Archive for February, 2010

<Michael Buffer>

Ladies and gentleman, tonight we have a bout of epic proportions. From the Blue corner, weighing in at $179 Billion and hailing from Cupertino California, the undisputed King of Sexy Hardware, the Lord of all things shiny, the Bane of Microsoft………aaaappplllle!!!!!!!

In the red corner, weighing in at $170 Billion, from Mountain View California, the Champion of Information, the company that knows more about YOU than YOU…………gooooglllllee!

LET’S GET ERRRRRREADY TO RUMBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!
</Michael Buffer>

Simpler Times

The year was 2007, a young Shia LaBeouf was battling enormous intergalactic robots on the screen, Rihanna’s “Umbrella” rang from the rooftops, a watered down webpage called a blog was taking the internet by storm, and the cellphone geeks were clicking away on their hot new Blackberry Curve 8300’s. It was in those halcyon days that the mobile world would forever change, and the seeds of a rivalry would take root.

On June 29th, 2007, the iPhone was released to the public. The impact it had in both the technology sector and the public consciousness could only be described as transformative. Apple wasn’t the only one that would ultimately benefit from this new piece of hardware. Software companies and application developers worldwide immediately scrambled for their piece of the action. At the front of the scrum was Google, with their powerful web presence ready to share a special connection with Apple. The relationship was in many ways symbiotic. Google’s apps made the iPhone better, and the iPhone made Google’s apps better. The companies also worked closely on a lot of development issues. YouTube (owned by Google) even re-encoded ALL their videos into a more friendly H.264 format since the phone didn’t support Flash. They were so tightly knit in those times that Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, sat on Apple’s Board of Directors!

Google has to go off and do it’s thing

Google’s spirit of dabbling in every technology under the sun, however, would soon set the two titans on a path towards confrontation.

After becoming a force in not only the internet realm, but the mobile application world, Google naturally had an epiphany. Hey, let’s build an entire freaking mobile operating system!. It just seems to be their modus operandi, tinkering away in an attempt to build a better mousetrap. It’s like they can’t even help themselves. (An OS would also provide new and exciting vectors for advertising, their bread and butter).

The idea was to create an “open source” operating system that could run on a variety of hardware types. Manufacturers (Samsung, Motorola, and HTC, et al) were essentially free to modify the source code until the cows came home. The best part? Google would license it for FREE. Android was born.

In an attempt to keep things kosher with Apple, Google supposedly showed them a prototype cellphone. Upon seeing it, Apple requested two things. (Both due to, or at least under the guise of, patent related concerns)

The first was that multitouch gestures must be left off the device. Now unless you’re an octogenarian from the Icelandic fishing village of Akureyri, you’ll probably know that multitouch is simply the ability to register two or more touch inputs simultaneously. The gestures made possible by mulitouch however, such as “pinch to zoom” also happened to be one of the BIG selling points of the iPhone user interface. Google probably did a cost-benefit analysis and concluded that riding the iPhone’s coattails outweighed some interface eye candy on their phone, so they omitted the feature. Apple was also threatening some companies with litigation and Google probably wanted to wait and see how that would play out.

The second request was that a 3.5 mm headphone jack (the size used on almost every audio device on the planet) NOT be used. Apple claimed a patent on a 3.5 mm jack that had controls in the headphone cable as a means of controlling the media of the device. Instead of simply taking the controls off the headphone cable, Google (or HTC the manufacturer) went with an irritating proprietary USB type of connection. The result was you couldn’t even plug your existing headphones into the damn thing. Moronic to say the least.

On Oct 22nd, 2008, the first Android phone, the G1 Dream, was released. I bet you’ll be blown away to hear the two biggest criticisms were the lack of multitouch and a standard sized headphone jack!

A shot across the bow

While the G1 was humming along to strong sales and decent praise, trouble started brewing when some conflicts of interest began to emerge. In July 2009, Google introduced a friend location service called Latitude, which Apple promptly rejected from their app store. Was their objection due to privacy concerns or even legal considerations with Google? Not according to Apple, who responded with an excuse that was downright bizarre. They claimed that Latltude would be confused with the native Google Maps application, thus resulting in a poorer user experience. No one really bought this as “find a friend on the map” was simply an extra feature tacked on to the core app. Anyway, Google acquiesced (cost-benefit redux), and rejiggered it as a non-native app, it’s effectiveness gutted as it required a constant internet connection.

Curiously, around that time, Apple was filing a patent for a location based tracking service of their own. I’d wager they didn’t want Latitude to steal their thunder. A crippled version would give people a taste of the wonderful functionality, yet allow Apple a future “one up” when they rolled out their version.

And here we go again…

A few months later in Sept, the real fireworks began when Apple rejected another Google app. This time it was Gvoice, a free service that adds all sorts of crazy functionality to your existing phone line.

People were pissed, the FCC threatened to get involved, and Apple & AT&T pointed fingers blaming one another for the rejection. Since Gvoice is more of a threat to traditional phone companies, AT&T slamming the door shut on this one seemed entirely plausible.

Well, it turns out that it was Apple behind the smack down. This time, Apple claimed that the program was rejected on the grounds that it “duplicated the core functionality of the phone dialer”. In other words, the device was perfectly capable of making a call on its own, and we’re scared that the Gvoice version might be better. (That’s how it played out in my mind at least) Other apps, such as Skype, seemed to violate the duplicity rule as well, yet were still approved for the app store. (It should be noted that Skype is “crippled” and cannot utilize the high speed signal, but I just heard this restriction will be lifted in a few weeks.)

The battle lines are drawn

The app store tensions exposed the cracks of the relationship and showed that the companies were becoming leery of each other. Where the future once existed in merging their strengths in alliance, it was now clear that the only path forward was through encroaching their adversary’s turf.

Towards the end of the 2009, Apple looked to strike first. The iPhone was still selling like hotcakes, and the (then secret) iPad tablet was a few months away. Apple knew they’d have to claim a stake in the mobile advertising game in order to maximize the revenue potential of their devices. They focused their attention on buying AdMob, a vender well established in the mobile advertising world. I’d imagine the logic was akin to “Screw Google serving ads on our devices! Let’s buy a shop, serve up our own, and sleep on a bigger pile of money!” Right when the deal was in the final stages Google slipped in, thief in the night style, and swiped AdMob with a $750 million dollar 11th hour purchase.

While all the above fun was taking place, Google was gearing up to fetch a slice of the iTunes pie via a music service acquisition. Lala, an internet streaming company with some amazing technological promise, caught their eye. This time it was Apple who swooped in at the last second with an $85 million offer and was gone before Google knew what hit them.

Don’t feel bad for Apple, they eventually snapped up mobile advertising company Quattro Wireless for a paltry $275 million.

Time to play for keeps

Google’s next move couldn’t have made Apple very happy. Until then, Google had been pushing Android phones in the manner of “The new Samsung/Motorola/HTC (insert awesome name) featuring Android”. This time they decided to get involved in the hardware to make a true Google Phone, pushing their presence even further into the mobile arena. The result was what’s regarded as their current flagship Android phone, the Nexus One. The twist here, is that Google attempted to do something many believed Apple might eventually try. In a nutshell, 1) Make a phone that connects to ANY US provider, 2) Sell it directly from the website, and 3) Let the consumer do whatever with it. It hasn’t worked out entirely (yet?) as expected for Google, but that crazy type of thinking sure opened some eyes.

This time, it’s personal!

Things were quiet for a few weeks, but we recently got some new fodder. This time it was some great insight into Apple’s evolving attitude towards Google. Summary: Apparently it’s just short of searing hatred.

Check out these grenades that were tossed in Google’s direction….

“We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says.”

Jobs then allegedly turned to ”Don’t be evil” – Google’s unofficial motto calling it “bullshit”

Source.

These comments (true or not) took the tech blogs by storm the next day. The absence of “taken out of context, completely fabricated, we share a vision, etc, etc” talk from Apple’s camp didn’t help quell things either.

Several days later after Job’s alleged comments, Google turned up the volume with a pretty massive “screw you”. They unleashed an update to their Nexus One phone, enabling full multitouch gestures. Whatever gentleman’s agreement or patent infringement concern they previously held was just drop-kicked out the window. They then articulated the “S” and “Y” by releasing an updated Gvoice app, making a brilliant end run around Apple’s approval process. Utilizing the improved capabilities of next gen HTML5, they built a web version that’s for all intents and purposes IDENTICAL to the functionality of the rejected native app. Awesome stuff.

Two different ways to successfully skin a cat

The operating philosophies of the two companies couldn’t be more different. Apple takes the “measure twice, cut once” approach to design. The iPhone, now in it’s 3rd (and soon to be 4th) generation has changed very little from its original incarnation. There have obviously been software tweaks, but we know Apple had the master roadmap plotted out way before the first device was sold. Apple’s latest gadget, the iPad, was supposedly in the making for over a decade. Steve Jobs, unhappy with results during development, allegedly sent engineers back to the drawing board TWICE! Ten years later, with a snap of his fingers, it’ll be making its retail debut in about 7 weeks.

Google prefers to “throw things at the wall and see what sticks”. Luckily for them, the immense intellectual and financial resources at their disposal allow them to do this quite effectively. How many times have you heard about a new Google app that does X, or does Y, or does Z? If you’re listening, it’ll be practically every week. Google Mail, Maps, Earth, Docs, Reader, Goggles, Skymaps, Listen, Feedburner, Wave, Picasa, Navigation, the list goes on and on. I couldn’t imagine their thinking to be anything other than “Some things hit and others miss, but hey, at least we got the idea out of our head.” *shrug*

It’s going to be very interesting to see how these two methods clash, that’s for sure.

So what’s the point of all this?

I suppose I could have put this closer to the top, but I have a cousin that’s an ophthalmologist, and his business has been kinda slow. The point is that this impending battle is going to result in a truckload of win for the consumer. Already as a result, Android users have multitouch, iPhone users have Gvoice, Apple has taken heat and made steps to open up the App store, and Google has realized it can’t be all things to all companies. The battle currently rages in the phone arena, but it’ll likely continue into the tablet world. The iPad is now a reality, and a Google equivalent has been rumored on the horizon.

The gloves are off, and now with civility and compromise out of the picture, we have a fun ride ahead. I’m going to sit back and relish the action as these two behemoths clobber each other into a pulp. After all, the hearts and wallets of the consumer hang in the balance.