Posted by breve 7 hours ago
Windows had a good thing going (if you ignored some bad releases), but them pushing it too far with 11 and the Linux desktop making great strides, sort of put the nail in that coffin for me.
Not sure what they can do to make me reconsider. It's a trust issue now.
I can buy a thinkpad and install linux on it without once creating a microsoft account. I can buy an android phone supported by GrapheneOS, and use it as a perfectly fine phone without ever creating a google account.
I cannot buy an iPhone without creating an apple account, without getting ads shoved in my face by apple, without them deciding what I can and can't install on it, and them charging me for the privilege of writing my own software.
Microsoft doesn't deserve as much shame here as Apple does since MS isn't requiring their hardware vendors to lock down the hardware to only be able to run Windows (even though they very well could). Apple, with iOS, is.
Again, android phones with GrapheneOS or windows machines with linux let me use my hardware fully without creating any advertising-ridden-evil-corporate-company's account, including building and running my own apps.
I can't even build my own code for iOS, let alone run it, without an apple account (and paying apple money).
Does Windows machines with Linux here mean WSL2 on Windows? I think the problem people have had with Microsoft accounts is exaclty that they need to use a Microsoft account to use their computers and they don't like it.
If it instead means Linux machine (not sure what Windows has to do with it), then I think people are genuinely happy to have the freedom to use their hardware as they see fit without asking for permission or updating Microsoft or Apple.
You can use an Apple computer without an Apple ID and build your own code on it, but that does seem to be a holdout from the old days when Apple had products like the II Plus and System 9. It feels like they're moving towards the Microsoft model of /mandatory/ accounts even for their desktop OS.
Both of them deserve equal amount of shame because they're both trying to do the same, force you to have an online account associated with a local user profile, either directly or indirectly.
Not sure why it has to be a contest who "we should shame the most" or whatever, how about saying both of them suck when it comes to this?
The direct answer, though, is largely one of execution. Microsoft isn't just pushing this heavily. They are doing so poorly.
I will say that I think the forced linking has encouraged other unpleasant behavior like the profile folder hijacking to OneDrive. I rather like having this stuff in OneDrive. I do not like that it is pushed so aggressively. “We moved all your stuff to OneDrive. You need to subscribe so we don’t delete it.” This feels hostile. So some of the distaste with logins tied to the cloud is probably more about the surrounding ecosystem.
Why even post this?
I'd definitely much prefer if even for "ecosystem" the companies would not require online account except where truly necessary (purchases?), but for operating the OS itself, I do feel there's a line in the sand where online account requirement = no.
Try to run any developer tool or "xcode-select install" and it'll download the command-line tools independently from Xcode.
(and then bring your own IDE)
You can install XCode CLI dev tools without an Apple account, which comes with clang and swift for example. With this, you can build most Mac software, but I don’t think you can run Swift tests without a full XCode.
As the sibling comment notes, you can install GCC/llvm and whatever other open source tools and build Mac software without full XCode.
You can also install Apple container support without an Apple account.
Microsoft is a cloud provider now -- their software exists to support their cloud business.
Most people DO use one, though, because that's how you access the iCloud services that underpin the Apple ecosystem. But it's not MANDATORY.
My understanding is that you cannot even log into a Windows machine without an MSFT account. That's a big difference.
An Apple account together with an iPhone and MacBook let’s you share clipboard, passwords, notes etc., a no brainer.
Windows laptop and iPhone? I guess an Apple account still is more useful here too, actually. So the average user does not really need an MS account, hence the annoyance.
You can also still log in with a completely local account as well. It takes a few extra minutes to set up but once configured it works fine.
The system is full of dark patterns and roadblocks that steer users towards an MS account, but you don't have to use one.
The answer is: Because the Apple Login is not calling out for every service, including login.
It's just better without Microsoft.
2026 is the year of the Linux desktop. It's time - Linux has never been better or easier to use than it is right now.
requiring an account for basic stuff might make sense internally but from user side it just adds unnecessary steps