Summary: Net Applications (Apple- and Microsoft-funded) makes a misinformation comeback, Apple retreats from some Samsung litigation battles, and Microsoft dives deep into it

A couple of days ago we noticed that an editor had a headline changed from "Android users MORE ACTIVE than iOS fanbois for the first time" to something else. This report about numbers from "Net Marketshare" (part of Net Applications) coincides with contradictory reports like this from the Gates-friendly press (among others), titled "iOS Users Seven Times More Active Than Android Users, Suggests Net Applications". These cite Net Applications, which is partly funded by Apple. There are some contradictions and reports about this are generally confusing. It's not clear what they are measuring and based on past years, Net Applications is mostly a propaganda agent. This Apple-affiliated firm is saying something which makes Apple sounds more favourable than Android (common trick like citing buyer spendings, something about security -- not absolute sales -- and so on) because Android has the lion's share of the market and it's impossible to deny it's unstoppable growth. Perhaps Apple paid Net Applications some more money to produce propaganda. Their pie charts are widely disgraced and recognised as inaccurate, misleading, and biased by design (improper data).

Anyway, Android is perpetually being smeared by both Apple and Microsoft. Apple had sued Samsung using patents and Samsung recently hit back at Apple using a case against software patents. Apple now retreats. "In a totally unexpected move," writes SJVN, "Apple and Samsung, who've fought patent wars around the globe, agreed to drop all their cases outside of the US."

Microsoft too had just sued Samsung. This was covered by the Microsoft-friendly press first (including BBC, as we noted the other day) and coverage has thus far been shallow. They just can't call "racketeering" what clearly is racketeering. It oughtn't be too shocking, except if one considers how close Microsoft and Samsung have been over the year (including UEFI restricted boot collaborations). "Apparently Secure Boot is blowing up on Windows too," tells us Ryan in the IRC channels. "People upgrading their graphics card report their computer won't boot up again until they disable secure boot, restart the system, install the signed drivers for the new card, and then they can turn secure boot back on."

Maybe they should just stick to Free software, abandoning both Apple and Microsoft. The future is free/libre and no amount of misinformation can successfully deny it anymore. ⬆