Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Lies and Apple Lies

Pinocchio



Summary: How seniors from Microsoft and from Apple lie shamelessly and repeat the lies even after they were proven to be wrong

GNU and Linux are both gaining. Not only the desktop is an area that matters and an increasing number of people will sooner or later come to grips with the changing trends.



There are many areas in the world and several areas of computing where Apple simply does not matter. Apple just happens to target several niches where people spend a large amount of money and Microsoft is clinging onto a desktop monopoly, where both Windows and Office somehow fit the bill and the large majority of the income comes from Western nations.

“They are using the same FUD against GNU/Linux, despite the fact that the same components are being (re)used by almost all distributions.”One emerging market is the area of smartphones, which are converging with devices such as tablets. This is an area where Linux is doing extremely well because of its fine footprint, cost, versatility, and other important traits/factors. Microsoft's former evangelist Michael Gartenberg [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] has been spreading FUD about Linux for a long, long time, as we last showed here where he made the claim that Android is "fragmenting". These foes of Android are repeating it over and over again, hoping that it will stick and that trade journals will start parroting the ludicrous claim. They are using the same FUD against GNU/Linux, despite the fact that the same components are being (re)used by almost all distributions.

In any event, Android "fragmentation" is something which Google claims to be a figment of one's imagination:

Android fragmentation is a conspiracy cooked up by media and pundits, said Dan Morrill, open source and compatibility program manager for Google Android. Morrill noted that people who wrote about the supposed fragmentation problem for Android had different definitions for the term, rendering the description meaningless. Owners of older Android devices who can't access Google Maps Navigation, Google Gesture Search or Google Earth may disagree.


Here is what McCracken wrote about it. Most journalists accept Google's claim [1, 2, 3, 4] because describing different versions as "fragmentation" would be like saying that Microsoft Windows is "fragmented" because many people use an operating system from 2001 (XP) while few use Vista 7 and Vista. In short, this whole "fragmentation" FUD does not hold water and it was spread by the Microsoft crowd. For shame.

There are other new examples of Microsoft lies. Here for example is a Microsoft employee repeating the lies which were debunked before:

"Having watched this movie play before, there's some consistency in the themes," said Microsoft's Steve Guggenheimer relating to history of the netbook - which started off as Linux-based devices, but ended up as 95 pct Microsoft.


That's a lie. It was refuted even by Dell. But it doesn't prevent Microsoft from repeating it.

Apple is not an honest company, either. It's hard to forget Steve Jobs' FUD against Theora and lawsuit against HTC (over Android/Linux). Now watch what Apple is doing in its own Web site:

If you go to Apple's HTML5 Showcase page and click on any of the demonstrations using, say, Google's Chrome, you'll be confronted with a pop-up stating you need Safari to see the demo at work. However, if you compare Safari's and Chrome's support for HTML5, you'll see that Chrome has far better support.


Apple is shooting itself in the foot because it got caught.

And now, for more from Apple’s “we’re more open than all of you” campaign. In an effort to showcase how cool HTML5 and open web standards are Apple has set up a demonstration page on its website.


Here are some more lies from Steve Jobs -- lies which are exposed as follows:

"You can't sell, if you can't lie!" Many businessmen follow this mantra. Steve Jobs is no exception. He created a misleading myth around Flash that it doesn't work well on Apple mobile devices thus they were banning Flash.

The truth was something else, far from what Jobs wrote in his some 2000 words blog. Flash is more than a rich-content player, it is a platform. It will enable developers and publishers to run many applications on Mac mobile devices without money being pumped through Jobs' vaults. Jobs doesn't want that. He wants a tight control on his devices thus he banned Flash.

[...]

WebKit was not 'innovated' or created by Apple. The codebase of WebKit comes from the Free Software project KHTML. Apple took the code base developed my hundreds of developers for free and forked it as WebKit, the layout engine for Apple's Safari.

Most Apple software is based on code taken from Free Software projects like BSD. I think Steve was way wrong when he said "Google was building off of the open-source WebKit engine, which Apple created".


So Apple is still taking credit for KDE's work. What are Apple's employees thinking to themselves? They prefer to rewrite history and pretend KDE never existed, just as Linux likes to put GNU in the past and claim to be the genesis of the Free desktop (never mind BSD too). The sad thing about Apple's lie is that it's fooling enough people, especially its fans who propagate these lies.

Microsoft and Apple should be more responsible and stick to facts. If they are found to be incorrect, they should publicly correct themselves and retract.

Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Strike a Week From Now, After That Strikes Can Become Permanent
A week from tomorrow there will be another strike
 
Links 23/03/2026: "Shocking Peter Thiel Antichrist Lectures", Robert Mueller Remembered
Links for the day
The Scandal Bigger Than IBM/Red Hat Layoffs is the de Facto "Media Blackout" About Those Layoffs
So we have a media crisis, aside from the economic crises
Gemini Links 23/03/2026: Geminispace/Elpher Enhancement and the Cerberus Cinco
Links for the day
Fear is Not a Legitimate Factor
Smart people know that trying to prevent moral people from doing the "Right Thing" will backfire
Fuel Autonomy and What It Teaches Us About Software Autonomy (or Software Freedom)
Need we wait until a "software Pearl Harbor" or protect ourselves proactively by weaning ourselves off of GAFAMware?
Scheduled Maintenance This Coming Wednesday
Other than that, all is the same and we carry on as usual
Most Press Articles About IBM Are LLM Slop, Sometimes With Slop Images
IBM basically laid off almost 1,000 people last week [...] At the moment about 75% of the 'articles' we see about IBM (in recent days) are some kind of slop
Links 23/03/2026: Security Breaches, Energy Shortages, Another SRA Scandal, and Patents on Nature
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 22, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, March 22, 2026
Streisand Effect and Justice
This weekend this site has served over 8 million Web requests
Gemini Links 22/03/2026: "Woman of Tomorrow" and "First Steps in Geminispace"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 19 Out of 200: They Were Ill-prepared for Tough Questions in Cross-Examination
Very ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation caused by their clients' past behaviour towards many people, including high-profile figures who offered to testify
The Media Sold Out to Slop Bros
If you wish for the hype to stop, then stop participating in it
The Only Non-IBM Staff in Fedora Council/Leadership Attacks Booting Freedom (Just Like the Master Wants)
Last week IBM laid off almost 1,000 people in Confluent and the media didn't write anything about it, so don't expect anyone in what's left of the media to comment on Fedora's demise and silent layoffs at Red Hat
Just Like a Founder of XBox Said, Microsoft XBox is Collapsing, Management Continue to Jump Ship
Nowadays Microsoft tries to promote this idea that Windows is XBox and XBox is Windows
Links 22/03/2026: Slop Triggers Emergency at Meta, Energy Prices Rise Sharply
Links for the day
Links 22/03/2026: Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' in Legal Trouble (Plagiarism, Distortion, Misrepresentation); Facebook/Meta Kills Off "Horizon Worlds"
Links for the day
Racism Dressed Up as "Choice"
Racism is rampant at IBM
Probably an All-Time Record
Our investment in our own SSG is paying off
Your Site Should Implement Its Own Search (Before It's Too Late)
GAFAM was never trustworthy
Gemini Links 22/03/2026: LLM Slop Attacks USENET, Announcing Pig (New Game in Gemini Protocol)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 21, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, March 21, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 18 Out of 200: Third Parties Funding Attacks on the Messengers, Lawsuits Against GAFAM-Critical Voices That Uphold Real National Security
Women are like kryptonite to them
Never Trust People Who Write Their Own Wikipedia Pages (Vanity Pages About Themselves) or Ask Friends to Do So. Also: Jono Bacon is Married to Microsoft.
We'd hardly be the first to point out Wikipedia isn't what it seems
No Tolerance for Attacks on Family Members
Being a Free software activist ought not lead to "collateral damage" like attacks on family members, including doxing
Sirius Open Source is Just a Zombie Firm With Shell Entities
Many companies fake their health and their size
Communities Can Only Survive When Trust Prevails
PCLinuxOS is still a vibrant and authentic community
Techrights Was Always a Community Site
The harder we're attacked, the more people participate in the site
Maintenance Reminder
We'll carry on publishing
Behind the PR Smokescreen and Microsoft-Sponsored Chaff, Microsoft Layoffs in "AI" Alleged This Month
In an age when ~1,000 simultaneous layoffs aren't enough to receive any media coverage, what can we expect remaining publishers to tell us about Microsoft layoffs in 2026?
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VIII - Mobbing and Silencing of Dissenting Staff
that's the very cornerstone of functional democracies with real opposition parties
Bluewashing at Confluent: Some Workers to Leave Within 3 Months (IBM Mass Layoffs)
Is the "era of AI" an era when none of the media will mention over 800 layoffs? [...] There's a lesson here about the state of the contemporary media, not just IBM and bluewashing
Microsoft OpenAI, Drowning in Debt and Forced to Make Significant Cuts (as Reports Reveal This Month), Does Hiring Disguised as "Takeovers" to Fake Value or Alleged Potential
Remember what happened to Skype last year
Reader Shares Recent Memes on Slop and 'Coding' by LLMs
"just some funny memes I thought were relevant to current coverage."
Slop Does Not Replace Art, It Contaminates Everything With Reckless Nonsense
many Computer Scientists do not want programs to get contaminated by slop
Coders Don't Just Reject 'Vibe Coding' Because They're "Luddites", They Just Know the True Cost of Slop
if some programmer says slop sucks, don't rush to assume selfishness or defence of one's occupation
When Nobody Else Covers the News
There's an obvious "media blackout" regarding the mass layoffs
Links 21/03/2026: David Botstein Dies, Slop as Censorship Apparatus
Links for the day
Links 21/03/2026: Metastablecoin Fragmentation and Crescent Moon
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/03/2026: Historic Ada Docs; The Lurking LLM on the SmolNet
Links for the day
HSBC the Latest Failed Bank Using Slop as Excuse for Its Financial Failure
"HSBC is planning on cutting as many as 20,000 jobs in the near future as the company allies with AI revolution."
Invitation to General Assembly After 1,200 EPO Workers Participated in the Demonstration 3 Days Ago
"the strike of 19 March was also very well followed."
A/Prof Susan G Kleinmann, Enkelena Haxhija & Debian-private risk to MIT
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 20, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 20, 2026