As a consumer brand, yes, their support is great. You are also paying a premium for Apple products compared to a $400 white-box laptop.

As a business customer, their support sucks.

The biggest issue is that Apple hardware is largely unrepairable. I call Dell with a problem and they either send a tech to my door with a part or they get me a pre-paid return shipping carton and I repaired systems back within a couple of days. Apple's solution is to replace hardware and say, "sorry we can't recover your data". AppleCare is also only good for up to 3 years. I get 5 years from other manufacturers for less money. Apple doesn't understand nor care how their products integrate with other products. I have spent hours on the phone with them and they just can't help with anything that is outside the common home-user experience. I have never paid for Apple's Professional or Enterprise support, mind you. I'm sure they are comparable to what other major vendors offer, but it is a large cost on top of AppleCare. The cheapest professional support plan is 6 grand per year. That's a lot of money for a small to medium business.

According to Jonathan Rotenberg, "People want to hate Apple, because it is big and powerful. But Apple has an underlying moral purpose that is immensely deep and expansive..."

Not me. I hate Apple for entirely personal reasons. I've supported Apple products professionally for 28 years. Apple sucks. Their corporate sales policies suck. Their support sucks compared to other major PC vendors. Their device security sucks. (Realistically, their device security is pretty decent, but it makes it dramatically harder for me to keep them in good working condition.)

If the father had shot the kidnapper during the rescue he would have a good argument that he reasonably perceived an imminent threat to himself and his daughter. On the other hand, if the father had pulled a Gary Plauche on the kidnapper I doubt they could have a found a jury that would convicted him for murder.

As I recall, he was looking at brain structures of psychopaths. Obviously, psychopaths are not all criminals, but they are over-represented in the population with criminal records. They are also over-represented in high-stress and high-profile careers, like surgeons and CEO's.

"The feeling of Power" by Isaac Asimov
https://ia600806.us.archive.or...

THE FEELING OF POWER
by Isaac Asimov
Worlds of Science Fiction, February 1958
.
Introduction:
Inspiration moves in strange paths. As we look farther and farther into the future, it
becomes possible to ask stranger and stranger questions. If society grows more and more
computerized, what happens if human beings forget how to do simple arithmetic?

Passwords are not sent over the network either, at they are not with sane authentication methods. OAuth, Kerberos, NTLM, CHAP, etc. all use the passwords or password hashes to encrypt authentication tokens that are passed over the network.

...but I did work WITH Cognizant on a mutual project. They were the most incompetent engineers I've ever run across.

It was a simple project, just a small web site launch. Windows server, .NET based CMS, and a MS SQL backend. Easy. It should have taken me a couple of hours at most. Cognizant, however, ran the client's network and wouldn't allow me direct access to the server. I had to coach their guys through the rollout. And that's fair enough; they had no reason to trust me. But, it turned out that I knew more about MSSQL than their "SQL expert", and I know just enough to run a small website CMS. I had to teach him how to restore a database and create SQL users.

The rollout took three days, finishing late on a Friday. I got a call early the next day from the so-called "SQL expert" while I was feeding my infant daughter. He had been messing around with the URL Rewrite module and broke the simple Regex statements, again, taking the site down, again. The guy was begging me to help him, so I sent him the correct Regex, which he couldn't install correctly. I had to call my company's account exec for the client to make Cognizant stop harassing me.

The EU thinks otherwise.

Also, a 13B € fine on a profit of 111B € isn't even a penalty. It's less than 12%, when Ireland's foreign passive corporate tax rate is 25%. Apple is still getting a deal.

It happens all the time. In the US States pass laws that are unconstitutional, or that would override federal laws, and these state laws are struck down. Cities pass ordinances that are overruled by state laws. In the European Union, member countries' laws have to fit within the EU's laws.

You are correct. Apple, however, has a net worth of over 3 trillion dollars and can easily afford to pay this fine.

Look for more fines against Apple, Google, and Microsoft soon.

Apple is being fined on approximately 111 billion Euros they shielded from taxes between 2004 and 2014. They have been fined 13 Billion Euros. That's only 11.7%.

Ireland's corporate tax rate on foreign income is 25% (https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/ireland/corporate/taxes-on-corporate-income)

Apple got off light.

No, it wasn't. Ireland didn't cut Apple a deal. It was tax evasion

There was an open secret than any multinational company with valuable intellectual property could take advantage of called "The Double Irish". It relied on a difference in the way the US and most companies levy corporate profits and how Ireland used to do it. When set up correctly, a corporation would pay ZERO taxes on their profits. No taxes to the US. No taxes to Ireland. No taxes anywhere.

No, not at all. It was a tax dodge known as the "Double Irish", in the accounting biz. Ireland did or does have lower than average corporate tax rates, but this was something else entirely.

You can read up on the concept here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Also, the "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich": https://www.investopedia.com/t...

In a nutshell, for about two decades US companies could used a difference in the way the US and Ireland tax corporate profits. In the US, corporate income taxes are levied based on where the profit is realized. Ireland used to levy taxes based on the where a corporation's seat of control. Apple had a subsidiary in Ireland that held ownership of all Apple's intellectual property (patents, trademarks, etc.). Then, they would pay that subsidiary hefty fees for use of said IP. As a result, the American Apple division would see very low profits because they were paying the Irish IP holding company every bit of spare change they could. The Irish subsidiary owed no taxes to Ireland because it was owned by a foreign entity.

The upside for heavily tech invested companies, like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, is that they could shield their corporate profits from all income taxes.

No, tips are not the same as a purchase. A purchase is an agreed upon fee for product or service. A tip is a gratuity paid after the fact as acknowledgement of good service. In an employer/employee setting, an employer is forbidden from keeping a percentage of tips. Understandably, this is not a an employer/employee situation, but it illustrates that a tip is not the same as an in-app purchase. I'd like to see the class-action suite by these teacher vs Apple and see how it shakes out.

I'm not very familiar with the Insight Timer app, but I see that they offer a subscription service, and the app creator shares that revenue with the teachers. Apple is fully justified to collect on subscriptions. But personally, I see Apple's 30% cut on donations and tips as ethically indefensible.

However, last year the 9th Circuit Court ruled that Apple was in violation of the California’s Unfair Competition Law by forbidding and preventing 3rd party payment processors. What the app maker really needs to do is to build in links to a payment processor that charges less for in-app purchases

...it's time to start seizing assets. Governments have the power to acquire property for public use when it serves the public good. I think this qualifies.