Walt Mossberg

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Craplets on TV

Just nine days after my April 5 column condemning the practice of loading Windows PCs with “craplets” — useless, crippled, trial software and offers and ads that litter the desktop — Apple posted the ad below making fun of the practice.

Of course, it isn’t 100% accurate. While Macs come with a clean desktop and very little third-party bundled software, they all do include in the Applications folder a trial version of Microsoft Office, and the Pro models also include trial versions of two of Apple’s own products, iWork and FileMaker Pro. So, while Macs are much better than Windows machines on the craplet front (my new Sony came with 24 craplets,) they are not perfect.

But the ad is funny.

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When AllThingsD began, we told readers we were aiming to present a fusion of new-media timeliness and energy with old-media standards for quality and ethics. And we hope you agree that we’ve done that.

— Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, in their farewell D post