Marco Arment

Put yourself in CR's shoes.

You can't do every test of every laptop using the popular sites, because content payloads on various sites change over time. You won't get apples to apples comparison tests.

The easiest way to do a repeatable browser test is to turn caching off on the browsers and hit a few web pages that never change and that you control on your own server. By repeating that test over and over again, it simulates hitting new sites even though you're hitting the same pages.

If I was in the business of doing laptop reviews, that's how I'd do it.

-- edit: This blog entry by Marco Arment on the topic is worth reading: https://marco.org/2017/01/10/cr-mbp-battery-update

Well, there seems to be some dissent in the choir [1]. And a growing sense among many Apple customers that it's all been downhill since Snow Leopard.

For myself, I can say that the benefits of Apple hardware are starting to be outweighed by the downsides of their software. And that while I love the hardware, the OS that is supposed to drive it no longer interests me; and the rapacious attitude that seems to imply that both devs and customers are sheep to be sheared grates on me.

I've been an Apple user from the days when I wanted an Apple ][ soooo badly. But these days, I'm not so sure.

1. http://www.marco.org/2015/01/04/apple-lost-functional-high-ground

Marco Arment has the most interesting take on this, and it's made me change my mind on the topic. The whole post is short and worth reading -- https://marco.org/2021/09/13/future-of-the-app-store -- but the tl;dr is: lots of app stores run by different companies would be worse both for users and developers; Apple is not nearly as bad as Facebook in terms of surveillance, invasions of privacy, dark patterns; and basically 'better the devil you know.' I'm convinced -- surprisingly. Essentially a free-for-all might lead to anarchic piracy rather than an extractive one-party state. Marco prefers the latter and his argument seems kinda compelling.

This seems to be one of a spate of recent articles, e.g. [1]. For a skeptical take, see Marco Arment [2]. Then again, he could just be expressing sour grapes because people with actual skill, money, and time are invading his turf.

FWIW, I have listened to a lot of NPR via podcast for many years, and see a podcast-only version of it as a natural step. At this point, the amateur "three nerds and a microphone" stuff is background noise for when I can't sleep.

[1] http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/whats-behind-the-great-podcast-renaissance.html

[2] http://www.marco.org/2014/11/16/why-podcasts-are-suddenly-back

There are two schools of thought on how to answer this query:

Here is #1 result on Google:
https://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-laptops-1304361

Here is #1 result on Kagi:
https://marco.org/2017/11/14/best-laptop-ever

Kagi's result showcases our philosophy of preferring non-commercial content to commercial/SEO/affiliate content. It may not be for everyone. If the users want that they can find the same link as Google's #1 in a section called listicles.

We show this example on purpose so that we manage expectations on what you will get Kagi from the very first interaction.

The question with Overcast, is whether it will be able to compete in the open market with Marco's almost quixotic desire to avoid any form of tracking whatsoever. He won't even track stop/start/listen actions, and now he's eliminating tracking pixels (https://marco.org/2018/04/27/overcast42) - all very admirable, but by foregoing all the obvious revenue opportunities, will he be able to make it up by attracting a large enough audience who will purchase/subscribe to his app so that he can continue to develop it? Is privacy an important enough attribute for the podcast listening audience?