Apple and Microsoft’s rivalry had cooled, but now it’s back and getting testier

The renewed antipathy between Apple and Microsoft started about a year ago, when Microsoft developed a cloud gaming service for iPhones and iPads called xCloud that would let users pay a monthly fee to Microsoft and stream dozens of different gaming titles from the cloud. But Microsoft never launched the service in its intended form, having failed to persuade Apple to loosen App Store rules forbidding all-in-one gaming services. — AFP

At a virtual product launch in November for Apple’s Mac reboot, actor John Hodgman appeared in a nerdy, ill-fitting suit before a white backdrop.

“Stop, hang on, wait, one more thing, hi, I’m a PC,” he said, reprising the popular Mac vs. PC television commercials of a decade ago that not so subtly telegraphed the idea that Apple was cool and Microsoft wasn’t.