Precisely. They lost control of the hardware and are presiding over their own death by 10,000 paper cuts. Every peripheral manufacturer adds a tweak here and a band aid there and Microsoft is trying to account for it all. It's actually pretty funny, if you're not an MS user.
If the OS is built for the hardware, hardware developers don't have a market for new technology until the OS vendor agrees to make their OS compatible. You can tell me that's not going to work to stifle hardware development, but I'm not going to believe it.
Apple blesses technology that they feel enhances their platform and business model. Everything else you use at your own risk. If a worthwhile technology came out that wasn't available for the mac, it would be, and quickly. But that's old-school thinking: most computer innovation in the last 10 years has come about because of Apple, not in spite of it. So your premise falls flat just on that account.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend more than a minute or two connecting a new drive or installing memory, or whatever. If it says on the box 'mac compatible' I know that when I plug it in the drivers are already there and it will just work. There's something to be said for that.
But probably the biggest thing in my world is the fact that, working in video and design, I can literally do the work of 10 people with a Mac laptop and some simple equipment. Everything I connect to my computer will work every time; colleagues can access or borrow my work or peripherals. I reboot my computer every other month or so, usually because I've gotten a free OS update from Apple.
That's it. Can you say the same?
I think if everyone adopted the same model Apple has, new hardware development will suffer considerably. The only way a hardware manufacturer can survive will be through a partnership with an OS vendor, and the market will become incresingly balkanized. I’ve asked you directly and repeatedly if you think this would be a likely outcome. I think all the dancing around you’ve done to avoid any consideration of that possibility is rather suspicious.
That's it. Can you say the same?
No, I can't say the same. I can say that as much as I would like it the computer industry would not be better off if they made and did everything catered to me, what I do, and what I find convenient.