Like four years ago. Yet every so often he writes this piece again about how great it was to move to Linux, basically because large corporations are bad. And it’s true. He’s not wrong. Large corporations are bad. And at least Gillmor seems to have found a better footing to write this same piece on by playing up how Linux works for him and dropping fear-mongering like suggesting Apple’s going to lock OS X down like iOS.

Every year I try Ubuntu and every time I find it an excessively fiddly environment that gives you all the tasteless design choices of Windows with all the confusion of why your sound card isn’t working that you got installing your own Sound Blaster in 1995. I’ve also tried other Linux distributions that look promising but aren’t all there yet. So I don’t feel like I’m being unreasonable. (Well, for me.)

I get the arguments against Microsoft and Google and even Apple (although Gillmor can never seem to bring himself to mention Apple’s push back against back doors). But I guess I just don’t want to pay for them all day long by using a phone and computer I just don’t like working with.

Maybe I should care as much about open computing environments as Dan Gillmor and Cory Doctorow and that guy who ate part of his foot do. Maybe I should also quit working and devote my whole day to dental hygiene like my dentist wants me to. Neither is very likely to happen.

The Washington Post, reporting on a competitor of its owner:

More than half of K-12 laptops or tablets purchased by U.S. schools in the third quarter were Chromebooks, cheap laptops that run Google software. Beyond its famed Web search, the company freely offers word processing and other software to schools. In total, Google programs are used by more than 50 million students and teachers around the world, the company says.

But Google is also tracking what those students are doing on its services and using some of that information to sell targeted ads, according to a complaint filed with federal officials by a leading privacy advocacy group.

Google says its apps comply with the law which I have no reason to doubt. Assuming that’s true, this is then a cost that should be figured into the schools’ purchasing decisions. A hard-to-quantify cost that budget-conscious administrators will ignore.

No Lex this week, so Jon and I talk Star Wars, naturally, and give some holiday gift-giving tips.

This week we talk about Apple’s new iPhone battery case and give some gift ideas because we’re so good to you.

Today’s update allows the iOS Remote app to work with the fourth generation Apple TV.

Our first nightmare was just waiting for the fourth generation Apple TV. Then we had to wait for the Remote app to work with it. As password input was really the worst thing about the new Apple TV, this is a major improvement.

I’m so old I remember when the Firefox phone was a “smoldering success”.

Well, it was called that. It was never really a success of any kind.

Anick Jesdanun writing for the AP:

Apple says its mapping service is now used more than three times as often as its next leading competitor on iPhones and iPads, with more than 5 billion map-related requests each week. Research firm comScore says Apple has a modest lead over Google on iPhones in the U.S., though comScore measures how many people use a service in a given month rather than how often.

So, it’s either used three times as much or just a little bit more depending on who you ask or how you ask the question.

I join John Gruber on this week’s episode of The Talk Show to discuss the dread Lightning audio rumor. We also find time to talk about Star Wars and James Bond.

I’m so old I remember when Apple was going to force everyone to use the Mac App Store and lock the Mac down like iOS. By which I mean I am more than five years old.

The crazy thing is the Mac App Store is a fixable problem. Apple either hasn’t had the interest or the bandwidth to fix it.

Frasier Speirs:

The fact that the keyboard and screen are limited to being held in an L-shaped configuration seriously limits its flexibility. It is basically impossible to use a MacBook pro while standing up and downright dangerous to use when walking around. Your computing is limited to times when you are able to find somewhere to sit down.

How can you get serious work done with a MacBook Pro? The very idea is laughable.