Of course I agree with these confounding decisions, and I've written about it before. I must, however, point out that yes, you do in fact need an Apple account to log into your Mac device on recent versions of macOS. Not only that, but you won't be able to download any apps (free or not) without adding a credit card to your account.
I found the mac setup experience to be even worse than Windows 10 (both of these done in the last 6 months). I haven't even tried Windows 11 and have no intention of doing so. In both cases I made choices during the setup process that were not the default, and I believe that it broke some things, at least in the case of Mac, where most of the users do have another Apple device to use for 2FA, or do want to use iCloud for backups (or OneDrive - I'm sure some people use these services but I have absolutely no desire!)
Anyway, it's very frustrating to watch the user experience getting worse and worse from organizations that have an amount of resources to work with that we can't even fathom.
Edit: to say I'm not hugely invested in either Windows or Mac's longterm success. There are no personal or professional computing needs that I have (or predict) that can't be satisfied in Linux, and my usage patterns reflect that.
> I must, however, point out that yes, you do in fact need an Apple account to log into your Mac device on recent versions of macOS.
This is false, at least as of macOS 12.3. However, the install process does encourage signing-in. Unlike Windows, though, it doesn’t require non-obvious shenanigans—like disconnecting from the Internet—to bypass it during the installer. Reportedly, the latest Windows 11 Insider builds do not provide any means to create a local account in the installer.
> Not only that, but you won't be able to download any apps (free or not) without adding a credit card to your account.
This is also false, I presently have an Apple account with no CC and have downloaded (free) Mac App Store applications using it.
I guess I should be more specific about what I could and could not do. I could not download XCode without adding a credit card. I've already mentioned that it seemed broken, which it did. I spent time with support trying to figure it out. Ultimately, once I added a credit card I was able to download. Perhaps I was already acknowledging that I would have an AppleID, since the machine was expressly for iOS development.
I found the mac setup experience to be even worse than Windows 10 (both of these done in the last 6 months). I haven't even tried Windows 11 and have no intention of doing so. In both cases I made choices during the setup process that were not the default, and I believe that it broke some things, at least in the case of Mac, where most of the users do have another Apple device to use for 2FA, or do want to use iCloud for backups (or OneDrive - I'm sure some people use these services but I have absolutely no desire!)
Anyway, it's very frustrating to watch the user experience getting worse and worse from organizations that have an amount of resources to work with that we can't even fathom.
Edit: to say I'm not hugely invested in either Windows or Mac's longterm success. There are no personal or professional computing needs that I have (or predict) that can't be satisfied in Linux, and my usage patterns reflect that.