The findings they are discussing are from Counterpoint Research:
> According to Counterpoint, Apple's global Mac shipments grew 14.9% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2025, supported by demand for new MacBook models and rising enterprise adoption of Apple hardware.
Macs allow the device owner to install an OS that isn't signed at all, without having it degrade the security of the system when you do boot into MacOS.
Fine, but can it be disabled? If secure boot is interfering with another function of the computer, the owner might decide they prefer hibernation over secure boot.
I think what you're missing is that "secure boot" isn't a system-wide on/off thing on a Mac, it's a per-OS thing. And UEFI Secure Boot specifically is something that only exists on a Mac to the extent that Asahi shoehorns it into a system that doesn't natively do anything UEFI-related. It would be very surprising if Asahi Linux didn't still provide a way to skip their UEFI Secure Boot code paths and just plain boot.
Yes, but that's not a perfect excuse since OpenCore (and Clover) exists. macOS very well can boot without iBoot's opaque "man behind the curtain" blobs, Apple simply never entertained it as an option on their chips. Apparently important stuff is happening in that boot process and they can't have you emulating it for fun or profit.
That is worth discussing though, as it's a marked departure from old Macbooks that did support the UEFI method.
> Don't you think it's interesting that it's an option for Macs but not iPad Pros? They both use the same SoC.
Apple has always sold iPads as a closed walled garden and Macs as an open platform.
Apple designed the Apple Silicon Mac hardware to allow you to run an unsigned third party OS without a negative security impact when you run MacOS, because it is an open platform.
However we have definitely seen examples of other formerly open platforms facing new restrictions.
Android was sold to the public as an open platform that Google is actively closing with new restrictions to side loading apps
Windows was sold to the public as an open platform, but Microsoft is locking out users who refuse to use an online account to access their local computer.
I'd argue that calling the new matrix multiplication unit they added to the GPU cores a neural engine instead of a tensor processing unit is a branding error that will lead to confusion.
The existing neural engine's function is to maximize power efficiency, not flexible performance on models of any size.
I'd argue that Apple's definition of "neural engine" was entirely different from what the greater desktop, edge and datacenter markets already considered a "neural engine" to be.
The additional GPU performance will be very helpful for the upcoming Blender port to iPad.
> The M5 chip is built on TSMC's N3P node and has a faster GPU that can deliver 1.6x more FPS in games, 20% faster multi-core CPU performance, and 1.7x quicker render times in Blender — all versus the M4.
If you focus on the fact that Google fraudulently marketed an operating system that allows users to run any software they like (until they successfully drove other open options out of the marketplace) you have all the legal justification you need to force Google to back down.
In the US, there's no requirement for a company to honor the claims of prior advertisements for things that they might do in the future for a different product. And even if a company does lie about the features of their product, advertising law does not require a company to change the features of their product to meet those claims. What could be required is a change in the advertising, or a refund for people who bought the devices under the false terms.
But if you advertise a certain side of feature features in a phone three years ago, and sell something completely different next year, that's entirely legal.
It's certainly possible for the same company to create an open platform in addition to a separate platform that is a walled garden.
Microsoft Windows is an open platform that is open to running whatever software you want, while Xbox is a walled garden.
That doesn't mean that Google can fraudulently market an open platform and then close it after driving competing platforms out of the market without running afoul of antitrust law.
However, if Google wants to create a new platform that is a walled garden, as long as they are honest with users about what they are selling, that would be perfectly legal everywhere except the EU.
> That doesn't mean that Google can fraudulently market an open platform and then close it after driving competing platforms out of the market without running afoul of antitrust law.
But they haven't done these things. If they violate the law, they will have violated the law. Google hasn't imposed the discussed requirements yet. However, even if they imposed them today, I do not believe they currently advertise that they allow side-loading.
Also the commercial market for sideloading is basically nil. I'm not sure what antitrust angle you'd take here -- whose market would they unfairly disadvantaging? Basically all antitrust actions thus far regarding mobile platforms have been regarding their gigantic commercial app stores. That is entirely unaffected by these changes.
> However, if Google wants to create a new platform that is a walled garden, as long as they are honest with users about what they are selling, that would be perfectly legal everywhere except the EU.
The policy they are proposing is the same policy that Apple recently switched to in order to comply with EU regulations! Apple is doing it precisely because it complies with the EU's demands.
> Basically all antitrust actions thus far regarding mobile platforms have been regarding their gigantic commercial app stores. That is entirely unaffected by these changes.
This is more or less true. Epic Games is most likely not going to fight Google any further in the U.S., assuming they actually get what the recent injunction promised them (which does not include unrestricted sideloading, but does include better protections for verified third party app stores on Android).
But at the same time, I don't think it's invalid to say that antitrust law provides a pretty solid framework for a hypothetical "sideloading mandate". The EU's Digital Markets Act comes very close, but falls short of declaring exactly what a "third party app store" should be. That is, "an independent source of applications without any oversight whatsoever from $BIG_TECH_CO".
However, they probably specifically avoided doing that because they knew it would lead to malware on iOS, and a huge win for Apple in the court of public opinion. Will the EU or any of the other regulators actually ever go any further than "third party app stores"? Probably not, to be honest.
What? The parent comment alleges that your claim that Google engaged in fraudulent marketing is false, but your reply just restates your original claim without addressing their argument.
> except the EU
Also Australia, Japan, Brazil, and the United Kingdom, with others sure to follow.
I think the reason you keep reiterating this is because once you realize that there is no legal justification to go after Google for this move under current US law, the only real solution becomes obvious: new legislation, and you really don't want that, because you know it will apply to Apple devices as well, which would be The End of the World.
(This is before Apple/Google lobbying efforts result in either the death of the bill or a bunch of exceptions allowing companies to do "notarization" or "developer verification".)
Antitrust law applies to any company of massive size that engages in anticompetitive conduct, not just companies who create "open platforms" [1], otherwise there would never be any antitrust cases. An antitrust case would be your best hope under current law, but it already happened and the remedies did not include a mandate to keep allowing unrestricted sideloading indefinitely.
Anyway, you're now moving the goalpost, because you were originally talking about a case based on the premise that they engaged in fraudulent marketing, not a case based on the premise that they currently hold a monopoly. The former would never hold up in court, the latter already happened but the remedies were insufficient to stop Developer Verification.
[1] The reason Apple wasn't forced to allow third party app stores as a result of Epic Games v. Apple was not because iOS is a "closed platform"; they simply weren't found to be a monopoly in the "mobile gaming transactions" market (which does not preclude them from eventually being found a monopoly in the "mobile app distribution" market).
Google is following the same game plan we saw when they decided that the full version of uBlock Origin (the version that is still effective on YouTube) should no longer be allowed within their browser monopoly.
The fact that there was a temporary workaround didn't change the endgame.
It's just there to boil the frog more slowly and keep you from hopping out of the pot.
It's the same game plan Microsoft used to force users to use an online Microsoft account to log onto their local computer.
Temporary workarounds are not the same thing as publicly abandoning the policy.
Curiously, for me Ublock light works just as well after I was essentially forced to switch. I could still get the original to function, but with every random chrome update, the thing would be deactivated, obviously as "insecure".
The findings they are discussing are from Counterpoint Research:
> According to Counterpoint, Apple's global Mac shipments grew 14.9% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2025, supported by demand for new MacBook models and rising enterprise adoption of Apple hardware.
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