MacWorld wrote about Apple’s customer satisfaction.

Compare this with Microsoft’s lack of control over PC hardware:

Now, if you live near a Microsoft store, you can buy a PC on which Microsoft does own the desktop experience: The devices the company sells in its own stores come with a clean installation of Windows, blessedly free of the meddling of those other vendors. Alternatively, you can bring in a PC and have Microsoft clean it up for you, even working with the hardware manufacturer on your behalf to solve problems.

For a fee.

That seems crazy to Mac users. But as a Windows user, one either lives with the crapware or pays Microsoft or a third party to clean it up—yes, that’s right: clean up your brand new computer.

Then, there’s Google’s lack of control over Android:

Android phones are similarly jacked up with crapware, often installed by not one but two parties: the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and the carrier. Oh, boy! Do I want to use Google’s music service or Samsung’s? Or maybe Verizon’s? Man, if only I had bought a case with this phone maybe I’d have a fourth choice.

So, we have a sad situation where consumers live with the clutter.

For the majority of Windows and Android users, the user experience comes pre-cluttered with a confusing cacophony of attempts to steal your eyeballs. And, since those two platforms are used by more people than Apple’s, that means most of the people in the world go through their desktop and mobile computing lives like this.

Apple has the advantage of producing the software and hardware, creating the experience it wants to give its users.

But the all-in-one experience is not going to end there. With iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, that experience will be enhanced with Continuity. If you own a Mac and an iPhone or iPad, you get to enjoy a seamless experience moving between the platforms.

Macworld writes about why Apple cares about your privacy.

And when you really dig into the details, you learn that Apple lets you NSA-proof your iCloud keychain, encrypts Messages and FaceTime calls end-to-end, protects an employee’s personal information from his or her employer when using Mobile Device Management, and has designed the iPhone without law-enforcement back doors.

But in the most telling recent news of all, it appears the Apple will randomize the WiFi hardware address of iOS devices to frustrate location and advertising trackers who use this address to know who you are when you move around in public. This is a subtle feature that the vast majority of iOS users won’t ever realize exists, even as it protects them.

This goes against the current of corporates that attempt to mine as much data from users as possible to better target advertisements or to sell those data to other companies.

So why does Apple place such emphasis on privacy?

Corporations generally limit their altruism to charity, not to core product and business decisions. Apple likely sees a competitive advantage in privacy, especially when its biggest direct competition comes from advertising giant Google and the enterprise-friendly Microsoft. Apple believes consumers not only desire privacy, but will increasingly value privacy as a factor in their buying decisions.

It is a critical advantage against its key rivals:

Google can’t stop scanning user email, since targeted advertising is its core business. Facebook won’t encrypt messages end-to-end for the very same reason. Microsoft can’t restrict enterprise administrators from controlling phones and computers, since enterprise manageability is core to its primary customer base, especially as it loses ground in the consumer market. Android—okay, Google—can’t dictate hardware design, and thus can’t consistently secure customer data on the device. Essentially, Apple uses the difference in its business model to attack competitors on privacy.

TechCrunch reported on the stark absence of Google Glass and Google Plus during Google I/O.

Google Glass:

This year, Glass wasn’t even mentioned, and no presenters wore it on stage. Even when the discussion turned to wearables — an ideal time to work in its face computer — Google had nothing to say.

When I spoke with Google X head Astro Teller earlier this year, he made a fairly eloquent case for widening the conversation out to all cameras and surveillance, rather than focusing on Glass, which he called the “world’s worst spy camera.”

But Google has certainly pulled back from trumpeting the device during its keynote, if today’s program was any indication. Even a hardware revision announced this week didn’t warrant a mention.

Google Plus

For Google+, the lack of mentions are likely due to several factors. First, the ‘father’ of Plus, Vic Gundotra, left Google this year. Around that time, we heard from several sources that certain aspects of Plus, like the wonderful Photos product, could be getting the standalone treatment. And the ‘rest’ of Google+ would be relegated to a single sign-on service that acted as a platform, instead of a holistic ‘product’ of its own.

The Daily Dot reported on the weird Google I/O keynote.

A protester upstaged Google’s keynote:

It all started a short while into the keynote when an audience member holding a banner began screaming and yelling at the crowd. The woman was protesting the influx of tech workers into the San Francisco area, and the banner she was holding claimed that she had been evicted from her home by a Google employee.

Murphy’s Law:

Then came a string of demos that Google probably wishes it could redo, including apps that wouldn’t load, a game graphics demo that was flickering and repeatedly cut out, and a coding example that had to be attempted three times before it displayed properly. It was all very strange, and the awkward mumbling from the audience whenever something broke certainly didn’t help matters.

Boredom:

After two hours of technical talk, with nary a mention of new hardware or consumer-level software, the attendees began to get a bit bored. It was at this point that Twitter briefly became a strange meta-I/O, with dozens, or perhaps hundreds of attendees hopping on their Twitter accounts to talk about how bad the show was—while it was still going on.

Killer robots:

The talk stretched on for another hour, but the craziness refused to subside. At about the two-and-a-half-hour mark, a man began running around the conference hall screaming something at the top of his lungs, and this time it had nothing to do with real estate prices.

“You all work for a totalitarian company that builds robots that kill people!” he repeatedly screamed at the top of his lungs, moving about the audience in an attempt to avoid being forcibly escorted from the building.

Imagine the backlash if any one of these happened during an Apple keynote.

Monday Note shared some iWatch Thoughts.

The most ambitious rumors project 50 million iWatches sold in the first 12 months. I think that’s an unrealistic estimate, but if a $300 iWatch can sell at these numbers, that’s$15B for the year. This seems like a huge number until you compare it to a conservative estimate for the iPhone: 50 million iPhones at $650 generates$32B per quarter.

9to5Mac reports on Samsung’s new ad.

Someone needs to show Samsung’s advertising team what a portable charger is.