The guys over at Gizmodo recently penned a really good piece on the impending war between Apple and Google.  Jesus Diaz really dove down a few layers and reveals just how love has turned to hate.

Apple has sued Google’s phone manufacturer for infringing on 20 iPhone patents. Not so long ago, Apple and Google were a nice couple. Then, everything went to hell.

The romance began with the iPhone, even while we didn’t know about it in 2006. Back then, Steve Jobs invited Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt to his house, to sit at his table, and have vanilla-frosted cupcakes and tea together. It was instant love.

An Affair to Remember

They happily worked in the iPhone’s 2007 launch. Google gave Apple their maps, their search, and their mail, and Apple gave Google the best spot in their new shiny device. Apple put YouTube into the iPhone and Google made YouTube to work nicely with QuickTime, moving all videos to the h.264 standard (so Apple could avoid that nasty Flash kid). Google even optimized their web apps for the iPhone, and Apple smiled.

And so they played in the new smartphone playground together and giggled at Yahoo and Microsoft and Adobe and everyone else. They were the coolest kids, they told everyone how happy they were, and everyonethought they were the perfect lovers.

The iPhone quickly became a huge success, positioning itself as the future of ubiquitous consumer-oriented computing. Just the kind that Google wants to control to deliver its highly targeted ads. Google noticed the success, and the relationship started to rupture. I can imagine the meeting between Eric, Sergey and Larry: “Whaaaa…? How did they…? Fuck, we need to get into this now.” It was then that Google started to reveal its true face — and their plans for the little company they bought in 2005, helmed by the phone wiz Andy Rubin. They realized that they couldn’t let Apple control the main window to the web. After all, it was their web, not Apple’s.

Google presented Android, their own smartphone operating system made to imitate Apple’s. Not only did they devote resources to create this, but they wanted to give it for free to every manufacturer and carrier. It didn’t take much for Steve Jobs to realize that the romance was over. It was betrayal. Google was his new Microsoft. The real nemesis that could build a new dominant “Windows”, and turn his early success with the iPhone into the new Mac underdog.

That was when all went to hell.

Escalating Conflict

It wasn’t an open war. At the beginning, it all happened behind curtains, like when Apple allegedly stopped multitouch on Android and Google complied, realizing that they might otherwise be stepping into a patent minefield. Like the one the just got into now, with HTC as the proxy.

Steve Jobs couldn’t tie his tongue, however. Back in January 2008, he was already criticizing Google and Android, pointing out that it wasn’t going to be good for anyone. It was the first knife shining in the open, but it wasn’t the last one.

After that, executives at Apple have been pretty clear about what they think about Google, like when Tim Cook said that Google was still trying to catch up with the first iPhone or Jobs gave his blunt-as-bricks opinion on Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” mantra. “It’s bullshit,” he said, a sentiment now shared by many.

It almost feels like this is something personal for Steve Jobs, as if he believed that a fake-smiled Eric Schmidt sat at the Apple’s board, eating his food and drinking his wine, while plotting to kidnap Apple’s baby since the very beginning. It seems the feeling is mutual: Schmidt delivered his own snide against Jobs and his new baby recently, pooping on the iPad as nothing more than a big phone.

Knowing how things developed, it’s surprising that Schmidt stayed on Apple’s board for so long. He resigned on August 2009, just as the war started to go open, first with Google grabbing mobile advertising company AdMob from Apple’s hands(which forced Apple to buying Quattro Wireless). Then with Apple pissing on Google’s parade by stealing Lala, the music streaming service that Larry and Sergei wanted to have.

The love affair was definitely over, and the bitter separation started. Like gangrene, the hate started to spread to every aspect in the relations between the two companies. According to insiders, negotiating the terms for maps in the new iPhone OS and the iPad was a fierce battle, to the point in which Apple went andbought their own charting company at one point. Who knows if that move was part of their poker hand—like the rumors about Apple replacing Google search withBing—or an actual desire to get fully independent from Google.

The War for the Future of Computing

The true war, however, has started today, with the lawsuit against HTC. It names their Windows phones, but that’s just a distracting maneuver. The core example in the lawsuit is Android, and that’s where the real attack is. And by going against HTC, the weakest link in the chain, Apple is not only attacking Google. It’s also giving a warning to every manufacturer out there: If you try to pull a Nexus Two for them, we will launch our missiles against you. Motorola—who confirmed they are working with Google—could be the next one in the list.

Jobs clearly knows that they are playing for the domination of the future of computing, the Next Big Thing. And he doesn’t want this one to end like the Macintosh-Windows War. This time he has a huge lead, and he has the deep pockets to fight for it, whether that means new product development, strategic acquisitions or all-out legal battles. In the most recent Apple shareholder meeting, he clearly said this: They will use their huge mountain of cash to do everything necessary, every “bold move” needed to keep their lead, and have the whole enchilada for themselves.

There’s no doubt that Jobs will use every single of Apple’s 40 billion dollars to trump Google’s plans, and keep their massive market share in the mobile device and applications world. But for that he will need a strong cloud structure and to get deep into the social aspect of the web. Of the latter, they got nothing. On the former, MobileMe is still a half-baked solution, and iWork.com beta has failed to gain any real traction. Maybe Apple’s traditional enemy—Microsoft—would be able to help there. And maybe getting together with Facebook would slap Google where it hurts more.

On the other side, Google has the lead in the cloud, except for their failed social efforts, which are the target of jokes and extreme criticism. At the same time, while technically good, Android has failed to match the momentum of the iPhone. Android’s app marketplace is still tiny compared to the App Store—and low quality too, by comparison. Apple has an easier time wooing app developers at this point, and that is a big advantage.

Overall, it seems like the two ex-lovers are in a technical tie, and are getting dirtier and bloodier by the day. Sometimes, love ends up like this.

Source: Gizmodo

It’s all about Apple and Google these days. From the Nexus One to the iPad, to Eric Schmidt leaving the Apple board, to Apple partnering up with Microsoft for Bing search, to Steve Jobs calling the Google motto “don’t be evil” bull sh**, it seems pretty clear these two titans are both aiming at world domination via a holy trinity of mobile devices, apps, and ads.

AdAge recently put together a great scorecard for the impending Apple vs. Google smack-down, including a comparison of the Nexus One and iPhone devices, operating systems, app stores, and ad platforms. While the Nexus One hasn’t sold nearly as well as the iPhone did after its release, the Verizon Droid has (didn’t know that). My takeaway: regardless of how much of an underdog Google may appear today (I know, that sounds weird), these companies are clearly well matched. Scroll down for all the details.

Apple

Handset: iPhone
Launch date: June 29, 2007
First-month sales: 600,000**
Tagline: “There’s an app for that”
Price: iPhone 3GS $199-$299; iPhone 3G $99
Sold: Online and in Apple and AT&T retail locations
The effect: The iPhone, with 42 million units sold worldwide since its launch, has undoubtedly accelerated smartphone adoption in the U.S. What’s more, it’s created an entirely new content economy with apps. Incidentally, the iPhone is great for Google — with more consumers on the web using their phones, that’s more eyeballs for Google’s search ads. Right now, Google search and maps are default on iPhones. For Apple, the iPhone is a direct extension of the company’s existing product business of computers, laptops and iPods.

Mobile Operating System: iPhone OS
U.S. Smartphone market share: 25%***
Distribution: The iPhone OS runs on iPhones and iPod Touchs worldwide and will soon be on Apple’s new iPad. The iPhone OS is only second in U.S. smartphone market share to Research in Motion, which makes BlackBerry.
Number of apps: More than 140,000
Number of app downloads: More than 3 billion
Developers: More than 120,000

Mobile Ad Network: Quattro Wireless
Price tag: $275 million
Gross revenue for 2009: $20 million*
Market share: 7%*
Leadership: Quattro CEO Andy Miller is now VP-mobile advertising for Apple, reporting directly to Steve Jobs.
Market position: Quattro specializes in rich media and brand mobile ads. Generally, Quattro ads demand a higher cost-per-click on more sophisticated publishers, like on a media company’s app.

Quattro marks Apple’s first foray into advertising. Why would it want to get into the service business? To keep the developers that create the apps that sell iPhones happy. “Apple can now provide 360-degree services for its developers,” said Nihal Mehta, CEO of local-search and networking app Buzzd. “Developers have an easy way to serve ads and monetize their apps without having to maintain relationships with ad networks.”

Web Browser: Safari
Browser Market Share: 4.53%****
Distribution: Safari comes pre-installed on all Apple devices, from Macs to iPhones. It can also be downloaded for Windows machines. Before Apple launched Safari in 2003, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape were the pre-loaded web browsers on Apple machines. Safari curbed Apple’s dependence on Microsoft for web browsing.

Google

Handset: Nexus One
Launch date: Jan. 5, 2010
First-month sales: 80,000**
Launch tagline: “Web meets phone”
Price: $179.99 with T-Mobile 2-year contract; $529.99 for unlocked phone
Sold: Only online

Sales of Google’s first-ever handset have been slow, and might be a symptom of Nexus’s online-only marketing and distribution strategy. Verizon’s Droid, the first Google-branded handset, sold 535,000 handsets in its first month.**

The effect: With Nexus One, Google is trying to diversify its business beyond search, a paradigm of the wired web that may be rendered obsolete if apps become the primary discovery tool on phones. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said the mobile web is his company’s best opportunity for growth. A Google handset is seen as a way to up appeal and adoption of Android, as well as a way to destabilize Apple’s leadership in mobile.

Mobile Operating System: Android
U.S. smartphone market share: 5%***
Distribution: Android has the smallest U.S. smartphone penetration, but the strongest growth in the last quarter of 2009; it’s now on more than 12 devices in 26 countries with 32 carriers in 19 different languages. It’s free and open-source, which means anyone can take Android and add code or download it to create a mobile device without restrictions. Android is Google’s strategy for getting a toehold on lots of phones in lots of places.
Number of apps: More than 20,000
Number of downloads: Not disclosed
Number of developers: “Thousands,” according to a Google spokeswoman.

Mobile Ad Network: AdMob
Price tag: $750 million in stock
Gross revenue for 2009: $31 million*
Market share: 11%*
Leadership: AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui founded the company while in the MBA program at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Market position: AbMob is one of the biggest players in mobile advertising; it has more inventory and a self-service, high-volume model that would dovetail nicely with Google’s AdSense. “AdMob was born to be acquired by Google,” said one mobile-ad executive. Initially, AdMob built its business on cost-per-click campaigns, but has since expanded to premium CPM for brand ads.

The Federal Trade Commission is still reviewing the acquisition. The deal, with its exorbitant price tag — triple what industry bankers and execs had projected — makes Google the mobile-ad leader with 21% mobile search market share.*

Web Browser: Chrome
Browser market share: 5.22%****; 40 million active users in September 2009

Google launched Chrome in late 2008 to make browsing faster, the idea being that it would help internet users search more and, presumably, click Google ads more. Google is in conversations with various PC manufacturers to get Chrome pre-installed on machines; some Sony computers already ship with Chrome.

*According to market research firm IDC.
**Sales data projected by app analytics firm Flurry.
***Market Share data is according to ComScore.
****According to Net Applications, January 2010.

Source: AdAge

After a big public announcement of the sort Apple had this week for the iPad CEO Steve Jobs often takes time in the day or two afterwards to have a Town Hall at One Infinite Loop, making himself available for questions from employees bold enough to stand up and take one right between the eyes.

This time, the big topics included Google and Adobe — no surprises there. Google recently unveiled its own Android-powered handset, the Nexus One, whose release Jan. 5 prompted Jobs to perhaps over-react by announcing on the same day that the iTunes store had served up three billion apps and that “… we see no signs of the competition catching up any time soon.” Apple’s billionth iPhone app download was greeted with great fanfare, but the two billionth not so much, so it felt a tad like Jobs was feeling some heat.

And the absence of Adobe Flash support on the iPhone for three years and counting, and now on the iPad, is either celebrated by users as a poke in the eye of one of the web’s most dextrous tools, or the most over-rated and overused crutch for decent design.

Jobs, characteristically, did not mince words as he spoke to the assembled, according to a person who was there who could not be named because this person is not authorized by Apple to speak with the press.

On Google: 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. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.

About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.

The world, of course, includes Google, which last week in a somewhat more modest development bypassed Apple’s iPhone app blockade by unveiling an html5 version of Google Voice, which takes full advantage of mobile Safari on the iPhone. Wired.com found it to be an impressive variation of the app Apple has neither approved nor officially rejected.

And it is, of course, in keeping with Google’s stated view (Android app marketplace notwithstanding) that the future is really in web-based applications and not in mobile apps at all. Web-based applications of the sort html5 makes much more viable.

So, great work rallying the troops, Steve — but be careful what you wish for.

(Update, 1/31 2:00 pm ET: In a post on macrumors.com Arnold Kim adds some more details from the Town Hall, including tough talk from Jobs about a blistering pace of iPhone updates, the LaLa acquisition, the next iPhone and (ahem) another candid assessment, of Blu-Ray.)

(Update, 1/31 4:20 pm ET: Another member of the audience, who also requires anonymity because this person is also not authorized to speak to the media, disputes the “bullshit” quote and says Jobs actually said: “Don’t be evil is a load of crap,” as first reported by Daring Fireball. This source also asserts that Jobs had nice things to say about how Adobe, or at least how the company used to be, as John Gruber’s “little birdie” also told him first.)

Source: Wired

“We don’t know how to build a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk.”

“Netbooks aren’t better at anything.”

Those two quotes are both from Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The first was during an earnings call in late 2008 when Jobs fielded a question about why Apple wasn’t cutting prices amid the rising success of netbooks. The second came on Wednesday as Jobs was unveiling the iPad.

Apple has made it clear all along that they had no plans to build a netbook. And true to their word, they haven’t. But that doesn’t mean that Apple didn’t feel there was a need for a device that resided in between a full laptop and a mobile phone — in fact, that’s squarely where Apple is positioning the iPad. With it, they feel that they’ve created a $500 (for the baseline version) device that is superior to every netbook out there.

Meanwhile, Google has decided to target the market in between the laptop and the mobile phone as well. But whereas Apple is anti-netbook, Google is very pro-netbook — they just want to make them better. That’s the reason behind Google OS, as Google clearly laid out during its unveiling event late last year.

And so yes, we once again have Google and Apple on a collision course.

Now, it remains to be seen if people who buy an iPad will do so instead of buying a netbook. At first, I’m not so sure that will be the case. But it stands to reason that eventually, this will happen. And as Jobs’ comments on stage on Wednesday made abundantly clear, that’s Apple’s idea too. In their eyes, you shouldn’t buy a cheap, underpowered PC, you should buy an iPad, their anti-netbook.

Google, which plans to release its first Chrome OS-based netbooks in time for the holiday season next year, can’t like that plan too much. They have promised that netbooks that run Chrome OS will be better than current netbooks because they’re dictating certain minimum requirements (such as big keyboards) to manufacturing partners. But Chrome OS netbooks won’t be able match the sex appeal of the iPad’s multi-touch screen. However, what they can offer is a familiar experience (much more like a traditional laptop then an iPad), and that will be appealing to a lot of people.

And what’s interesting is that for either of the two to be massive hits, they both will need consumers to continue to feel comfortable moving away from traditional software applications such as Microsoft Office. But their plans to get consumers to do that are very different. Google wants everyone to move towards doing everything on their apps in the cloud. Apple, as they made clear with their overly-long iWork for iPad demo on Wednesday, wants everyone to move towards using iPhone OS-based apps.

And that’s why this battle coming at the end of this year will be interesting to watch. Both Apple and Google are very popular with consumers, but their offerings are very different — while aiming for the same market. And as two companies that were once as close as could be, it’s also interesting to watch the tension and awkwardness as they now compete in an ever-growing number of areas.

If this market between laptops and smartphones proves big enough, perhaps the two frenemies can once again find a common ground and band together to defeat their common enemy: Microsoft. But the obvious strategy for this used to be that Google would attack Microsoft from the bottom with its Chrome OS netbooks, while Apple attacked from the top with their premium computers, leaving Microsoft squeezed in the middle. With the iPad now clearly aimed at netbooks thanks to its pricing and Apple’s positioning, everything is different.[TechCrunch]

Our Take: Get ready to watch a true battle of the titans.  First Google launched the phone and its OS, not they are going after a similar use as the iPad via competitors in the netbook space.  Should be fun to watch, and in the end, we win.

Source: TechCrunch / RP

iPad

Today Apple finally unveiled its tablet computer, the iPad. Thus concludes Phase 1 of the standard Apple new-category roll-out: months of feverish speculation and hype online, without any official indication by Apple that the product even exists.

Now Phase 2 can begin: the bashing by the bloggers who’ve never even tried it: “No physical keyboard!” “No removable battery!” “Way too expensive!” “Doesn’t multitask!” “No memory-card slot!”

That will last until the iPad actually goes on sale in April. Then, if history is any guide, Phase 3 will begin: positive reviews, people lining up to buy the thing, and the mysterious disappearance of the basher-bloggers.

The iPad is, as predicted, essentially a giant iPod Touch: aluminum-backed, half-inch thin, with a 10-inch screen surrounded by a shiny black border. At the bottom, there’s the standard iPod/iPhone connector and a single Home button. It will be available in models ranging from $499 (16 gigs of memory, Wi-Fi) to $830 (64 gigs of memory, Wi-Fi and 3G cellular).

The cellular signal will be provided by AT&T for $15 a month (250 megabytes of data transferred — think e-mail only) or $30 a month, unlimited. Amazingly, those AT&T deals involve no contract. You can cancel whenever you like. And since this thing isn’t a phone, you don’t have to worry about dropped calls; you’re paying exclusively for Internet service.

There’s no reason you couldn’t use it to make calls using Skype, of course — Apple says that virtually all of the existing 140,000 iPhone apps run fine on the iPad. (You can run them either at regular tiny size, or blown up double with some loss of clarity.)

Then again, you might look a little bizarre walking through the airport holding this giant clipboard up to your ear.

Until I saw the demo, I wondered why you’d want an iPad instead of a laptop. After all, the price is about the same. And once you add a carrying case to the iPad — wouldn’t you worry about that glass screen bouncing around in your briefcase or backpack naked? — it’s about the same bulk and weight as a laptop.

Now, though, it looks like Apple really has created something new. Criticisms of “Like a laptop” and “a big iPod Touch” don’t really do justice to the possibilities.

The iPad as an e-book reader is a no-brainer. It’s just infinitely better-looking and more responsive than the Kindle, not to mention it has color and doesn’t require external illumination. (Book fans should note, however, that the iPad e-bookstore won’t offer bestsellers at $10 each, like Amazon and Barnes & Noble do. And although Apple says the iPad has a 10-hour battery life, it hasn’t yet said “doing what.” Playing video eats up battery a lot faster than reading e-books.)

Web browsing, painting programs, TV and movies, newspapers and magazines all seem like naturals on this 1.5-pound machine, too. The New York Times app is especially appealing to me — and yes, this is my completely independent opinion — because it seems to work like the much-adored Times Reader app for computers.

Overall, the iPad seems like a dream screen for reading and watching—at some loss of convenience in creating. True, there’s an on-screen keyboard, big enough to type on with both hands in the usual way. And Apple will offer a specialized multitouch word processor, spreadsheet and presentation app for $10 each. But I’m guessing that, with no mouse and no physical keys to feel, writing and editing will be more effort than on a laptop. (Apple will also sell an external keyboard that holds the iPad upright as you type. Then again, if you need to carry all that around, maybe a laptop would make more sense.)

But these are just the wild speculations of a guy who’s never even tried the thing. (Believe me, I’ll review it when I get one.)

My main message to fanboys is this: it’s too early to draw any conclusions. Apple hasn’t given the thing to any reviewers yet, there are no iPad-only apps yet (there will be), the e-bookstore hasn’t gone online yet, and so on. So hyperventilating is not yet the appropriate reaction.

At the same time, the bashers should be careful, too. As we enter Phase 2, remember how silly you all looked when you all predicted the iPhone’s demise in that period before it went on sale.

Like the iPhone, the iPad is really a vessel, a tool, a 1.5-pound sack of potential. It may become many things. It may change an industry or two, or it may not. It may introduce a new category — something between phone and laptop — or it may not. And anyone who claims to know what will happen will wind up looking like a fool.

Source: New York Times / David Pogue

iPad - More?

Bear with me on this one, alright? It’s a long shot, but part of me thinks this is a set up. Apple hasn’t gone over things like how notifications work, they didn’t address multitasking, and in some places, it felt like Steve & Co. purposely rushed over certain areas in the announcement.

What if there is going to be an iPhone SDK event/announcement before the Apple iPad actually hits stores? Apple said “late March” for the non-3G unit to be available and that’s curiously right when Apple usually holds its iPhone/iPod OS SDK events and where we’d most likely see iPhone OS 4.0 appear. Is it possible this is just to get the ball moving and Apple has some bigger stuff up its sleeve already? Multitasking, redone notifications, and a whole lot more, coming to both the iPhone platform as well as the iPad? Now, why release an SDK based on iPhone OS 3.2 and have devs code for that and then have to redo it, you might be asking, but iPhone 4.0, if it was announced in March would probably be a beta and not released to the public until June/July. That would give developers time to redo any applications for full 4.0 compatibility. Plus, the general public would get iPhone OS 3.2 while developers concurrently used iPhone OS 4.0 and developed for both that and the iPad. Maybe just wishful thinking, but heck, it would make sense. [boygeniusreport]

Our Take: There must be.  Everyone seems to forget that Apple completely ignored one of the most obvious uses of the device, magazines.  And surely, apart from a few hardware misses like a camera, the majority of the other shortfalls are software related.  We think big changes are still in store for the device.

Source: Boygeniusreport / RP

iCAll (VoIP)

Great news for the VoIP world: iCall, the maker of the iCall VoIP iPhone app that can catch a GSM call and flip it over to WiFi, has issued a press release saying that the new iPhone SDK allows for VoIP over 3G cellular connections.

Previously such calls had to be made over WiFi, since AT&T’s network (or someone well acquainted with AT&T’s network) didn’t think it was man enough to take the VoIP traffic. Interestingly, iCall says its 3G-friendly VoIP app is available now, and is the first and only such app in the App Store — which seems like some pretty quick turnaround on everyone’s part, but apparently the 3G restriction wasn’t anything to do with the software itself, but instead a server-side block. We just tested this out and it totally works, and while we’ll be looking for more verification that the ban has indeed been lifted, it sounds like it’s time for some cheaply connected international parties in the streets.

Our Take: For conducting business overseas or especially for when you are overseas, VoIP can save a mountain of cash.  Before, it required WIFI, not that the new SDK is allowing it over 3G, the use-ability is greatly enhanced.  Hey, always looking to save a buck.

Source: PR Newswire / Engadget / PR