Who would have thought ten years ago such an article would ignore Microsoft? How the times change.

On a different note, to state that Google, once ugly and disparate, has continually pushed forward with new and better products that are a delight to use is a bit head-in-the-sand as regards the bigger picture of Google exercising an ever-larger monopoly of tech and thereby of people’s minds. There is just one comment on this in terms of data mining, which is immediately followed by a dismissive but.

Be clear — Google is a business and not a particularly nice one. They have trashed even their own origins as a supposed search engine and replaced that with a pay-to-play model. This has been at huge cost to what the entire tech and commercial world could have otherwise been in terms of a shared environment. Google promotes those who pay them for positioning which translates directly into demoting everyone who has something to contribute free of charge.

The strategy has been successful in terms of capturing the market and driving down the cost of commercial software, but has seriously blocked the progression of shareware, freeware and everyone else who tries to offer humanity something — anything — free of charge. Don’t have an advertising budget? Google actively demotes your offering.

On a more light-hearted note, and as regards the author’s love of the MacBook, I remember buying mine — purely for work purposes — and while a techie friend enthused passionately about its supposed beauty, his wife made the very fitting comment of Jeezuz, it’s a bloody computer!