AppleBighter

I watch baseball on MLB TV and Apples ads there are absolutely intolerable. I usually just suffer through the ads, but Apple's, I have to mute.  I've never watched a game on Apple+ and probably never will just because of their ads. As a long time Apple user and advocate, I find it rather depressing. 

I've been a CR online subscriber for years. I often don't agree with their assessments, but I think it's important that someone do this sort of independent testing and they are the only option. So, I support them with my subscription. That said, I wouldn't buy or not buy anything based exclusivity on a CR test report. It's a data point. One that I would rate much higher than a manufacturer's marketing blurb or your typical Amazon review, but still just one data point. To me it's worth the minimal cost of the CR subscription.

I worked at AOL when AIM started up. I knew the guy that wrote the server side. He was a absolutely brilliant programmer. Back in the day, AOL never kept any conversation logs of AIM, at all. This was so they wouldn't have to go search through them when subpoenaed. They were also really anal retentive about member privacy. There was all sorts of information available from the client software, had to be for the dialup connections and billing to work, and none of that info was available to marketing. It seems very quaint when you think about FB and Google.