Letters by Burk #165: Picking Sides

Hi friends,

Somehow every post this week was about picking a side. Which coding agent. Which office suite. And whether Apple picked the wrong one when it went to Google for Siri.

I don't have one answer for all three. But I have opinions. Of course.

Here's my week.

Is Apple Losing the AI Race?

Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta spend $725 billion on AI data centers this year. Apple rents Gemini for about a billion. I don't think that means Apple is losing, because the smartest model matters less than the one people let into their phone.

Read it on Medium or on Substack.

Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace vs Proton vs kSuite (2026)

Four office suites, part by part. Price, mail, chat, storage, AI, and where your data ends up. Plus the small Europeans, and an Apple Workspace that doesn't exist. Yet.

Read it on Medium or on Substack.

Antigravity vs Claude Code vs Codex in Late 2026

I ranked these three in June. Three months later Claude Code is still the one I open first, but it's not the clear winner anymore. Codex got a lot better. And cheaper.

Read it on Medium or on Substack.

⚡ AI Bytes

If you bought an iPhone 15 Pro or any iPhone 16 in the US between June 2024 and March 2025, you can now file a claim in Apple's $250 million Siri settlement, $25 per device and up to $95, until December 21.

Security researchers found a flaw they call "Plugin4Shell" in Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot and Gemini CLI; according to heise, Anthropic and OpenAI patched it months ago, while Copilot has no fix yet and Gemini CLI won't get one.

And the European Commission is looking into OpenAI for not reporting a security incident from May under the AI Act; the AI Office reportedly heard about it from outside researchers first.

📎 From the Archive

Almost a year old, and the office suite comparison this week is basically part two of it: Munich tried to leave Microsoft twenty years ago, and Europe is still at it.

Read it on Medium or on Substack.

🔧 One tip

Compare office suites by the plan you'd need, not by the entry price. The cheapest tier usually leaves out the thing you notice first. Google Workspace Starter, for example, can't record a meeting.

That's #165. Back next Tuesday. ✌️

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