But does it advertise to you by default? This seems not comparable at all. Pretty much every browser will want you to set it as default (and at least the option to stop the nagging is usually front and center).
Maybe this is just me, but advertising by default in something as basic as a start screen seems very user hostile....
But anyway, I figure the app store is a place I go to get apps, and if the app store chooses to offered paid placement in that list, at least that's sort of relevant. My start area... is a place I go to use basic functionality of the machine. There is no implication that I want to install anything, or buy anything.
Has Apple ever installed a third-party app on your system? macOS is a batteries-included OS, I think most people consider the wide variety of first-party apps to be a feature not a bug. And if you want a specific app, type its name into Spotlight and you don't even have to hunt and peck through all the icons.
2. Advertising is communication about a product or service. A product is not advertising in itself, logic doesn't work like that.
It's also worth differentiating what one gets: free, quality apps with a decent privacy policy vs. pay to win games in Windows.
You're trying a too hard to excuse customer-hostile behavior and it's embarrassing.
Forcing ads through the OS os is also very aggressive and rude, because there's no way to turn them off.
[1]: Original blog post: https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/how-to-osx-try-safari-promotion....
[2]: Archival link, for future-proofing: https://web.archive.org/web/20190814011835/https://www.ctrl....
My OS does not phone home.
It contacts package mirrors when I ask it to and only when I ask it to.
It contacts NTP servers because I specifically enabled that.
That's it. By contrast Windows is a black box of nonsense.
The copy I have running in a VM has the marketing name "Cortana" process running even though I specifically chose "no" at install.
I enabled a data limit the other day and played some games. The game used 30MB and the combined OS used >60MB doing who knows what despite the fact it tells me updates are not downloaded on metered connections.
Sorry, no, there is no excuse for this. If it's not opt in, it's malware. If it's opt in defaulted to yes and with no clear benefit to the user, it's malware.
Obviously most people are fine with telemetry.
Apple charges WAY more for its OS than Microsoft does for Windows 10 Home Edition. Don’t want adds? Buy the Pro version.
This “apples are better than oranges” indignation about Windows 10 is getting old. Don’t like it? Fine. Let other people enjoy things they like.
Personally this is probably the process by which I become a luddite. You can pry my free OS from my cold dead hands.
For now, the server market is enough to keep general purpose computing going. In twenty years, who knows?
My friends and family who are not power users don't know enough to even understand what malware is or means. They likely never will, just as they don't understand all of the ingredients in their food.
This doesn't make it OK.
We're moving from sofware you run without any interference to subscription and surveillance models, and that's not because users want that, that's not "what they like", they don't have an easy way to get what they do like while also being treated ethically.
MS shouldn't do phone home, OSX shouldn't do it, and I'm pretty sure my work CentOS doesn't do it. This should be the default, and you should have to opt in, preferably for some period, for it to happen.
For ads, this should be disabled by default, and the user should be compensated in some way for receiving ads on an OS they paid for. Also, these and Candy Crush seem to be re-enabled after some updates.
Microsoft adds more telemetry in PowerShell 3: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/new-telemetry-in-p...
And there is an opt out. Guess they do believe users should have a choice.
There's OSes beyond Windows and OSX.
It's funny to speak in absolutes. Plenty of operating systems don't phone home regularly, just not ones popular with consumers.
