The actual title of this article is "Another Way Apple's Fight With Google Is Hurting Users", which casts less blame than the modified title here on HN, "Another Way Apple's Fight Against Google Is Hurting Users".
It is unfair to present this ongoing situation as a war on Google by Apple. It is a competition between the two companies. Not to beat a long dead horse, but the war between the two companies started when Google entered the mobile device space.
* Apple began developing the iPhone in 2004 and released it in June 2007.
* Android was founded in 2003 and Google bought the company in 2005. Google and partners announced the Open Handset Alliance in November 2007 and the first Android phone was released in October 2008.
So far, so good. Two companies that did not start out in mobile telephony/computing both began developing products and entering the space around the same time, competing with the existing smartphone manufacturers, particularly RIM and Nokia.
Google's competitive practices have consisted mainly in developing and iterating a solid product, partnering with a variety of hardware providers to develop a large ecosystem and market share, and occasionally releasing flagship devices to raise the state of the art.
Google has borrowed some innovations from its competitors and developed some innovations of its own.
Apple's competitive practices have consisted mainly in developing and iterating a solid product, partnering with developers via an app store to develop a large ecosystem, and maintaining control of the design and manufacture of devices to maintain standards of quality.
Apple has borrowed some innovations from its competitors and developed some innovations of its own.
Apple has also pledged "thermonuclear war" to "destroy Android", launched a patent war of attrition against Android hardware vendors, and is now, apparently, hobbling the functionality of its own device in an attempt to marginalize Google.
There's competition, and then there's anti-competitive behaviour. Apple would do better to stick with the former, since the company is obviously very good at designing, building and marketing highly competitive products.
That's correct but not particularly important to the discussion. Jobs set the direction for the company, a direction the company continues to take after his untimely passing.
Sure, Jobs set the direction. He also passed less than a year ago, months after the Samsung case began. Nothing changes that fast, so it's not clear at all that Apple's management wants to continue down that path in the future.
In fact, you don't have to look far to find "industry insiders" who claim just the opposite. Current CEO Tim Cook publicly stated that he hates litigation (his words) and he met with Larry Page recently to discuss ways to "live peaceably together" and avoid unnecessary litigation. Is this sincere or just lip service? I don't know, but if we're playing the game of predicting Apple's future, it's important to the discussion.
> and is now, apparently, hobbling the functionality of its own device in an attempt to marginalize Google.
...while we're basing points on pure speculation, I'd like to posit that Google is using the price and availability of its Maps service as a weapon in this iOS vs. Android fight. They're well within their rights to do this, and absent knowledge of what happened it's more reasonable than "Apple is hurting their users in a misguided attempt to compete with Android".
Both examples from the article (maps, Google's iOS app) are examples where the author claims/implies Apple is at fault. So I don't think the title slip is particularly misleading.
Also, who cares who started it? Usually, competition is good for consumers--in this case, if Apple approved this app, competition would mean we have two natural language search apps on iOS. The problem is that Apple is "competing" by hurting their users, not by improving their products. And Google does this too (see: lack of turn-by-turn navigation on iOS), but my sense is they do it less.
As the article does, it's more helpful to focus on how the competition takes place than on casting blame for starting the "competition," which is fundamentally a good thing.
So, Apple's anti-competitive actions are justified as a counter measure to Google entering it's mobile device space? Since when did Apple own the mobile device "turf", isn't this a suppose to be a free market society? No market is sacred, companies should be making better products to compete and hold on to it's market share, not killing them and stifling innovation to keep a monopoly it no longer has.
Since when have anti-competitive actions been bad things in the absence of a monopoly, which Apple most assuredly does not have in the mobile space? We're all for competition and its benefits, except when we're not?
I agree the title should be changed to match the original. But it was probably just an honest mistake.
Also I think you are being a little disingenuous. When you have the CEO of one company saying it will wage thermonuclear war on a product, that is clearly a statement of intent to destroy said product that goes beyond competition in the marketplace.
> ...the war between the two companies started when Google entered the mobile device space.
Entering a market isn't usually equated with starting a war.
> When you have the CEO of one company saying it will wage thermonuclear war on a product, that is clearly a statement of intent to destroy said product that goes beyond competition in the marketplace.
It's been said that the Hohenzollern family had a specific policy: Never start a war unless victory is assured. War is a "two edged sword." It has the potential to do both sides serious harm.
Apple needs to do some soul searching. They need to be looking out for their customer's best interests. Somehow they've lost the way, and empirically, this is no longer the case. Maps is just the biggest symptom. The article points out another.
The precipitating event was Apple's blocking of a Google Voice app from iTunes. I suspect that this had something to do with the disruption of Apple's relative positioning of the iPod Touch and iPhone within it's product line. The ability to text and talk across the garden wall with an iPod would have likely had a negative impact on iPhone sales.
It hurts Apple's customers because they are blocking a superior free product for no apparent reason but to kill competition.
As for: Not to beat a long dead horse, but the war between the two companies started when Google entered the mobile device space.
Was entering the mobile market a bad thing? was it not allowed? is it for Apple alone and no one else's? that statement doesn't make any sense. I'm sure there was a time when Apple entered the mobile business and Nokia wasn't none too pleased.
It hurts Apple's customers because they are blocking a superior free product for no apparent reason but to kill competition.
Seems like a hell of a good reason to me.
Was entering the mobile market a bad thing? was it not allowed? is it for Apple alone and no one else's?
Google and Apple had a symbiotic partnership, like WinTel, which dominated for the better part of two decades. Microsoft stayed out of chips, Intel stayed out of doing an OS. If one decided to take 100% and get into the market of the other, it would create a nasty situation where both were forced out of their comfort zones to make crappy stuff. It would break trust. And yet that's exactly what Google did with Android: it had a partner that didn't have search or web in its DNA—and thus an ideal partner—and decided it could take the partner's market. Pardon the teen parlance here, but that's a little backstabby. Apple's indignation, in my view, is entirely justified.
I think everybody would agree that all is fair in love and war. Any company is free to go after any market, any adversely impacted existing relationships are tactical losses. What's important is how all parties move forwards after the event. You say that Apple is justified to feel indignant. Well maybe so, but the key question here is is Apple's reaction in their own long term interests? Poisoning their brand by releasing crappy software, moving into spaces were they are non-expert, and degrading the experiences of paying customers is at the very least a questionable reaction. Indignation, feeling like you've been backstabbed, retaliation etc. are all words that should not enter the vocabulary of a corporate entity where you want only a highly rational and logical assessment of a situation. I'd argue that Apple's brand would be much stronger (and their products much better) right now if they'd stuck to their core values and brought Google in to power the parts of iOS that they do best (i.e. maps and voice etc.).
Apple either sends users and data to the belly of the beast that decided to complete head-on with them (making Android better, by the way) or figures out how to do this stuff themselves and offers beta products. I would say that Apple doing the latter given Google's aggression makes a lot more sense than Google's aggression in the first place.
Google made a mobile OS because no other company had the software expertise to even remotely challenge Apple. Before Android the OS software from Nokia, Samsung etc. looked like bad jokes compared to iOS. Google created an open source platform that any manufacturer was welcome to use and in doing so blew open a previously monopolised smartphone market. Google's market is selling advertising, it doesn't care if it sells ads off Android phones, or iPhones. The health of the entire internet connected ecosystem is in Google's interest. In what way could you define Google's move to get involved in mobile as "nonsensical aggression"? The aggression at play here is Apple's, voice-search and maps are low hanging fruit for easy monetization, Apple don't want Google anywhere near them and they're willing to screw users to get there.
Google made a mobile OS because no other company had the software expertise to even remotely challenge Apple.
B doesn't follow from A. First off, it's untrue that nobody else had the software expertise to challenge Apple: there's Microsoft, RIM, Palm, plenty others in 2007. Apple had 1% of the market and no monopoly. But let's pretend that none of that is true and that Apple did come to dominate the market. The dependence was mutual, and Apple would have every reason to fear dependence on Google as visa versa. This should have rationally encouraged cooperation. Apple's only alternative for search and web services would have been Microsoft, even more of a direct competitor (then, in 2007), and one to both Apple and Google at that! Undesirable.
Second, Google's handing out bullets to its competitors like candy and is hurting its ability to lock down mobile. In China, Baidu has ripped out core Google services from Android and has replaced it with Baidu services. Amazon has done the same thing for Fire and replaced Google with Bing. If Facebook were to ever build a phone, it wouldn't have to look much farther than Android. And of course Google on iOS isn't long for this world.
Third, the dependence on a single dominant player still exists. Samsung owns the Android space and can hold Google integration hostage for all kinds of goodies. It's pretty much back to square one re: Apple, except Samsung has OS alternatives (including forking Android [hey, who made S Voice?]), where Apple didn't have Google alternatives. HTC is in the dumps and Google is in a tough spot with privileging Motorola, its new baby, for fear of angering aforementioned Samsung.
So no, in short, it's not clear at all to me that this was a rational move.
Apple is the largest company in the world so no, their “indignation” over having a competitor is never justified.
You are also assuming that only Google benefited from that relationship which is wrong.
Google is a software and services company and in an iPhone world Apple would decide how and when these services are presented to users, if they are presented at all. That is an unacceptable amount of risk as Apple had a disproportionate amount of leverage in that arrangement.
Actually what Apple's (relative) size is should have no bearing on whether they have a right to be indignant by a breach of trust.
And I disagree with you about what the balance of power would have been in a hypothetical Apple-Google cooperative partnership. What were Apple's alternatives if Google were to withdraw as a backend services partner--perhaps a direct competitor in phones? That doesn't seem too palatable. Doing their own backend services? How's that working out for Apple today?
Pretend you are Ford Motor Company. You've had a great, mutually beneficial relationship with Firestone Tires for many years. But Firestone Tires decides to get into the car making business. Now they design cars in direct competition with yours, they give away designs for free, and occasionally they even have their designs manufactured and sell the cars for profit.
Now would you expect Ford to continue to buy tires from Firestone?
I don't see why not if Firestone is still making the best tires for the price and the tires you have in development inexplicably blowout occasionally. Switching to your own tires (if you can make them competitive and meet your needs) is a good decision but one that shouldn't be done before they are ready.
Samsung is Apple's biggest competitor in the phone space but Apple still buys a large number of the parts used in their phones from them. Apple has been steadily replacing things like processors with their own designs but this certainly isn't because of some petty offense they've taken to Samsung entering their market. It's because it's in their best interest to design their own parts (especially long term). Apple does come off as being emotional about Android with the decisions they've made (especially Maps) but implementing their own Maps and other features of their phones themselves is a good long term business plan. In the case of Maps, they launched too soon but working on their own mapping solution was a good decision.
Except that Firestone isn't selling you as good a tire as they are putting on their own Firestone cars. In order to get those tires, they want your customer's usage data and to sell advertisement space on the tires...
Both parties are acting in what they believe to be their best interests. I don't fault either. (and btw I completely agree with your second paragraph)
>It hurts Apple's customers because they are blocking a superior free product for no apparent reason but to kill competition.
Misinformation. Apple isn't BLOCKING anything!
Apple released, in iOS1, Apple Maps powered by Google Maps API Data.
Google, wanting to monetize Google Maps API access, began charging expensive rates for their heavy users, of which Apple was the heaviest user of all.
In response to Google asking Apple for millions of dollars for a service they provide for free on every other platform, Apple decide to change the data source in Apple Maps.
Google has yet to provide their own app on iOS for mapping, as they're likely pissed that their million-dollar-lunch just ended and now they have to provide a service for FREE.
You do not know how much (if anything) Google was charging Apple for API access or if it increased when they generally increased the pricing. They almost certainly got a better deal than general users of the API because they are Apple and have a massive user base. We do know that Apple and Google had a contract in place but beyond that we don't know anything.
Furthermore, Apple does not get their data from "Apple Maps". They pay to license it from TomTom and other companies (though they do, of course, also produce data of their own that gets combined with the third-party sources to produce the aggregation that is Apple Maps).
I don't know how much you meant by "millions of dollars" but it was probably substantially less than the $267 million Apple paid to acquire C3 Technologies to add 3D maps to their offering.
Apple's decision was a great long term decision for them but it did hurt users in the short term (hence Cook's apology).
Do you actually know anything at all about the terms of agreement between the 2 companies regarding maps or are you just guessing here? Because as far as I know, the terms of agreement between them are not public.
Paying millions of dollars for maps is a tiny drop in the bucket for Apple and a tiny drop in the bucket for Google. Whatever disagreement they had over maps it almost certainly was not because Google charged too much. Providing additional ads/services to iOS users is significantly more valuable to Google than whatever paltry millions they could have made by licensing their maps.
You think Apple was paying for the Maps API through the Google API console?!
Large companies do business through special contracts that have their own terms, and the maps contract reportedly is still valid for another year or so.
It is unfair to present this ongoing situation as a war on Google by Apple. It is a competition between the two companies. Not to beat a long dead horse, but the war between the two companies started when Google entered the mobile device space.