> but at least Google's main goal is deliver intelligent services like search and machine translation

And at last Apple's goal is to deliver easily usable, reliable and sexy hardware and software and they are forerunners in quite a few markets they created on their own. See, that marketing-babble works even for Microsoft and Oracle too.

Google's goal is to get as much diverse data from you as possible and legal. Stop cutting a multi-billion dollar multi-national mega-corp all that slack all the time - especially considering how much flak they were and are getting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google

And on top of that they were pretty much the only search engine for the web for a long time, so much so that "google" has become synonymous with internet for the average user. At least now there is a bit of competition from wolfram and microsoft and DDG is trying real hard. But google is clearly dominating this market and also the online ads business. Apple can only dream of coming close to this amount of market penetration.

> No I haven't because I made it clear that first and foremost I want _personal control_ over my own computer. I don't see why you don't understand this principle.

Because control of your computer includes control over your data. And you were saying you can allegedly NOT use any proprietary systems because of your work but then it is ok to use completely proprietary services way out of your control? Well look at that, actually it is just your own personal preferences which makes more sense since if you were really legally required, you couldn't use google or any other cloud services.

> Getting the tyrants at Apple

Again, you are mis-using words. Tyranny means they are alone and have all the control and are enforcing it brutally... this is complete, utter bullshit. There are lots of alternatives and on top of that, all this DRM and control for the music was a requirement from the RIAA. They did not understand this new way of selling music online and wanted as much control as possible. And since Apple made that compromise, they were the first ones to provide a legal and usable way of selling music online. And by doing this, they have shown how successful this way of distributing is thus finally they were allowed to drop the DRM. Do you really think Apple cares about controlling whether you distribute your music to 2 or 5 end systems? Then you are even more naive than I have thought.

> It is pretty convenient for them to use (steal?) source code from BSD

Waaaaaait a minute, back up. Drop the fundamentalist brain-wash bullshit-talk. BSD has always been released under the BSD license and there are many, many, MANY implementations and re-uses of their code, both open and closed, private, educational and commercial and not a single one has been "stolen".

It is perfectly legal and encouraged to use the code any way you want and why should Apple go with other sources that ultimately force them to do things hardly any company does with profitable products? Anyone who ever contributed to BSD licensed software is aware of this and it has worked perfectly fine for decades. Nothing was stolen here. It is perfectly alright for a company to choose whichever software and license agreement they see fit. And there is hardly any commercial software released under the "viral" FSF licenses. And Apple has released a lot of components from their OS, again under a BSD style license. Nothing to see here.

> it won't be "good enough" until they adopt a business model that is not based upon dominating other people's computers.

See, here is the point: that is your borderline-religious opinion. Nobody really cares about this. if you don't like their product because it is not as open as you like then don't buy it. And if you don't like the price on a Lexus or Ferrari then don't buy one. Nothing to see here.

You have clearly made up your mind and are not interested in a discussion. You much rather poo-fling the one or two (out-dated) bits you can get a hold of. And it has got nothing to do with how the overwhelming majority of successful software and hardware companies work. Some are very open, some are completely closed. Luckily there are a lot of alternatives for everything. But your zealot-hatred for Apple is just hilarious considering how 5 to 10 years ago hardly ANYONE knew Apple let alone used any of their products and back in those dark ages there was nothing but Microsoft for the average end user. Apple has come a long way on their own and they have single-handedly created markets that did NOT exist before - like legally buying music and tv shows online. Like the iPad and like the iPhone. Yes there were those ridiculous windows ce "smartphones" before but Apple created the market for the modern smartphone and the oh-so-beloved "apps". And google was all too happy to follow, seeing the opportunity for more data and ads.

Any data I feed my mac, I can always export and take with me to any other platform... there is absolutely no DRM on my Mac keeping me from doing whatever I want.

Your demeanor is really cute and very much like the blind fanboys in the huge Linux vs. Windows flamewars back in the day... the 90s called, they want their zealots back.

And I dare you, you show me a single contribution you have ever made to Linux? Or free software? You show me a single instance where you actually looked at all that free software kernel code and helped make sure there wasn't anything fishy going on. Or are you just talking big about free software without ever having contributed hm?

This is pointless here since you make your own product choice and your own personal preferences to be something like a categorical imperative that you want to force on everyone despite the normative power of the factual.