The Mail metro app somehow still works for me

Good grief, isn’t Metro mail from like, Windows 8?

Agreed. I actually liked the Mail app in Windows 10, prior to all this web application nonsense.

Welcome to the dark side of web app conformity.

Microsoft needs to learn from Google. Some of Google's web apps come very close to matching a desktop app like experience.
Or, why emulate a desktop app. Why introduce all this mess of custom keyboard shortcuts, focus/browse-modes, when our screen-readers have gotten so good at navigate web-pages. Just have each email in list view marked with an HTML Heading or a link, we will jump through items using standard screen reader navigation keys. Only place where focus-mode is unavoidable is the Email compose box, as it involves text editing. But what do I know, even Gmail wants us to use focus mode and remember it's own keyboard shortcuts these days.

Because there is a nice one for Google Docs. 😏

Boris ("Bozo") Johnson was a total chancer, but I love this epithet because it describes modern-day web apps. Trying to turn web pages into applications is the single stupidest advance in our industry, but here we are. Ironically it can be seen that VoiceOver had a head-start in this regard because the interaction model lends itself rather nicely to a paradigm where the UI is essentially a tree structure under the control of the developer, but of course Apple then duly squandered that advantage by sitting on its hands, so this is clearly a selling point of Windows screen readers except that they (and app devs) now have to work twice as hard to make web apps feel native whilst providing rich text editing and reading controls. So that inevitably, ChromeVox is arguably the most underappreciated screen reader ever, and doesn't work on Windows. Ho hum!

We all just need to move over to the Google ecosystem, and hang our heads in shame for thinking we know better.
I’m talking ChromeBook, Android smart device or devices, Google Home, ChromeCast for the streaming enthusiasts, etc., etc.
Hey, don’t laugh! Remember that one time, on that one day, when Steve Jobs said something like, “It just works”? Well, Google has pretty much taken that over with their ChromeOS.
And don’t even get me started on the whole build quality debate. Ever see that one PixelBook Go, from like five or six years ago? We’re talking Apple hardware quality, here.

That's what I call it, in jest. Because yes, you could take it on your honeymoon, and who cares if you step on it. Fact is, if you fully embrace the radicalism, it really is very utopian; all you have to do is give everything over to mother Google, and live your life your way, without all that pesky local state. Even the most important use case of virtual Linux is already accounted for. Not saying it will happen to me necessarily, but it could, and Apple would only have itself to blame—if it cared.

I’m not sure why Microsoft changed it, but the mail app was great. I recently heard that the command we used to bypass the network or Microsoft account requirement has been removed by Microsoft. So, we can no longer use bypassNro. These changes are one of the main reasons I’m switching to macOS. I’m tired of Microsoft’s endless issues. Now, we’re dealing with Apple’s accessibility issues, which is great.

Your idea of great, and my idea of great, are 2 separate things. 😀

That is how I read both of the immediately proceeding comments. :)

Certainly, it's been my feeling that while accessibility is important, it's not everything, and while I deeply resent Apple's neglect, Microsoft provides a very clear demonstration of this principle in action. Apple aren't saints but, let's be honest, their business priorities simply make more room for privacy. So if you care about that, macOS is (for now, anyway) the clear choice.

Dear Sebby,

You are wonderful. Never change.

~Brian

Thank you. That's very kind, but you're wonderful too.

Sadly there are no emoji reactions for posts on this forum, so please accept this missive by way of some little compensation, and my hope that neither of us submit to the fatalism and cynicism that is so obviously threatening to take away all that we have together.

Your imaginary Internet friend, Sebby.

Since we are talking about using Windows without a microsoft account, does Apple allow users to login to Mac without an Apple ID?
And if they do, what features do we lose out on?

Yup, you can set up a Mac without an Apple ID, just say during setup that you don't have one or forgot its password, and you then get the option to set it up later.

As to what you don't get, well, at the very least, all iCloud services (including Find My Mac and Document or CloudKit-based syncing of app data), the Mac App Store, the Apple Music Store, the TV Store, Podcasts syncing, FaceTime, iMessage including text message forwarding ... really, pretty much everything that is Apple-related, but not, crucially unlike iOS, the ability to run software of your choice on your own box, because you can download your apps from outside the store if you want.

Notice too that there's flexibility, in that iMessage/FaceTime, the stores, and iCloud can all use different Apple IDs, and signing into one requires no sign-in of the others. So you could plausibly just use the Mac App Store, but no iCloud. This I think is a big win over Windows. However, it is of course not the default flow during setup—that's designed to rope you in completely with a single ID.

There is also the fact that you can set up secondary accounts, but only for the basic services, Mail, Contacts and Calendars. In this respect they behave just like any other Internet or ISP accounts. Indeed, you can just launch the respective apps, and sign in to iCloud accounts as a matter of course, just as with a third-party app, once you have obtained an app-specific password for them from the iCloud website. So iCloud services are more widely useful and you might like to give your non-Apple-using friends the gift of a free iCloud account, set up on your device, just so they can use those features.