's a terrible misjudgment.

They get more public goodwill from a single ad. The chronically online Linux-using engineer community is too small to matter.

The vast majority of people that buy Macs for the ecosystem aren't going to switch to Linux. That market will remain untouched. Outside of a few gamers who might want to put up with the x86-to-ARM translation layer and (for most A to AAA games) Proton to run some non-Mac games. And even they'll probably still dual-boot.

There's a portion of another market: people who want to run Linux and want a powerful laptop who buy x86 Laptops right now. Apple could expend very little relative effort while offering no official support by helping Asahi get that to a first class platform. They won't capture them in the ecosystem (and they never would have) but will still benefit from hardware sales to them.

Obviously, if they sold their hardware at a loss and subsidized that with ecosystem capture that would be a non-starter. But from everything we know, the hardware itself is very profitable.

Yeah, and having the only supported OS be MacOS means they can entice people to upgrade when they want. No continuing on with 8+ year old hardware and a lightweight Linux distro even if it's fine for the intended use case.

They do also make a lot of money selling hardware, and as things stand today that business happens to make them look like the first tech giant to actually profit from the AI boom (because the hardware they've been developing internally for years happens to be among the best consumer-grade options for self-hosting LLMs). Making their hardware more attractive to tinkerers could be a winning move right now.

This, but also you would be allowing people to learn Linux. Developer with a Mac has to be one of the most common linux defectors. I suspect most people don't realize how doable and comfortable the switch can be.

Linux users don't pay for anything anyway

Plenty are whining now and that doesn't seem to bother them. I mean, this is one of the largest companies in the world. This is the company that once told people they were holding the phone wrong. I can't see them being particularly more bothered by people complaining in a slightly different way.

so they don't care about users, they care about themself?

I don't see it that way. It's just the GP poster saying that they don't get it. Usually that means the GP poster isn't experienced enough to understand the rationality. So I generally assume the GP poster is simply naive.