Well they look farrr better than coal mines and plants and smoke plumes. Even beyond that I think they just look plain nice though, like when I rarely get to see some it makes me happy.
Yep, though Google is happy to process your data in the cloud constantly while Apple consistently tries to find ways to achieve it locally, which is generally better for privacy and security but also cheaper for them too.
Google effectively has a monopoly on the Android app ecosystem and this trial brought to light mountains of evidence that they maintain this through extremely anti-competitive means.
The S9 was a significant improvement in performance etc over the S8 despite having basically the same design - my friend has an S9+ and he feels absolutely no push to get a new phone and I don't blame him.
Linux Mint is definitely the closest interface- and vibes-wise to XP imo, of the big distros worth considering