If I told you that the iPhone 5s is an aging device, you might look at me with a questioning stare. But remember, it was released seven months ago, and that’s positively ancient in the tech business they say. So in the eyes of some who expect the constant march of bigger and better gear easily besting older gear, the iPhone 5s is clearly yesterday’s news. It doesn’t matter that it remains a best seller at wireless carriers in the U.S. and other countries. It’s time to set it aside for the latest and greatest.

Or maybe not.

So there is a certain comparison pitting the iPhone 5s against the iPhone killer du jour, the Samsung Galaxy S5 in America’s newspaper of record, The New York Times.

After the hot publicity accorded the Galaxy S5’s predecessor, the Galaxy S4, you’d expect the successor to have been put up in lights. But there was no special media event, just a fairly routine rollout at an international mobile gadget event. Was Samsung trying to tell us something?

Understand that I spent seven months using Samsung flagship smartphones last year; first the Galaxy S3 and later the Galaxy S4. They worked well enough, but Samsung’s feature glut did little but fill precious storage space without adding tangible value. With the Galaxy S4, you wondered if the product designers lost it. Why tout features that barely worked, or didn’t work at all, such as Smart Scroll? Was there even a need for such a feature?

With the Galaxy S5, the display expands by a tenth of an inch compared to its predecessor, to 5.1 inches. The difference hardly matters. It’s still a big shiny plastic gadget that, from a distance, doesn’t look altogether different. This time, Samsung is touting a fingerprint sensor that you swipe rather than touch, along with health-related apps.

Now according to the Times article, authored by Farhad Manjoo, the Samsung bests the iPhone 5s in few areas, such as having slightly longer battery life and being waterproof. I wonder why Apple hasn’t considered the latter feature, but we know nothing of what the iPhone 6 will bring except for some rumors.

The other key area in which the Galaxy S5 excels is the screen size, which is to be expected. I think Apple is running out of excuses not to have at least one model with a larger display, though I’m skeptical of the possibilities of a phablet. I don’t think that’s an area Apple will play in, as it just complicates the lineup without much benefit.

Fingerprint sensors? The Times scribe says it works 90% of the time in the iPhone 5s, but he could never get it to function on the Galaxy S5. Now granted there’s some variability with the accuracy of these fingerprint sensors. But Samsung is notorious for releasing buggy features, as if they never went through a normal vetting process during development. More to the point, how do they expect to get away with it?

Well, I suppose dealers could be trained to tell the customer that their fingers are too large, too small, too greasy, and if that doesn’t work, promise a software fix.

The Times piece says that the iPhone 5s is otherwise superior to the Galaxy S5 in pretty much every respect, including performance. Despite boasting a 2.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the Samsung is bested by the iPhone 5s and its 64-bit A7 processor, which has two cores and runs at 1.27GHz. Yes, on paper, it would seem the A7 is about half the speed of the Qualcomm, but that’s just not the case when you measure actual performance.

Worse, the Galaxy S5 is already being discounted by the carriers even though it was only recently released. I’ve heard TV and radio ads touting two-for-one offers, or free with the traditional wireless contract. That hardly augers well for what’s supposed to be the best Android smartphone on the planet.

Despite that, it’s a sure thing that the usual band of Apple critics will continue to say that the iPhone is second best, and cite Android’s higher market share as evidence of dominance. But it’s also true Apple makes two thirds of the profits in the smartphone business, and that the most popular Android gear is low-end stuff that provides only the basic features of a mobile handset along with old and less-secure versions of the OS.

Worse, this gear is sold with little or no profit, simply to move more product. I’m not sure how that marketing scheme keeps a company healthy and prosperous, but I don’t pretend to understand anything about running a multinational corporation.

In any case, it’s no wonder why Samsung tried so very hard to copy the iPhone. As the Galaxy S5 clearly demonstrates, even with Apple to emulate, they aren’t doing a terribly good job in delivering a compelling product that excites customers. Once again, having lots of features doesn’t count if the features are barely functional, if they even work at all.

As to reviewing the Galaxy S5, so sorry but I’ve got better things to do.

The headline may not make very much sense to most of you. After all, Apple is a first-class money-making machine, pulling in tens of billions of dollars every quarter. True, growth isn’t as fast as it used to be. If it was, Apple would, in a few more years, have more money than any country on the planet, so such levels cannot be sustained.

But that doesn’t mean growth isn’t quite impressive. Apple still manages to show year-over-year gains for the most part. But there have been singular misses on sales of some products, and you can argue whether financial analysts have come up with estimates that defy common sense. I wouldn’t suggest they emerge from a dark place.

On April 23, Apple will reveal details of sales for the March quarter, and financial pundits are already saying it won’t be terribly impressive. But that’s what Apple indicated in their own guidance for the period, ranging from $42 to $44 billion, compared to $43.6 billion last year.

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According to published reports, Apple gets approximately one billion dollars a year from Google to be the default iOS search engine for Safari. In turn, Google probably gets more than that in payment for targeted ad clicks or taps from an iOS device.

All this is happening while Apple is fighting the largest licensee of Google’s Android OS, Samsung, in the courts over intellectual property disputes.

But Google isn’t the only search engine available on iOS. You can choose Microsoft Bing, or Yahoo if you prefer. But since most users don’t change default settings, Google continues to get the lion’s share of the action, and that’s also true on OS X.

Despite that, Apple has done things to reduce the ad payments to Google, first by giving up on Google Maps starting in iOS 6, although Google’s app is still available for download, and by moving to Bing for some Siri-related searches. Yahoo already provides the data for stocks and weather on iOS, but they want the whole enchilada.

According to published reports, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is hot after getting that pole position on iOS. Persuading Apple to make Yahoo the default search engine is supposed to be part of a major initiative by Mayer, who has reportedly made contact with Apple executives, including head designer Jonathan Ive, about what it would take to elevate Yahoo’s status and consign Google to a lower position.

If such a deal is made, and reports so far apparently come from sources within Yahoo, it would still depend on what arrangements Apple has made with Google about putting its search at the top of the list. Is it a multiyear contract, or renewed annually?

But if a deal could be made quickly, it would take nothing but a simple iOS update to make it happen, although I would expect it would require some sort of advance notice so iPhone and iPad users would be warned about the change. It wouldn’t make sense to change a search engine from Google or Bing to Yahoo without getting a customer’s approval.

So if it happens, maybe it’ll become part of iOS 8, and perhaps Apple could make a big deal of it so customers are appropriately alerted before things change about the new state of affairs.

If Apple is indeed getting one billion dollars in annual payments from Google, would Yahoo have to pay twice that to take over? Would Apple go back and forth among Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to get the best deal before considering such a change?

Now it’s quite true that Yahoo, although the company’s fortunes have been better of late, still isn’t doing stellar business as a search engine. These days, Yahoo search is actually powered by Microsoft Bing, but the combined market share of the two is dwarfed by Google, which remains the market leader without evidence of anything but minor market share changes in recent years.

Considering the search market, Apple might decide to go with the flow, although they clearly didn’t take that approach when it came to mapping. It’s not that Apple would care about saving Google a billion dollars in annual payments either, since that’s chump change to the company. But if customers are accustomed to Google powering search, it may be difficult to persuade them to change, although switching the default will still accomplish that for the majority who never change defaults.

But I wonder: Why haven’t Microsoft and Yahoo made efforts to convince iOS users to change their default search engine? It takes seconds to do. Tap Settings>Safari>Search Engine and choose the one you want. I use Bing these days, though I sometimes switch back to Google because I’ve grown accustomed to the results it presents.

So would it make sense for Google’s competitors to buy ads in Apple-related publications and sites to promote the choice of a different search engine? Microsoft has spent loads of cash touting Bing on TV, but these are the sort of ads that probably don’t have much of an impact. Most customers don’t consider the choice of search engine, particularly since Google has become the verb that equates with search.

So maybe a promotional campaign will be difficult to pull off, though I would think it would cost less than lobbying to get the default position. Then again, I don’t think Apple would be too sad to see Google get second-grade treatment on iOS, so perhaps these rumors about Yahoo taking over may indeed have some substance after all.

It’s not that Apple would necessarily comment, but iOS 8 is under development as we speak, and a change of that sort may already be under consideration. But even if Yahoo becomes the default search engine, it’s not that Google disappears. But I wonder, if this happens, whether a similar change would be contemplated for OS X. At the end of the day, however, if Apple feels customers expect Google search to be at the top of the heap, things may not change. Indeed, such a move may be considered one of spite, since Apple remains upset with Google over Android.

It’s also very possible that this is just Yahoo’s trial balloon, and that nothing will come of it, although it certainly got plenty of media attention didn’t it?

While I still run into people from time to time who believe that Macs are sophisticated consumer computers and not suited for professional work, I’m sure most of you know that isn’t correct. But I do understand the point of view.

Regardless, over the years, it was generally assumed that an all-in-one Mac was useful for small business or consumers, while a Mac tower was the work machine that the content creators craved.

That, however, changed in late 2009, when a new lineup of iMacs came out with quad-core processors, reasonably speedy graphics, and expansive hard drives. As development of the Mac Pro appeared to have slowed, a tricked out iMac, customized with extra RAM and the more powerful processor and graphics chips offered by Apple, actually met or exceeded many Mac Pro benchmarks. Yes, I understand that having extra processor cores counts in some apps, but not in most.

For a while Mac Pro users probably felt that Apple had given up on personal computing workstations and would, instead, focus on computers with more mass appeal. I know that I sold a Mac Pro and display and bought customized iMac and had enough change left over for a backup drive, and an AppleCare extended warranty.

After Tim Cook promised a great Mac Pro upgrade in 2013, there was a lot of anticipation and suggestions on how Apple might change the form factor, assuming there was going to be much of a change. The fashionably small black cylinder without much external expansion probably came as a surprise to many, although it may make sense for some that didn’t find the internal expansion to be sufficient.

No matter. It appears the Mac Pro has taken off quite nicely, still backordered for several weeks on even the two standard configurations. Either Apple has problems turning them out at a USA factory, or demand was more than anticipated.

Indeed, the Mac Pro puts the lie to the claim that Macs are overpriced toys. From the standard configurations to the fully decked out customized versions, a Mac Pro is actually cheaper than comparable Windows hardware, sometimes to the tune of several thousand dollars. But this is nothing really new. From time to time over the years, I did some cost comparisons between a Mac Pro and a Windows workstation with similar specs, and the Mac was almost always cheaper. It’s a fact not widely mentioned, but it was true at least for the comparisons I ran.

That Mac Pro is competitively priced doesn’t change a significant fact, which is that it’s still quite expensive, and it may not always be possible to justify that expense.

Indeed, when the benchmarks are performed, it’s quite clear that an iMac delivers competitive performance for most apps. There may be flexibilities in the external expansion offered in a Mac Pro that will still make it more desirable for some uses even before you consider the potential advantage of the extra processor cores.

But if you examine Mac performance up and down the line, you’ll see that most any model is capable of terrific performance, even a Mac mini. For serious business use, an iMac is a powerful beast, and should be taken seriously.

When it comes to such chores as 4K video editing, particularly in the latest Final Cut Pro X, 3D rendering, mathematics and similar processor intensive chores that do make effective use of up to 12 processor cores, the Mac Pro remains unbeatable. But the intended audience is far smaller than it used to be, although clearly sufficient to justify production of a flagship model.

Yes, I grant that Apple is perceived as focusing far more on well-heeled consumers these days than on creative professionals. It’s also true that some of those creative professionals deserted the Mac because of the time it took to deliver a credible Mac Pro upgrade, and the fact that the original release of Final Cut Pro X lacked some important features video editors required.

When it comes to Final Cut Pro X, I regard that as an Apple marketing screw-up pure and simple. Sure, it’s not unusual for Apple to release an all-new app that is missing features at first. That happened with an iMovie release, and more recently with the “free” edition of iWork.

Apple’s usual response — or excuse — is that some features dropped are in the initial release of an all-new version, but they will be added back later. Certainly that process has already begun with iWork. Each update has a slew of new features, some of which restore capabilities that were dropped with the initial release.

Yes, it makes sense, but Apple should have spelled this out very clearly on the day Final Cut Pro X came out, and immediately dropping sale of the previous version only conveyed the impression that the professional market was being abandoned in order to focus on prosumers.

But that wasn’t quite true, as most of those lost features have been returned, and, particularly when it runs on a Mac Pro, Final Cut Pro X has become a terrific tool for editing 4K video. It’s not just a plaything for consumers with lots of money to burn.

For me, the Mac Pro is in the rear-view mirror. The iMac does all that I need with the level of performance I expect. But that’s not true for everyone, which explains why demand for the latest and greatest Mac Pro remains high.