[lotides]

You're right, I am an Apple fan. OS X has done amazing things for my productivity since I switched and I've done a tremendous amount of "creating" on the device people say is only for consumption (the iPad.) When my iMac had an issue, Apple paid a guy to drive 4 hours across state lines to fix it for me so I wouldn't have to wait for shipping. When my iPod died, Apple gave me a better one. Apple has earned my trust.

Google on the other hand has not. When my Gmail account was hacked I couldn't even find a contact for Google. Everything I read from 3rd parties said it was an exploit on the mobile Gmail website and yet Google wasn't going to look in to it, instead they had support docs that said it was probably my fault. Later, as an early Google+ evangelist, I had my account locked down because my wife and I were sharing the same Google account. Again, no way to contact. I've come to accept that Google doesn't give a shit about any individual customer and so I don't bother supporting them in any way.

As far as Android, I just don't care. No matter how good the Android OS gets, I care more about the 3rd party apps I'll be using. I've purchased a lot of great software from amazing developers that simply isn't available on Android. This is particularly an issue with tablet apps.

[ok_craig]

I once was a happy iTunes/App Store user, for my iPad. One day, late at night, I started getting receipts in my inbox for App Store purchases. Apparently I was purchasing the same $15 app once every 5 minutes. Except, I wasn't. It was only by chance that I was still awake when I caught it, and it had already racked up about 12 purchases in a row. In a frantic fit of confusion, I canceled whatever payment agreement I had with iTunes and then charged everything back through my bank. I guess I got hacked.. or something? I still don't know.

As a result of the chargebacks, Apple permanently disabled my iTunes ID. Since then, there has been no way for me to re-enable it, and I lost everything associated with it. Eventually I gave up. I haven't reformatted my iPad or taken the time to create a new account, so my iPad is frozen in time with whatever software I had installed on it by early 2011. So I have the same support impression of Apple that you do of Google, since the only time I ever needed them was for this, and they failed. It hasn't turned out to be much of a problem since I mostly use it for the internet on the toilet.

All companies have good and bad support in certain areas.