But according to this article by Kaya Yurieff over at CNN.com…

Bill Gates just switched to an Android phone

As I said in the header, it shouldn’t be too big a surprise as Mr. Gates never seemed all that interested in pursuing Apple products.

Speaking as someone who owns an Apple iPhone (don’t know which generation it is, but I do know it is at least two generations “old” at this point and I don’t have a huge desire to upgrade) and iPad (if you’ve seen my Sketchin’ posts, you know I’m loving using the iPad 10.5 inch and Apple Pencil to create these images), I can appreciate the good Apple does but there is a part of me that remains uneasy with the whole enterprise.

While I appreciate the elegance of their products, there is this (for lack of a better word) greed that at least to me permeates their entire being.

I know, I know.

They’re an industry and they cater to their bottom line, just like all other tech companies.  What do you expect them to do, not want to make money?

Yeah, but Apple seems to take that to a larger degree.

While we see new models of Android phones come and go, Apple revels in their yearly new product “events”, where they pitch their latest products as “must” buys, even as they’re no doubt already at work on the next (and probably next after that) iteration of their “new” phone already.  And the changes from one product to the next haven’t been all that incredibly great of late, at least IMHO, and the whole thing feels more and more like a hard sell for something that you may neither want nor really need.

As I mentioned above, I have -and love– my new 10.5 inch iPad because it allows me to use the Apple Pencil and create wonderful artwork without having to deal with messy inks and pencils.

However, apart from this -and it obviously is a very big thing to me personally- I don’t see that much of a difference between that iPad and the one I owned before, which I believe was a second or third generation version.

Yes, the art stuff is fabulous, but if you’re not into doing artwork on your iPad, then there’s really no need to spend the $500+ -and that’s not counting the $100 for that Apple Pencil!- on a this new machine.

In fact, when I purchased the 10.5 inch iPad, I figured after checking it out I’d also upgrade my wife’s iPad as, like me, she’d also been using the same 2nd or 3rd generation machine as I was.

But when I got the new iPad, I realized that the art stuff was the only real reason to get the new machine.  Sure, the new machine also has a better camera and a few more bells and whistles, including a faster processor and a crisper monitor, but the difference isn’t so incredible as to merit the extra expense… especially if you’re happy with your iPad and you don’t really need to do art with that Apple Pencil.

So there you have it.

I own and enjoy certain Apple products, yet I’m skeptical of the company itself and their extreme (again, IMHO) ways of trying to get you to give them your money.

Ah well!

Fascinating, and brief, article by Dan Lyons for The Daily Beast regarding the Apple vs. Android patent war and the possible outcomes…

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/22/apple-vs-android-war-without-end.html

One of the most beautiful things about Captialism is that when companies fight head to head, the end result is usually a net benefit for consumers:  In theory, each company tries very, very hard to ensure their product is better overall (function, form, durability) than their competitors.  And if the products are comparable (or even identical), then consumers could also benefit from price wars.  After all, if the companies’ products are indeed identical, the only way to get consumers to buy one product over the other is by selling them for less.

With regards to computers and computer related products, unfortunately for Apple much of their technology -great thought it may be- was not created in a vacuum and it was only a matter of time before others would compete head to head with them.  Looking at Apple’s products, from my perspective the company has taken many common individual components (personal computers, touchscreen technology, cellular phone systems, etc.) and mixed them together to create their beautiful package.

The problem, for Apple, is that because the individual components are common, it is difficult to then turn around and say the overall package is somehow unique.  This is why I suspect Apple isn’t doing quite as well with their patent lawsuits as they probably hoped they would.

Then again, I’m far from some technological wizard and for all I know every bit of opinion presented above is dead wrong.  Regardless, I hope that Apple continues to make their beautiful products.  I also hope that the lack of success in their lawsuits against other companies encourages them to up their competition with the Android market and make even better products.

And I hope the Android makers do the same.

In the end, we the consumer will be the beneficiaries.