“Don’t mock the beleaguered Nook owner,” Farhad Manjoo writes for The New York Times. “That could have been you.”
MacDailyNews Take: No, it couldn’t have. Zero percent chance.
“The trouble arises when you are sold on a tech ecosystem that doesn’t prosper. It’s likely that at least one, if not several, of today’s tech behemoths won’t be around a decade from now. Thus the pervasive worry of choosing tech in these uncertain days: How do you avoid betting on the wrong horse?” Manjoo writes. “When you decide what to use, you’ve got to play every tech giant against the other, to make every tech decision as if you were a cad — sample every firm’s best features and never overcommit to any one.”
“Here’s the game plan: Buy Apple’s hardware. Apple’s phones, tablets and PCs are the best-designed and best-made computers on the market. They are also the easiest to learn to use and the most durable. And if you’re kind to them, they’ll carry a far higher resale value than rival devices,” Manjoo writes. “I say this after having tried just about every competitor to Apple’s machines. Some non-Apple phones and tablets are nearly as nice as the iPhone and iPad (Google’s Nexus line is quite good), but I haven’t found any that beat it, and none that are as pleasurable to use. But the best thing about Apple’s hardware is that it maximizes your ability to be promiscuous with software. Apple’s App Store is home to more programs than any other app marketplace. What’s more, the most innovative start-up firms often create apps for Apple’s platform before they bother with Android. Since software is the soul of a machine, the source of all our devices’ advancing powers, you’re best off getting the gadgets that can run the widest range of software.”
MacDailyNews Take: Excellent advice there!
Manjoo then advises, “Use Google’s services. My phone and tablet carry Apple’s logo, but almost everything I do with them is routed through the search company’s servers… I also love the handy tricks Google adds as it learns more and more about me (yes, I’m aware I sound like a P.O.W. praising my jailers — but count my blinks, it’s true). For instance, its Google Now feature, available as part of the Google Search app on the iPhone, can automatically predict what you are doing next and show you relevant information like traffic directions and boarding passes just when you need them.”
MacDailyNews Take: Um… no. Zero percent chance on that, too.
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Rob O’Hara” for the heads up.]