Ask Paul: October 31 ⭐

Happy Friday, Happy Halloween, y feliz Día de Muertos! It’s that time of the year when he comes home, and, apparently, when it’s time to debate computing platforms and figure out which one is best for us. So let’s dive in.

? Mac vs. PC vs. iPad vs. the world

helix2301 asks:

Mac sales have been better than iPad sales as of late. My question is, where do Mac sales fall in the scope of PC sales? Is it on par with other vendors like Lenovo or Dell? Just wondering if you were comparing PC to Mac, where Apple kind of falls.

I try to call out Mac market share (sales, or unit sales) whenever I publish an article about PC sales, as (what are now estimates of) Mac sales are part of that. And it’s odd to me that this number isn’t higher, given the popularity of the iPhone or even Apple in general. But the most recent number I have, which IDC only, is 6.8 million units sold in Q3 2025, which is about 9 percent of the market. IDC reported that Lenovo sold 19.4 million PCs in that quarter, compared to 15 million for HP and 10.1 million for Dell.

For full-year 2024, using averages of the estimates provided by IDC and Gartner, the total market was 251 million units, with Lenovo (62 million units), HP (53 million), Dell (39 million), and Apple (22.7 million) at the top, so Apple’s market share for 2024 was 8.9 million.

A couple of quick points on Mac market share.

It hasn’t changed much over the years, which I (again) find odd. Over the past several years, 2023 and back, Mac market share ranged from 7.5 percent to 8.7 percent, but not in a clean line, with a few downward changes. These figures are higher in places like the U.S. and western Europe, of course, but I’m surprised this isn’t over 10 percent worldwide.

One could always make an argument that the iPad is a PC alternative, and with iPadOS 26, you’re even better positioned for that. If you were to include those sales, Apple’s share of the market would be much higher. Granted, the iPad still isn’t a Mac. But it’s an interesting exercise. Using an AI summary from Brave Search, which I think we can all agree is 100 percent accurate, Apple sold 71.1 million, 57.8 million, 61.8 million, 49.5 million, and 52.1 million iPads in each of the past five years (2020 through 2024), and though that is trending downward, the first two are pandemic era and those are all big numbers regardless. Very big numbers: Lenovo, the world’s biggest PC maker, sold 59 million, 70.6 million, 83 million, 69 million, 59.4 million units over those same five years. So in that sense, Apple is actually the biggest computer maker in the world. Sort of. Obviously, most iPad users don’t use an iPad like a Mac or PC laptop.

?️ No, Virginia, Microsoft Cloud does not exist

OldITPro2000 asks:

Thank you for doing the earnings call breakdown each quarter. Wait, let me reword that more appropriately: Congratulations on another excellent quarterly analysis! Your insights are fungible and planet scale!

Ha! Thank you, as I mentioned in this quarter’s article, these things are sometimes straightforward, but sometimes they take on a life of their own, and this time was an example of the latter. I was first taken aback by the style change on the earnings slides, which is a strange combination of more text and less information, if that makes sense.

And though I missed the live call—I really wanted to listen to that and would like to find a recording—I was then even more struck by two things that really stood out: The escalation of Microsoft’s lack of transparency in financial reporting just days after having written about that topic and the confirmation of a theory that’s evolved into pretty much a fact that the financial industry—which is “Wall Street” in this country, but really just several very powerful companies that act as taste makers in the corporate financial space and boost stock prices out of pure speculation, not actual business performance—and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are not asleep at the switch but literally undermining the market.

This is part of a growing “big idea” thing I’ve been working on that extends beyond Big Tech, but it’s also quite pertinent to what Big Tech really is. I am flabbergasted by what I know already, but I feel like I’ve just touched on the thinnest outside layer of it.

I spent some time trying to figure out what “Microsoft Cloud” contains and as you said, this doesn’t actually exist and they change the meaning all the time. I tried playing with the Azure, 365, Dynamics, and LinkedIn numbers (since those would be all cloud, right?) and can’t make sense of it.

I don’t remember exactly when Microsoft started reporting on what it now calls the Microsoft Cloud—it started off as the “commercial cloud”—but I’m guessing it was about a decade ago. It was created because analysts would compare AWS revenues to those of what is now Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business unit (which is basically Azure), and Intelligent Cloud was always a very distant second. So the Microsoft Cloud is an unknown aggregate of whatever cloud-related businesses that Microsoft has across all three of its top-level (actual) business units, and it’s one that can and does change from quarter-to-quarter based on which delivered the best numbers. Microsoft Cloud compares better with AWS, basically. In fact, these days that made-up business handily beats AWS every quarter, which is the point. And, tied to the above commentary, is just one example of Microsoft using numbers for appearances and boosting its reputation with Wall Street, which has helped catapult its stock price and market cap.

I was curious to know if you did any more digging after the call yesterday and were able to figure out what “Microsoft Cloud” currently contains.

It’s not possible to know. Perhaps someday there will be a leak, but for now, this remains a “wave the wand” financial metric to dazzle Wall Street that has inexplicably worked on people who should know better.

? Oh, snap!

ClintonFitch3rd asks:

Just a note of thanks for all the reviews that you do. As a long-time Mac user, the thought of reverting to Intel when I needed to migrate back to Windows for work was not something I wanted to experience. There was a reason I left Windows 10+ years ago!

I read numerous reviews on the Snapdragon-powered PCs featured on your site, and they convinced me to give it a try. I’m now on a Surface Laptop 7 and couldn’t be happier. All my concerns about the performance never happened.

So, thank you for the hours spent separating the good, the bad, and the ugly in your reviews.

Thank you for this, and you bet. Snapdragon X has transformed Windows 11 from a distant hope for the future to a stunningly good reality right now. And as I discovered using the HP OmniBook 5 (and similarly in the HP EliteBook 6 G1q I’ll be reviewing soon), even the lowest-end version of these chips are stupendous. It will always bother me that Microsoft marketed these things for AI, when it’s the reliability, performance, and uptime that make all the difference in the world. The Surface Laptop 7 is still my favorite laptop. So that was a good choice. 🙂

? What I use vs. what I used to use

owllicks asks:

I always enjoy reading your laptop reviews! With so many different models coming through, I’ve been wondering about your personal setup. Do you stick to a consistent main setup, or is it always changing based on what you’re testing? Also, do you have a go-to docking station you recommend for these setups? I’m curious to see how your current gear compares to what you mentioned in older posts.

I write about my setups from time-to-time in the ongoingWhat I Use series of articles. And though it does vary over time, and now involves different setups in Pennsylvania and Mexico, it’s interesting (to me) how little it’s changed at a high level. The biggest shift over the years, was moving from desktop-based PCs to laptops, which I’ve written about in a More Mobile series. But even that isn’t a clean break, as I do use desktop PCs, mostly small form factor (SFF) or NUC-type PCs, from time-to-time as well.

The one thing I don’t believe I’ve written about is tied to the More Mobile thing and I guess dates back to when we sold the house and downsized. Previous to that, I often split my time pretty evenly between sitting at a desk in my home office, which in the house was in what should have been the dining room, and lying on the bed with a laptop in the afternoons. I sort of saw the home office-based work as the formal, scheduled bit, and then would catch up on whatever else once that was done each day.

But while we were staging the house for the sale, we reverted the dining room to its original purpose and I moved the core parts of my home office setup into the basement. And I just didn’t like being down there, so I started spending more time using a laptop elsewhere in the house when possible. When we sold the house, we moved into a two-bedroom apartment and we were there for almost a year. That didn’t have a dedicated room for a home office, so I just set up my desk much as I had at the house during the staging, but in this case in one corner of what was basically a living room. And I just found myself using it less and less.

We then moved into the three-bedroom condo we’re still living in, and that has a room that doubles as a home office and a spare bedroom (my wife does the same, but upstairs). And I just never use it, other than for podcasts. Similarly, here in Mexico, I don’t  have the space for a home office, so I just set up the laptop stand, a few external displays, the keyboard and mouse, and the microphone and its arm at what would normally be a kitchen table, though it’s just one big room with the living room and kitchen next to each other. And so I just use that for podcasts pretty much. I write sitting on the living room couch before lunch (as I am doing now), and then when we get back in the early afternoon, I work from the bed, as I had started doing years ago at the house.

So the notion of a setup is both real and imaginary, in some ways. And it does change all the time. I typically end up using whatever laptop(s) I’m currently reviewing, though I also mix in laptops I just like to use (as with Surface Laptop 7, which is at home in PA now, and the HP OmniBook 5 I just reviewed and upgraded). And I have laptops for testing purposes (different Windows Insider channels, for example), a MacBook Air, and whatever else.

There are several constants though. And it’s interesting (again, to me) to see which things I use that just keep working and working over many years. Two of the best examples are the Microsoft (now Incase) Sculpt Keyboard and Mouse, which I love, and the Anker 555 USB-C hub. We own five of these, if you can believe that. My wife uses one on her setups in PA and here in Mexico. I have one in each place as well. And I keep one in my travel bag for use on trips. I keep expecting a better version, but it’s also pretty much perfect and is quite inexpensive.

In PA, I typically use two 27-inch desktop displays, though one of them died just before we came to Mexico on this trip, so I need to figure that out once we get back. Here, I was using a 24-inch desktop display with whatever laptop, but I switched to using two portable USB-C displays with whatever laptop during our July trip, along with some neat little tablet/display stands.

My What I Use articles date back to the SuperSite for Windows (or perhaps the Internet Nexus, I can’t recall) and came about in part because I was always fascinated by what over people use (and still am). The oldest straight-up What I Use post I can find on this site is from 2017, and I do still use many of the same items (the Microsoft Sculpt keyboard and mouse, the Heil microphone, and much of the software), but I also use things that are just obvious upgrades or alternatives to what I had then, so the high level hasn’t changed too much. The oldest travel-related What I Use I found is from early 2017, from a trip to Germany for CeBIT.

I will write up a What I Use article for this Mexico trip in a few weeks, but I brought the MacBook Air (which I have yet to use in any meaningful way here), the HP OmniBook 5 (which, if anything, I have used too often), and the HP EliteBook 6 here, and I will leave the OmniBook 5 here so I have a solid Snapdragon X/WOA PC in both places (the Surface Laptop 7 is in PA). Since I’ve gotten here, Lenovo sent me the Legion Go 2 and ThinkCentre neo 50q SFF PC for review. So those have all been in the mix, plus a few Intel/AMD-based laptops I have here, one now with a Tiny11 Builder-based Windows 11 install and one with Zorin OS (see below). And I’ve been using both of those a lot for the past 10 days or two weeks-ish now too.

There have also been several other tech-related purchases and additions here on this trip. I will write about that in the coming What I Use article.

Disclaimer – I used Gemini to help me rewrite this question, the original was all over the place.

🙂 I’m just glad that someone is using AI effectively. Given how much news there is around AI and how often I have to write about it, I still don’t use it for much and not in any day-to-day sense for productivity. I’ve never used it to write anything (beyond tests so I could write about it). Someday.

?️ You got your Windows on my Mac

JustMe asks:

Have you any experience running Windows on Arm via Parallels – particularly on the Mac Mini? I am curious about not just performance on that device, but how much trouble you’ve had or not had getting things to run on WoA. I have an older machine that is due to be replaced, and for the first time in years am considering the Mini as I can run WoA and some variants of Linux via Parallels. I am finding more and more that while I don’t objectively hate W11, I also don’t particularly love it. Particularly in contrast with an OS like Zorin – it just gets in the way too much for me on a daily basis. I will likely always have a windows partition or instance (I am, after all, a windows gamer – and yes, I am aware of the potential limitations parallels and WoA may pose in that arena) but my inner grumpy old man is getting tired of Windows just constantly annoying me. Apple is not a cure-all. For that matter, neither is Linux. But I can get work done or game and be far less nagged on those platforms.

Yes, I’ve used pretty much every version of Parallels on whatever Mac(s) I’ve had at the time, dating back to the pre-Apple Silicon days. Parallels is rather incredible, and how you approach using Windows 11 on a Mac now will depend on what it is you need or want from Windows 11. The best approach for most, though Parallels has told me that this is not the most common usage—is to use its Coherence mode, where Windows 11 runs in the background and you just use the Windows apps you need side-by-side with Mac apps, so that they appear to be running directly in macOS.

You could also just throw as much RAM as you want at the Windows 11 VM and then run Parallels with Windows full-screen, in effect taking over the Mac. But that’s not really optimal, and now that Snapdragon X exists, you can’t claim that it’s the best Windows 11 on Arm experience anymore. So I don’t recommend that.

But if the goal is to move to an OS that is cleaner and less harassing than Windows 11, macOS certainly fits the bill. Mac laptops are terrific, especially the MacBook Air, and I suspect the latest Mac Mini models are just as good on the desktop. And you could use Parallels to get what you need out of Windows 11, whether it’s specific apps or whatever else. This is the one helpful escape hatch you get with the Mac that is semi-unique. There are solutions like Wine on Linux that can run some Windows apps, and some cloud services that help to integrate OneDrive or whatever. But it’s hit or miss. And there’s nothing like that on Chromebooks or iPads beyond remote desktop apps.

You’re right that the Mac isn’t a magic fix that solves all problems. It has its own issues and learning curves. But it’s inarguably the most polished choice, and you can’t argue that the hardware isn’t stellar. Tied to the question above, I brought my MacBook Air to Mexico, but I almost never use it. I can’t explain this exactly, but I am just much more comfortable in Windows and still prefer it. But for many, the Mac will do the job. You never know, you may wonder why you waited so long.

On that note …

? Somewhere, Max Zorin is smiling

AnOldAmigaUser (and JustMe) ask:

Considering that the iPad may be the perfect computer and your favorable feelings for Zorin 18, is the day coming when you see yourself using these alternative platforms rather than Windows on a daily basis?

Yes, I can see such a thing happening. I’m not actively working toward that future, except that I am, in a way, working toward that future. Meaning, I am always testing things and purposefully challenging the hardware and software I rely on. And that, tied to some big improvements in how the iPad works today and, soon, how Android will work, has made my mind race.

I’ve written a lot about the iPad and using it like a laptop with iPadOS 26. My key takeaway is obvious enough, it works and it works well. But there is also this real-world reality that the 11-inch iPad Air I have now is too small, so the Magic Keyboard isn’t full-sized,and this can never be my day-to-day computer. So I look at the 13-inch iPad Air and iPad Pro and think about whether either could make sense. I’ve gone to a luxury department store here called Palacio de Hierro to try out the 13-inch Magic Keyboard, and it’s about an inch wider than the one I have and seems full-sized. But I also think a 14- to 16-inch iPad would be even better for this purpose. And I would like the option to use the display in portrait mode, and without losing that reliable smart connector. I should wait until Apple releases a new iPad Air generation so I can trade mine in. And … I don’t know.

I’ve written a little bit about a similar future for Android, and in that space we have folding phones like the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 that have that additional hybrid capability that might make them “3-in-1” devices with phone, mini-tablet, and (docked) computer use cases. And while that’s not as far along as the iPad, yet, I am now writing an article about the Desktop Mode in the Pixel 10 series that points to this future.

Looking at traditional laptop-type systems, there is always the Mac (as noted earlier, above), Chromebook Plus (which may get interesting as Android moves in, per above), and Zorin OS and any number of other Linux distributions. Each has its challenges, but some of those will vary by person. For example, if your daily workflow relies on OneDrive, you probably want something that doesn’t just work with OneDrive but ideally offers the same Files on Demand functionality. And once you start factoring in those things, you can whittle down the list pretty quickly. Or you can change. All I can really say at this point is that the options for those looking past Windows have never been better, and there have never been as many viable choices.

Certainly neither is perfect, but I find that Windows 11 leaves me cold. I do not overly dislike it, but neither do I like it. It feels like it was designed by people that did not use Windows, and is notably more intrusive than Windows 10, which has been chipping away at my patience as well. I will probably always have a Windows computer for certain specific tasks, but I am leaning more and more into other platforms as my daily driver(s).

I get it. If you would like to stick with PC-type laptops, and assuming a Mac is not an option, you’re basically looking at sticking with Windows 11 or some form of Linux. And right now, I’m in an unexpected place with that. I am using a Tiny11 Builder-based Windows 11 install on one laptop that I have to say is pretty much exactly the Windows you, I, and many others want in that it isn’t in any way annoying and doesn’t constantly push Microsoft’s preferred configuration on me or otherwise get in the way. And then I’m using Zorin OS on another laptop and it is far more polished than many would believe, even better than Windows 11 in some ways, and likewise offers some much-needed nice relief from the issues with Windows 11. Which is “better” is sort of beside the point, in that you can or cannot use Linux for whatever reasons. But both have impressed me and surprised me in a good way. And I will continue using both and see how it goes.

Any updates on your Zorin experience?

In last week’s Ask Paul, someone asked me about time management. I described it as my Achilles heel, but I’m not sure how obvious my faceplanting was because this is something I really do struggle with. I have discussed this with my wife several times since then, in fact, and all that came out of that is that she has her own ways to manage time and I don’t think I want to do any of it. I just recognize the problem and can’t seem to fix it.

I mention that because I wrote about my initial experiences with Zorin OS 18 about a week and a half ago and I went into last weekend intending to publish a follow-up. Since then, I wrote about my initial experiences with the Tiny11 Builder-based Windows 11 install, and I figured I would write a follow-up to that as well since I intended to keep using that as well, and needed to configure more apps and just make sure the bad old behaviors didn’t quietly return. Clearly, I would write my Zorin OS follow-up first. But instead, I’ve published a follow-up to the Tiny11 Builder/Windows 11 25H2 install. Why?

It’s not because I use one more than the other. It’s because I keep running into a blocker in Zorin that is objectively not a big deal and not something that would impact many others. But this is the type of thing that always gets in my way, and I spend a few hours on it one day and then a few hours on it the next day, and in the end, I need to get things done, too. And so I’ve not yet published my Zorin OS follow-up.

What I have done is written most of it. So rather than repeat it all here, I will tell you what’s in it, and that’s includes the issue that I would like to resolve. I will likely just get the article out by the end of this weekend now, whether I’ve fixed that or not. The coming follow-up is mostly positive, as Zorin continues to impress. I couldn’t get Microsoft Office to install, which is a commonly understood issue in Linux. I am using Typora. I can’t get Git to authenticate so I can sync my books, which is also a known thing, though I can’t get past it yet. I’ve been testing Zorin Connect for phone connectivity, but it’s not as good as Phone Link in Windows unless I’m missing something. And I’ve installed and played several games through Steam, the limitation there (I think) being that this PC isn’t ideal for gaming and now I’m thinking about putting Zorin OS on a more capable laptop just to see if that improves matters.

I will try to get that out as soon as possible. It’s mostly done, but I always do this to myself.

? Stacked

gregsedwards asks:

Hi Paul, I’m curious to know your opinion about Substack as a blogging platform. I know you run your Eternal Spring blog using that platform.

I’ve had a personal site on WordPress for years (it was actually migrated from my Windows Live Spaces, erm, space over a decade ago). I’ve been mostly fine with WP, but it almost never gets any traffic anymore. I’m wondering whether Substack might make more sense for it moving forward.

I like Substack quite a bit. This is technically a newsletter solution with a website, but I (we) use it like a website that happens to send newsletters. There are some criticisms that the website customization is lacking, in particular around the site headers, so that it’s always obvious when you’re looking at a Substack-based site. And that’s fair, though it doesn’t really bother me that much. And the seamless nature of the rest of the experience really puts it over the top. That and it being free to use.

I’ve been using WordPress for a long time, here at Thurrott.com of course, but also previous to that on other websites I’ve had on the side for books or whatever. It’s … OK. I feel like it’s a bit top-heavy and complicated, and that’s especially true compared to Substack. But the one thing I miss on Substack that WordPress handles well is the ability to find an image you posted previously and then reuse it. I can’t explain this, but that is not part of Substack, and if you want to use the same image repeatedly you have to keep uploading it every time. This makes no sense to me, but it’s a thing.

In a Little Tech sense, Substack is an up and comer, but if you want to self-host for some reason, I keep looking at Ghost. You can view the Ghost-to-Substack relationship as being like Obsidian compared to Notion, the latter is perhaps more polished, but the former is more versatile and you can own/host it yourself. The only thing that keeps me off Ghost is that I currently pay monthly for web hosting and whatever number of related services and my long-term goal is to eliminate all that and all the effort and cost it brings and not worry about any of it. And Substack does that.

Still, Ghost is very interesting. I would at least look at it. But Substack is that “just works” thing, and unless you want to be OCD about every pixel on the screen, or whatever, I think you’ll be surprised by how well it works.