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Apple vs. Google, Who Will Control the iPhone?
Pieroxy writes "Theiphoneblog carries a nice article on the reason Apple rejected the Google Voice application even though it doesn't violate any terms and services. The article goes in depth over the issue of controlling the hardware (Apple) vs. controlling the software (Google & Apple so far) and how Apple doesn't want Google to take over a critical part of its phone. Just like Google is going into the OS business to make sure it never gets cut out, Apple is also building a huge data center to — they guess — take over some online cloud computing business of their own and be less dependent on Google for these services."
Probably at the end of the day it will be some 17 year old hardware hacking genius from Croatia.
The skills and resources of the hardware hacking community is far out-stepping the biggest corporations. I'm surprised at their resourcefulness every day when I read about a new hack.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
THE IPHONE BLOG
For those who dare to phone different... just like millions of others.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
This is very important for the industry. It proves, once more, that software is more important than hardware.
It also proves that Apple follows a wrong path selling hardware. It has some nice software in its hands, and it could become an alternative to Microsoft/Google if they wanted to.
Now Google comes and stills their business - if users are accustomed to Google services, they could be tempted to buy an Android-based phone in the future, since the services would be similar to the ones they were used to.
I know who should control it, the user.
the MS of the phone era.
Make the software and see an internet portal become the end user experience.
Or they could just have a VOIP deal
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8217871.stm
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
These articles crop up pretty much daily on various blogs. They all follow a very clear pattern:
1. Pick a hot IT company.
2. Pick a service they're not providing.
3. Pick something that they're spending money on.
4. Relate points 2 and 3.
There's no evidence that the two things are related. For all we know Apple might be getting back into selling time-slices on servers because Steve Jobs has hit his head and thinks it's 1983 again. These sorts of poorly researched, uninsightful articles that are absolutely nothing more than *a guess* are completely pointless.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Are cars more important than the quality of the roads they drive on?
I can see myself taking either side of this argument depending on the situation. Without quality hardware, you'll never get to this quality software. This goes beyond the box, as you must consider the infrastructure that connects us all. Quality hardware and software will work in tandem.
Let's face it, most of us are scoffers. But moments before zero hour, it does not pay to take chances.
Daring Fireball had a good piece on this:
Googleâ(TM)s dependence on hardware and carrier partners puts the final product out of their control â" and into the control of companies whose histories have shown them to be incompetent at design and hostile to users.
Iâ(TM)d be happy to be proven wrong, but my hunch is that the only way weâ(TM)ll see an iPhone-caliber Android phone is if Google does what theyâ(TM)ve said theyâ(TM)re not going to do, which is to design and ship their own reference model âoegPhoneâ. That doesnâ(TM)t mean Android wonâ(TM)t still be successful in some sense if it remains on its current course, but that I donâ(TM)t expect it to be successful in the âoeholy shit is this awesome!â sense that the iPhone is.
http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/the_android_opportunity
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
A phone is just a phone and we don't need it to become another computer platform to be monopolized. Stop selling me services, please, I only need a phone (that is, hardware).
The TechCrunch rebuttal to the points of Apple's letter is spot on, but the idea that somehow Google has power over the iPhone, or that Google Voice gives it more power, is nonsense. It's hard to believe Apple really thinks this, or that TechCrunch would accept it as a valid explanation. How does having iPhone users receive calls via their Google Voice number affect the iPhone overall at all? iPhone users still have to use AT&T for their calls? It no longer ties the user strongly to their iPhone phone number, but with number portability that represents no advantage for Apple or AT&T. Having Google manage your calendar and contacts doesn't make any difference to the iPhone in general. Google Voice may give Google more power over individual iPhone users, but not over the iPhone itself.
And all Apple would have left is the browser? No, Apple would still have the industry's most advanced, user-friendly handheld OS and probably a hundred thousand apps, including--if they turn out to popular enough to be a thread--Google Voice. If Google has any power over the iPhone, it stems only from their willingness to pull a Microsoft and withdraw those apps and technologies from the iPhone at some point in the future, such as when it comes time for Apple and Google to renegotiate their license for YouTube, maps, and search. But the flip side is equally true; there's no question that its to Google's advantage to be a prominent part of the smart phone platform likely to cell hundreds of millions over the next five years.
In short, I don't think we've heard the real rationale; certainly TechCrunch didn't provide a believable one. I think it's more likely that Apple perceives Google's calendar and contacts apps as a threat to Mobile Me, which does compete directly with Google. Or that Google Voice potentially interferes with something else Apple considers a unique advantage, perhaps something that they aren't even using yet but is in development. And finally, it's possible that Apple really isn't worried about Google Voice per se, but is worried about opening the door to other challenges to their "no duplication of built-in functionality" rule.
Not VELVET?
Apple does not "control the software" with respect to their laptops and desktops as Google and other companies provide email clients, web browsers, IM, calanders, contacts, etc. which compete with Apple's offerings. Apple seems to be doing just fine here and no one is raising a fuss about it. I would have liked to seen a discussion as to why the authors feel that the iphone so different from Apple's other platforms.
To feel apple you have to live in apple's world. I can foresee the future when you have to install a Apple(r) Software and logon to it to charge the battery of Apple gadget from any computer other than the registered ones. Its up to their discretion to allow the Apple Gadget to get charged from a non Mac Computer. Software Barricade.
AT&T (for now, in the US)
Sent from your iPad.
Uh, I thought it was MY phone and I bloody well should be able to decide who takes over and how they do it. If the provider is not happy with what I send over it, that is another matter, because I RENT that. I BOUGHT the phone.
Have people become so ignorant that there is no difference in buying and renting anymore?
It is actually pretty simple. If you SELL something, the other person becomes the owner and it isn't YOURS anymore. Perhaps they should make a version of "mine" and "yours" like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H9MUWhU7Xw
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Get with Google and make the iPhone completely run on Google Voice VoIP.
Make it carrier-agnostic (duh) and make it data-only.
The iPhone would become a data only device that would have VoIP built right into the device.
It would work an any network and could even change networks with impunity.
Also, it *should* be cheaper since you're not paying for tradition phone/voicemail/SMS.
I would think a rising tide lifts all boats: Apple says it's a hardware company, so they produce the best hardware and the best interface to said hardware (OSX and the iPhone variant), period. Make the hardware absolutely bulletproof, a dream to program for, and sit back and let the $$$ roll in.
If Google come up with software that allows me to make 60-way calls while also making toast and watering the garden, then there should be no reason for Apple to stop them; "we made the best hardware and the best interface to that hardware around. That's all we care about. Go for it!"
In other words, why is there a problem in the first place? Does Apple really make enough additional money in its contracts with at&t et al to justify meddling in software developers' affairs? I own a Mac, I run OS X, and it gives me everything I want to start with. They've done their job, so now I can install the software I want to use to actually get things done, and go about my business. Why does it have to be different with the iPhone?
I personally believe the app store is a great idea insofar as it's a single place to go for everything; it was a total nightmare to find JavaMe apps for my Razr and even worse trying to get them installed. That said, I also totally disagree with Apple's heavy-handed approach; if you don't want questionable apps, don't install them, and if they turn out to be not what they purported to be, then review them out of existence.
In other words, leave me the hell alone to make my own damn choices about apps I want to run. Let Google write whatever they want; if it works for me I'll use it. If it doesn't, I won't. But let me choose for myself.
Google is going to be the Wal-Mart of the industry - both on services (trying to get everyone to rely on them instead of having their own IT organizations) and on information (the ridiculous, likely-treaty-violating WGA deal, for example), etc. Relying on content from web sites to deliver ads, but then sharing little of the revenue, etc.
They haven't figured out how to be a "good parasite" yet - but few have noticed, because they're just becoming big enough to kill the ecosystem they're relying on. Trust me - Google is Wal-Mart. And as much as I really don't care for Apple, they'd be smart to keep Google at arms length.
This cannot be understated. The computer industry experienced exponential growth once it became open. It all started the day Compaq produced the first IBM PC clone. That day will only come for phones/PDAs when people can use any phone, with software from any company or individual, with any telephone service provider.
We need to treat phone technology openly, just like...well... almost every other piece of hardware on earth (TVs, CD players, vacuum cleaners, hammers, baseballs, ...)
Personal preference.
It also proves that Apple follows a wrong path selling hardware. It has some nice software in its hands, and it could become an alternative to Microsoft/Google if they wanted to.
How does it prove that? Apple is in the business of making money. Right now their making more than almost any software company (with one major exception) and many of their hardware competitors. While I wish they would behave a little different for my personal benefit, you can't pretend they aren't doing what's in their best interest.
The real reason Apple doesn't want another VOIP app is that it would have the potential to turn the iPod Touch into a viable competitor to their own iPhone.
AAPL/GOOG are publicly traded companies and as such their only obligation is to make a profit for their stockholders
No. Publicly traded companies are only obligated to obey the votes of their shareholders which in some cases is contrary to making a profit.
In that regard both AAPL and GOOG have a small set of people controlling the votes so they can choose how to operate.
Of course most public companies are about the whole profit only thing simply because that is what their shareholders want.
In that regard, APPL, GOOG, and MSFT can basically blow through millions in R&D and short term unprofitable ventures (like the fact Xbox lost them money and not until the Xbox 360 did they get money back... what was that 5 years?) and the shareholders can't get rid of the CEO.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Just strange that they let Yahoo control multiple features (Weather, stocks, search (you can opt for Yahoo instead of Google)) with no concerns for them taking over the device.
Plus Yahoo has apps for Y! Messenger, Y! Music, and another app that brings in quite a few other services.
Then on the phone technology, there's Fring which let you make calls through skype and bring in all your IM contacts, and TruPhone which I think also brings in skype and you can make soft phone calls over 3G.
Seems like their decision was based more on the corporation they were competing with than the technology conflicting on the iPhone.
I agree with your second point, actually, and that may well be something that concerns Apple. But I disagree with the assertion in the second paragraph: Apple likes to control the software on its devices, because...they really aren't a hardware company. If they were, they'd have been dead long ago.
Apple's always been a 'solutions' company; that's what they sell. The iPhone is not the flash memory and processor and screen; it's a package, where they fairly seamlessly combined software and hardware together into a complete whole.
I didn't buy my MacBook Pro because it has a 2.8 Ghz Intel processor and blah blah...all laptops on the market are essentially the same. I bought it because it runs OS X well, without hackery, and is generally well made. I don't necessarily use all of them, but iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iWork, and so on are all very nice pieces of software in their own ways, but Apple doesn't try to profit hugely directly from them.
So the point is: Apple's always been part (and maybe mostly) software company; the difference between them and Microsoft (in most markets) is that Apple just uses the software to sell hardware, whereas Microsoft's empire was all about the software sales itself. So, I can see why Apple's threatened by Google (though as an Apple consumer, I wish they'd get over it and compete instead of trying to block everyone that's outdoing them).
gameDB
Apple DOESN'T want to. They are in a nice spot right now - they can sell fewer product, but at higher margins than the rest of the industry. They don't care that their sales volume is smaller, or their marketshare is 1/10th of their competitor. Once you start lusting after more people, it becomes a race to the bottom. It's why Apple has no computer to compete against the low-end PCs, why the mid-range Apples don't have features enthusiasts want (i.e., expandability), etc. It gets harder to meet the needs of more diverse set of people, and marginal costs to support the next customer rise faster than revenue gained from those extra customers.
The iPod is an irregularity, and while a money maker, you can tell Apple's not really liking having to sell a whole range of iPods - the line's pretty much stagnated except for the Touch. The only thing keeping them up there is that their competitors are equally stuck - unable to out-iPod the iPod.
This cannot be understated. The computer industry experienced exponential growth once it became open. It all started the day Compaq produced the first IBM PC clone. That day will only come for phones/PDAs when people can use any phone, with software from any company or individual, with any telephone service provider.
The cellphone industry already has seen this. 10 years ago, the cellphone population was nowhere near where it is now. Maybe 20 years ago if we include the rest of the world. Cellphones are everywhere. Nokia makes the vast majority of the phones sold, and thus, the vast majority of the phones sold can also run Java applets. There's very little growth left - those who want "a phone" have the low end (which is increasingly including stuff like cameras, mp3 players and such). Those who want an awesome email platform have the millions of Blackberry models out there. Those who want to surf the web have tons of phones that run WebKit. All Apple brought to the table was innovation - the only way to break into a crowded market. Even the iPhone's low marketshare makes Apple happy - they command a good chunk of industry revenues.
And we won't see open hardware and open OS distributions anytime soon - phones are embedded devices and highly customized to their hardware. Take a look at DD-WRT for open hardware and open OS, and see how many different binaries you need to support all those routers. And that's just because they all are based off similar hardware designs, but still there's no "install this software package and it'll configure itself" distribution.
As for the "any service provider" - we're already there. It's called GSM (or UMTS/LTE... 3GPP anyhow). Buy an unlocked phone. Buy a SIM card. Put latter into former. Make calls. Go to another country. Buy a new SIM card. Replace existing SIM. Make calls.
Right track, wrong analogy.
Which sells more cars? The latest and most bleeding edge engine, or the curves and colours of the body? The accuracy of the speedometer, or the layout of the dashboard? The effectiveness of the airbags, or the fact the seats are heated? The range on a single tank of gas, or the ipod interface to the radio?
The fact is that though we really *should* care more about the former, society generally seems to care more about the latter. We assume the former works, so all advancement is assumed in the latter. We assume the basics (e.g., hardware) are all covered and are perfect, and it's only software that has the problems (or, in the car analogy above, the niceties and extras that are optional and thus distinguishing between vehicles).
What Apple showed was that our old cell phone hardware could be shown as drastically out of date. What they're getting hurt by is the apps: everyone is just assuming their hardware now. Its value has been commoditised, even if the price tag hasn't been. Google, RIM, and any other competitors in this space are out to show that the hardware really is commodity. Google just has an interesting take on that tactic: by providing a user-interface that is phone-independant, they really are making the hardware commodity.
That doesn't follow. Just because you CAN compete with someone else on a level playing field doesn't mean you want too. If you and I were dueling to the death with pistols, and I know that I am slightly better than you and thus likely to win, should I refuse to allow a further handicap of your abilities just because I'm pretty sure I can win anyway? If I were an honorable man, or a man wishing to appear honorable for some person in the audience, I might indeed refuse to allow you to be further handicapped. Companies have no such honor. Companies take any advantage they can get, even if they already have other advantages.
Generally speaking, the court of public opinion seems to think that Apple makes one of the best smart-phones on the market right now. It's extremely popular and selling more units daily. Google has had considerably more limited success with Android. This hardly means that Apple is going to let Google find new advantages to catch up if they can help it. By preference they want to keep their dominance, and do so with the least possible effort on their part.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
It also proves that Apple follows a wrong path selling hardware. It has some nice software in its hands, and it could become an alternative to Microsoft/Google if they wanted to.
Now, where to start with this...
I don't really use either Apple or Microsoft (my iBook gathers dust and my Windows partition is there for games) but I don't really hate either even though it seems to be fashionable, especially with Ms).
Microsoft and Google really can't be lumped together. The Venn diagrams for their areas of operation don't intersect that much. They do compete for mindshare though.
Microsoft makes :
Google makes :
Apple makes :
Granted, Apple *could* just sell its system openly for any intel system (meaning anything that has an x86 instruction set or x86_64). And then what ?
Then Apple would end up where Linux or BSD is. With way less people to fix it. Currently, you certainly can run Mac OS on pretty much any x86 system. You'll probably have lots of fun finding drivers for your stuff if my experience with my Mac is anything to go by but I'm sure that for the most part it'll run.
And then what ? Do you think there's money in selling CDs with 0s and 1s on them ?
Apple makes money moving boxes (mostly small boxes with little music players in them at the moment). Selling operating systems is the best way to kill a company. Ask Be Inc. At the time they were so far ahead of Apple (or of Microsoft for that matter) technologically (ok, Apple was 5 or 10 years behind at the time so it was quite easy) that it wasn't even funny. Of course nobody cared.
Or look at NeXT when it tried to gulp a few lungfuls of air before going under when it was selling its system for generic PCs. That was under the direction of Jesus^H^H^H^H^HSteve Jobs BTW.
You may be fond of Apple products, which is something you'll have to deal with on your own, and isn't a serious condition anyway, but it doesn't mean they are fit to take over the computing world. I'm glad it works for you and if it's important to you you'll probably be able to switch over a number of casual users.
However, remember that if the best product at a given time took over the market, we'd have all run Amiga computers for quite a while. In any market, quality doesn't have a lot (if anything) to do with its success on the marketplace. There are *a lot* of factors in play. And currently, while the play field isn't as varied as it was in the 8 bit days, we're still lucky to have 3 fairly active players, none of which can ignore the others. This is a good thing for all involved. It probably would be beneficial to lower a bit the influence of the major player, but to remove any of them certainly would hurt the whole ecosystem.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
I guess the Mac Mini is just a figment of my imagination, then?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Apple has ALWAYS followed the hardware path.
When IBM tried to lock down their hardware and failed, Apple succeeded.
IBM tried to regain control with the PS/2 using the same tricks apple did--but it failed for exactly that reason, most people rejected a single vendor system.
If Apple were to try to replace Google's services, I'd probably ignore Apple's offerings (Ever notice that Apple tries to charge for every little thing? I have some icon in my toolbar that I can't get rid of that's linked to a pay apple service, why aren't they being sued for this--Microsoft sure would be!).
If I couldn't replace them, I'd look at Android. I really like my Mac but at this point Google is much more important to me.
(I was already called a Microsoft "Secret" marketing droid on /. once this year, going for Google now. After that I'll take on Mac for the trifecta)
Nope, but let me help you out with perspective. The Inspiron 537 slim is entry-level at $269 including a DVD+/-RW, 2GB RAM, etc. Like the Mini, it doesn't include a monitor, but with the recommended 18.5" flat panel, it becomes just $499, still $100 cheaper than the Mini (and comes in multiple colours).
Apple's cheapest offerings are still a lot more expensive than the cheapest PCs out there.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Its a bet the company strategy, in a context in which its not clear that they need to bet the company. The bet is that they can tie together a monolithic offering, where people will buy into the whole thing because of the excellence of the individual bits. So you buy into iTunes, iPod, the store, the PC software, then that gets tied into the iPhone via the app store...and so on. They have been trying to do this for many years, e-world, running only on Macs, was an early example.
This is one part of it, but it also has a flip side: the need to exclude apps. The problem is that you are trying to tie apps to hardware to services, to construct a closed little world that your customers never leave. But if they do leave? Then you lose the service revenue, or the app revenue, or the hardware revenue. So you end up with coercion in one way or another, and the immortal line, which probably really reflects what Cupertino has brainwashed itself into, the view that being able to run Google Voice on your iPhone - being able to, notice - detracts from the user experience. They probably really believe this stuff by now, they say it to each other every day, and they get their shills to post it all over the net.
You see tje risk of course. If it comes about that there is a must have service (like maybe Google Voice, or something in the cloud) or a must have bit of hardware or a must have non-Apple peripheral, all of a sudden they are in the position of having the model break, or else being feature deficient. This is basically what happened to the other monoliths of the 80s and 90s of the last century.
The puzzling thing is that the vast investments required to keep this thing going, whether in legal fees, in huge data centers, in new product and market entries, are very risky. You cannot afford to have one big loss. But one big loss is inevitable sooner or later. Meanwhile, there is an alternative almost totally risk free strategy, sit on your laurels and pay dividends, and gradually open up all the platforms, and try to maximize returns from each one individually.
The difficulty is that there is a real tension here. The OS would sell far more free from the tie to the hardware. But the hardware would also sell far more freed from the tie to the OS. The same will happen with the app store as mobile apps develop. You'd have a more viable store if it sold apps for more phones, and you'd sell more iPhones if it would run more apps. Not yet, but that day will come. The same thing will happen with services. The only way, for instance, to make a success out of e-world was to have it run on any OS at all. The only way to make the Mac a success online was to have it support the ISP and online service of your choice.
So this is what they are targeting, and what they are running headlong into. And it will end in tears. In a few years, but it will end in tears. As it did last time. Learning and repeating history.
You forget that Apple users measure performance in cubic centimeters. I'm sure your inspiron slim is huge compared to the mini. :)
Posting anon for modding, but the dell item you list has the celeron processor. To get it up to Mini core duo, the starting price is $499, and that is with Vista Home. To get it with XP (for grins let's say that XP compares with OS-X) then you are paying another $120. In my opinion you're better off with the Mini, but they are at that point comperable in terms of performance and price. I will gladly pay $100 more to get OS-X over Vista. But really I wish that it would come from dell with MythBuntu already installed and set up. Then the $499 is a decent deal, and something I can use with my 32" 1020p LCD TV. Ashtangiman
....If Apple's software were so much better ....
Apple's main business has never been hardware or software, but integrated working devices that fulfill their function remarkably well, better than cobbled together hardware from one company and software from another. They have also allowed numerous third parties to make numerous accessories that interoperate with their products, as long as these accessories don't change the basic functionality of an Apple product. They want the basic functionality of the Macs, iPods, iPhones and other devices to remain distinctly Apple.
They will allow third parties to add functionality to their products, but when third-party applications or add-ons affect the basic functionality reflecting Apple's design, they squelch that and have every right to do so. They objected to Google software, because rather than adding functionality, they claim the application takes over the basic function of their product in ways that they will not allow.
Anybody who does not like the iPhone, has the option of buying numerous other devices that perform similar functions. Anybody who desperately wants the Google application can buy another phone and then be happy.
All theory is gray
That day will only come for phones/PDAs when people can use any phone, with software from any company or individual, with any telephone service provider.
I can already do that here in the UK, I can buy any phone I like, with any Mobile provider; if I don't like the provider, I can just change the SIM and get my number ported. I've never had problems installing things on previous phones (mostly from Nokia) or my current Phone. The only phone that tries to restrict what I can install on it is the iPhone, hence why I don't have one.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
A phone is just a phone and we don't need it to become another computer platform to be monopolized. Stop selling me services, please, I only need a phone (that is, hardware).
I disagree. To a large extent, the phone stopped being interesting a few years ago, and increasingly the phone is simply a commodity that's built into your PDA/mobile computing platform. If you didn't want that, then you wouldn't need an iPhone or any other smart phone. You'd just be using a bargain free-with-plan phone.
No, the vast majority of people buying iPhones are looking for a portable entertainment device with mapping, Web browsing, email and number of other critical features that have nothing to do with the fact that the device happens to have a phone built into it.
Nope, but let me help you out with perspective. The Inspiron 537 slim is entry-level at $269 including a DVD+/-RW, 2GB RAM, etc.
But if you spec it with similar processor to the Mac mini the price starts at $664. (As stated at the same link.)