Windows gets a new terminal
<i>“elevate the command-line user experience on Windows.”</i><p>If I were an engineer in Apple&#x27;s OSX group I would see this as the horde amassing an army on the border. Bit by bit, Microsoft is going down the checklist of why someone would use a Macbook pro rather than a Windows laptop for their daily driver and erasing the advantage (or at least mitigating it to the best of their ability).<p>This will never convert the die hard OSX fans to use Windows laptops, like the OSX features could never convince die hard Windows users to use Macbook Pros, but the real prize here is the large bulk of users who aren&#x27;t die hard Apple or Windows fans and just want to get their job done on one laptop reliably.<p>Apple&#x27;s latest earnings report re-iterates that they aren&#x27;t investing in the Macbook Pro or OSX in any meaningful way. Microsoft&#x27;s success with the Surface Pro series against  the Macbook Pro has shown that good electrical engineering can be bought and if the software is good enough, it can remove the last objections to the Windows laptops.<p>I see Linux as a big loser here too as the opportunity for a Linux desktop, <i>for the bulk of the users</i>, recedes further into the distance with two capable, and <i>supported</i>, offerings from larger players to choose from.<p>I&#x27;ve got one of everything it seems, and I had a Macbook Pro as my daily driver starting at Google in 2006 through my exit from IBM at 2015. I bought a SurfaceBook when they announced them for the drawing experience and laptop that had more capability than my Macbook Pro. I then tag teamed between them until I got the Surface Pro 4 with the same drawing experience, but lighter than a Macbook Air and with WSL and a third party X server a decent Linux&#x2F;UNIX like development environment.<p>I still haven&#x27;t replaced my Macbook from 2015 with the various things that Apple has thrown out there, the keyboard issue, the track bar issue, the lack of drawing, the lack of any compelling reason to upgrade. I still use it for Xcode for the iPad app I am doing in my spare time but use it less and less.<p>The new terminal will make it easier to not use the Macbook. If Microsoft starts bundling an Xserver for the occasional windows app it would make it even easier to stay on their platform.<p>I can&#x27;t tell if Apple sees this as a threat to their business, or just doesn&#x27;t care anymore about that part of the business and so they are willing to cede it to Windows as the &quot;portable&quot; development environment supported by an enterprise vendor.