Apple and Google are continuously slugging it out for the hearts and minds of consumers — and Google has the edge at the moment, according to a poll jointly commissioned by ABC News and the Washington Post. According to this random survey of 1,007 adults , 82 percent of survey respondents had a favorable opinion of Google, compared to 74 percent for Apple. Breaking that data down further, 53 percent of respondents said their opinion of Google was "strongly" favorable, compared to only 37 percent for Apple. Not coincidentally, Apple had a slightly higher percentage of respondents who viewed the company as "unfavorable" or had "no opinion" — 13 and 14 percent, respectively, compared to Google's nine and ten percent. The survey data released didn't get into why exactly consumers felt this way, though it may have to do with the goodwill Google has built up with the many free services it offers; Apple does very little for free, and thus might be a little more likely to have consumers feel they haven't spent their money well.

Both companies are particularly strong amongst the affluent: according to the survey, 93 percent and 91 percent of those making more than $100,000 annually had favorable opinions of Google and Apple, respectively. However, Google's winning over younger audiences currently, with 92 percent favorability among those under 30, compared to 81 percent favorability for Apple among those under 30.

This poll also asked about Twitter and Facebook favorability, and while Facebook trailed Apple and Google (58 percent indicated a favorable opinion of Facebook, with 28 percent having an unfavorable opinion), it did a lot better than Twitter. Only 34 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of Twitter, with 36 percent having unfavorable feelings towards the microblogging service and 31 percent not having any opinion at all. Even among those under 30, only 42 percent had favorable opinions of Twitter, with 43 percent having unfavorable opinions. That helps to reinforce the ubiquity of Facebook, as well as the fact that Twitter is still an unknown quantity for a large section of the population — and a lot of those that do know about it may think it's just a place where people post about what they had for lunch.