Slashdot Mirror
Google Phone Could Drive Apple Into Allegiance With Microsoft
rsmiller510 writes "A BusinessWeek report suggests that the Nexus One release marks the latest volley in an escalating war between Google and Apple, one that could force Apple into working more closely with Microsoft. 'When companies start to imitate one another, it's usually either an extreme case of flattery—or war. In the case of Google and Apple, it's both. Separated by a mere 10 miles in Silicon Valley, the two have been on famously good terms for almost a decade. ... Now the companies have entered a new, more adversarial phase. With Nexus One, Google, which had been content to power multiple phonemakers' devices with Android, enters the hardware game, becoming a direct threat to the iPhone. With its Quattro purchase, Apple aims to create completely new kinds of mobile ads, say three sources familiar with Apple's thinking. The goal isn't so much to compete with Google in search as to make search on mobile phones obsolete. ... Some analysts believe the Apple-Google battle is likely to get much rougher in the months ahead. Ovum's Yarmis thinks Apple may soon decide to dump Google as the default search engine on its devices, primarily to cut Google off from mobile data that could be used to improve its advertising and Android technology. Jobs might cut a deal with—gasp!—Microsoft to make Bing Apple's engine of choice, or even launch its own search engine, Yarmis says."
Apple is a great company, but they are not large enough to build their own search engine, advertising platform, and back end services to run them. Microsoft's search (bing), advertising platform, and back end services are all designed for partnering - its the core business model.
of course, Microsoft will compete with Apple in the phone space at some point in the future (we are clearly uncompetitive now...), but if Apple is going to be in bed with a competitor, its much better that it be Microsoft rather than google - better for both companies. I mentioed this to Symbolset in a post here.
Jibe!
So. Android it is, then. That was an easy decision.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
So what affect will this have on the RDF?
In other news, the war between apple and microsoft seems to be escalating. The companies have now entered a new, more adversarial phase. With world domination, apple, which had been content to sell overpriced hardware, enters the world takeover game - becoming a direct threat to mircosoft's evil plans.
That's it! Apple is done now too! Another nail in their coffin!
I haven't used M$ or Apple since 1935 except for at work, when i play games or when I want to do anything except browse the web.
OpenMoko! OpenMoko!
i may not be able to run apps but I can mod my phones OS... if only I knew how to code.
Well, there is always http://www.cuil.com ...
This conspiracy theory is half baked. Google's core business is search. And based on what we've seen from the Nexus One so far, apple has nothing to fear whatsoever from google in the mobile phone market. The Nexus One hardware is nice, but the software is crap. It's not even remotely a threat to apple's iPhone market. And don't forget that apple sells computers and mp3 players too. This is not enough for apple to ally with Microsoft. They tried that once before, and they got IE for mac out of it. They've learned from that mistake.
I see very little chance of Apple using Bing as the default search provider on the iPhone. More likely they'd want MS to provide ultra compatible Office apps for the iPhone to help them get into the business smartphone market, competing directly with RIM / Blackberry.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
If Microsoft builds a phone it will probably sell great and at the same time suck on both the hardware and software specs. People will buy what there told to with out understanding what there really buying.
It's the same reason "bing" is successful, it's a mediocre search engine at best and has no way to stand up to google. It's the same way with the microsoft windows OS, people buy it because there told they should, Another example of just a mediocre product being pushed.
On the other hand we have a company like Apple telling you to buy there stuff because it's easier to use and somehow that should make it better. In reality they have the worst customer service I've ever experienced and an OS that is so slightly better then Windows it's not even worth trying to separate them.
Now we look at google, and there not telling you to buy there stuff and yet people do, there not telling you to use there search engine because it's better and more proprietary yet people do. To top it off there not telling people to use there cloud based OS and people do, see a trend.
If a company like google who's products are known to be better and can manage to force company's who push there products down the publics throat to merge then it's not wonder what the real solution should be. Maybe lets focus on making a great product that allows people to do what they need to in constrast to making a product and trying to force someone to use it because it "easier to use" or I guess as apple would say it's "iEasier to use".
Jobs thinks everything Microsoft does is second-rate. He won't team up with them for that reason alone, never mind the fact that Apple has been burned by trusting Microsoft in the past, and I can't see that mistake being made again.
~Philly
granted its 'new to google' to be you know selling phones directly .. but this is not a "war" with carriers or handset makers, its more of a war on.. noone?
Its really not that much different from going to the HTC website and clicking buy now and being directed to a web seller of any given phone as well as the carriers who sell them.. all google is REALLY doing here is creating a platform they can use to advertise android.. by that I mean.. when Verizon is done spamming millions of Droid Does! ads.. Android is left with being just another handset in the carriers collection of handsets.. by creating a direct way of buying , they have more importantly created a direct "sales conduit" that showcases Android and only android devices..
For all intents and purposes this is no different than the ADP1 and ADP2 only now rather than buying unlocked, you buy them with tmobile service, which was the only place the unlocked dev phones worked in 3g anyhow.
If Google was trying to be a gamechanger, they would have become an MVNO buying bandwidth from t-mobile, and reselling it (at reduced rates) in exchange for advertising/collecting demographic data from all the buyers, possibly even going with a pure GoogleVoice device that was IP only and no actual telephone service..
Now if they would just fix the fragmented Android mess of a landscape, do away with the half-assed java applets and move to entirely native apps.. as well as license SenseUI from HTC OR convince HTC to offer its app stack over the marketplace.. they could almost become a decent size player in the mobile space.. until then.. MS/Nokia and Apple will contine to eat their lunch.. Pity that Google didn't buy Palm and kill the Pre before it shipped as it too is hurting Android's long term viability as a platform.
Apple and Google reminds me of an old joke where the Husband cuts "his attributes" to "annoy" the wife... in this case Apple is the Husband, and Google is the wife, but beside the joke.
Apple must be desperate if this is considered, maybe they thought to be "invincible" and they got Nokia upset, now they have Google gnawing at the heel and this is another one. I cannot believe Microsoft sheer luck, Bing has any success by bribe, (vendors being paid to have Bing set), SW monopoly (IE8 having Bing as default search) and now even Apple that switches to Bing.
I do switch any Bing defaults to Google and install Chrome for free where I go, and just to annoy Microsoft I search for "google chrome" using Bing (you would be amazed at the variety of responses :-)
The way it is going is like when Apple "invented" personal computer and then IBM compatible ruled the world.
It seems like Apple "invented" the iphone and then Google rules the world trough open platform Android.
What can Apple do ?
Avoid making the already rich Microsoft richer, start opening up and avoid bossing other players around (maybe attempt to partner with Google ?)
TFS: "When companies start to imitate one another ..."
This was once called "mee too"—marketing and should be taken as a sign of incompetent marketing (an)droids at work.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
I don't think Apple would make Bing the default search engine for any of its products. At the very most Apple would allow users to change their search engine. Think about it, this move would gain Apple nothing. Mobile phone searches don't happen enough for Google to worry about the lost ad revenue and Safari's market share is still pretty low on the desktop, so it wouldn't be a huge hit there either.
The only thing this would do is make users angry, Apple won't switch to Bing.
Why would using google give Google ideas on how to improve android. "iPhone users look at Apple news a lot and search for apple stuff online - quick! We need to rebrand Nexus One put a bunch of apple logos on it!" or "people shop online! holy crap!" or "holy crap! people look at news online!". I'm not saying Apple isn't considering this as a threat, but I'm just saying I don't think they're considering it all out war as these analysts are thinking, and I just don't see why Apple would do that for fear Google will sniff out how to improve Android. They may cut Google out of ad revenue, which makes more sense, but seriously, they're not afraid Google will figure out how to improve Android by seeing what keywords iPhone users search for.
Also, let's not forget analysts get paid by how many people view and are interested in their analyses. The more outrageous the claim, the more clicks. Apple and Microsoft cuddling up? Yeah.
Awesome troll guys, brilliant.
Microsoft, Apple and Google all in one article? It will be an apocalypse of flames and jizz! XD
Google bought a mobile ad company called AdMob.
Apple bought a mobile ad company called Quattro.
Whatever happened to doing things in-house?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Google cannot keep fighting Microsoft/Apple/US DOJ/China/Evil at once and win. They are going to have to find allies at some point or go bankrupt.
And what is it with people loving to predict the demise of the iPhone? Years ago it was the iPod killer and the only company that was able to kill the iPod was Apple.
Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three.
To avoid Microsoft Apple could buy whatever is left of AltaVista. And then we'll have Apple Vista. No, wait...
Apple is doing just fine all by itself just like it has from the start. The thing that has me bothered is that I've been driving Ford's all my life (Dad worked for Ford forever). Now that Ford has been infected with Microsoft I may have to get my cars from somebody else. ;(
Apple has shown a clear desire to not remain glued to Microsoft. This is evident with the release of iWork and the dead-end path of the Office products on the Apple platform.
Because of my position, I have almost every handheld and PDA device that hits the market. As a seasoned .NET developer, I am biased towards Microsoft. However, that being said, the Windows Mobile platform is horrible. Even on devices like Samsung's Omnia, it is sluggish and cumbersome at best. Memory management is a nightmare.
The only realistic path is for the Windows Mobile platform to die off or be revamped from scratch. At most they may build a mobile version of Office for iPhone and Android but even that is a stretch.
... oh, wait, is about Microsoft we are talking about?
If this happens we won't have to wait for the Hadron collider to end the universe...
[Apple] are not large enough to build their own search engine
Completely wrong. Actually, they already have their own search engine, it's called Spotlight and it works well.
I'm pretty sure they could build some data centers and have a product quickly.
Now, Apple has always worked on profitable markets. I'm pretty sure web search has not enough profit margins for them to consider to enter into that market.
If anything, you will get applesearch through your MobileMe account : paying customers, smaller datacenters because not anyone can access the search engine; no ads, integration with the platform as additional features, that's the only move that can make sense to them.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Why is it always "war"? You know, it's just possible that the market for mobile phones is large enough to support many different vendors. Apple has consistently shown that they're happy with just a portion of the markets they play in--provided it's the most lucrative end of that market. The iPod is more an anomaly than the norm in terms of how Apple approaches its various markets. Google and Apple stand to gain more here if they continue to cooperate than if they become all out adversaries.
Changing the default iphone search back to Google..
There sure will be an app for that.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
No this does not make perfect sense. Steve has a feud with Bill going back to NeXT. Sorry, but this will never fly. Apple has made their continent and are growing it.
Well, not overtly, but consider Apple's market position: They make shiny white boxes that are overpriced and pander to a small segment of the market. They have a fifth of the computer market and are not trying to expand, mostly because their vertically integrated business model makes it difficult to increase manufacturing. The Mac Mini proved that they had a cap on their production, and they cannot sell their OS alone without suffering greatly in their business model.
And Microsoft's position: They hold 80% of the market and cannot change. This isn't a problem because many large segments of customers are businesses that strongly desire an unchanging OS. MS has demonstrated a near-unbelievable commitment to binary compatibility and enterprise support, cementing its position. It hasn't been able to keep a strong grasp on the netbook and desktop market in recent years, though.
Now, where's the cooperation? Simple. Microsoft uses its deep pockets and inertia to continue to push itself as the dominant, common, utilitarian operating system, while Apple continually compares its products favorably to Microsoft's and portrays its systems as being hip, cool, modern, and fun. We've all seen the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials, and they're representative of the mentality Apple tries to inspire in its commercials, being the small underdog fighting against the big man. Remember "Think Different?"
One Slashdotter has a mangled Voltaire quote in his sig about Apple and MS, but in my opinion it's backward. "If there were no Microsoft, it would be necessary for Apple to create one." However, this will never happen, because Microsoft's power to endure is ridiculous. Just like IBM wasn't destroyed in the decades prior, Microsoft can't be brought down by hordes of Apple fans, or waves of Linux supporters.
Of course, I'm really just re-analysing the premises of World Domination 201 here, but it's not like anybody here has read it, right?
~ C.
Or maybe Apple could just belly up and die. And so could Microsoft. There is no reason at all that the future must be a dystopian nightmare.
thank goodness it is real competition and not the kind of competition Microsoft plays such as buying up another vendors customers and paying them to use Microsoft's technology. Apple came out with a great piece of hardware and software to back it up and they took over the mess which was also called "the smartphone market". That was three years ago and Microsoft has come up with pretty much nothing comparable on the software side. But what Microsoft had done was pay off every phone vendor at last years big mobile phone conference to _not_ talk about anything but Windows Mobile. So the public and press knew nothing about the Android wave which was about to overflow the market by the end of the year. On the hardware side, in the open platform segment, they have been getting there but still not close to what's been in the iPhone. It again took Apple to put the Cortex-A8 CPU in their phone to get the rest of the market to wake up to the performance levels obtainable using that technology. But like how quickly Apple sprung onto the wasteland which was called the smartphone segment, Google purchased a small company who put together a very nice phone software platform called Android and got it out there. They haven't been paying companies to not talk about other companies products and they know they need to make it as compelling, or better, than the Apple iPhone. Wow, real competition by making good product and competing on quality and value.
This kind of competition does not exist in the markets Microsofts dominates and they continue to use their wealth to limit competition. Just look at the Verizon-Microsoft deal where Microsoft's BING search engine, via an update, replaced all other choices of Blackberry phone user's phones. These exclusionary deals don't result in better product and market choice. So it's great to see Google and Apple competing by making better products and services. And I welcome Apple to the search or mobile ad markets too if it means a better products for consumers. I find it hard to believe that Apple would even consider a play with Microsoft thinking that it will help them compete with Android. Apple makes a good profit off their Mac franchise not by being the lowend player, they do it with quality hardware and software people are willing to pay a bit more for. Same for the iPhone and the iPod. it's good to have real competition in this market. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
If Apple were in allegiance with Microsoft, we'd have Apple becoming subservient to Microsoft. I think the word here should be alliance, as allies are partners working together, and generally should treat each other as equals. However, given Microsoft's history of treating its "allies", the word 'allegiance' may well become more apt as well.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
A good chunk of the iPhone market share stems from customers that are fed up with Windows Mobile and similar crap. I doubt that those would be too happy to be driven back into the hell hole they've just escaped.
Jobs is clever enough not to risk that. He might be tempted but he's not an idiot.
This story sounds like fluff intended to stir the pot. I'm sure people at Apple are keeping their eye on Google and certainly they must realize that your average consumer can only remain loyal so long before they start craving something new and different. However, to suggest that they'll somehow be driven to work with Microsoft simply because of a threat from Google seems ridiculous at best.
Apple is a hardware maker, first and foremost, while both Google and Microsoft are software companies. And Apple has the advantage over the other two that they do also very good resources on the software side. This ensures that in this market Apple will always have the advantage because of far superior integration. Software and hardware is developed concurrently under a unified visions. The other guys basically develop the software then find a vendor to provide a phone that meets certain requirements. And because both Microsoft and Google provide their OSs for a variety of phones it inherently means their systems are compromised. It's far more difficult to provide a unified, closely maintained platform and an integrated app store. And Apple has managed to keep very tight control over their phone despite offering it on AT&T. Most other smartphones are crippled by the garbage service providers dump on there, and I'm not sure the hardware makers have the luxury of making demands.
For Microsoft, and presumably Google once their OS becomes more widespread we are going to see the same kinds of issues with PCs. Apple again wins with integration. The others have to make do with whatever the hardware makers decide to include with the OS.
As for the search engines, those are pretty much irrelevant. Google and Bing are pretty much the only top tier search engines out there. From my experience they produce results of comparable quality. What matters, however is advertising and web apps especially for businesses. One of the big reasons we use Google at my company is because the analytics and extensive marketing resources, and obviously, because it's currently got the biggest market share. I think Microsoft is at a disadvantage here mainly because they're still a more traditional software developer although they obviously have the resources and the experience. In this market Apple is really a non-entity. They've got great OSs and perhaps an app or two that stand out and that's it. I routinely use their iWork suite and am not impressed by it at all. It's no more intuitive than Office and is generally less powerful. Office is still the better suite.
I think ultimately the question is, is Apple looking to compete directly with Google and MS. I realize that the pundits are always clamoring for this sort of direct competition with anything that's even remotely similar but at this point I don't yet see it. It would be a very different focus for Apple. I do think if they were going to take this route it would make sense that they acquired a smaller search engine company and then work on it internally. Partnerships don't always turn out well for Apple and they don't really sync well with the company's focus on integration.
It's quite apparent that Apple would not want to partner with MS. Mostly because they have 30 BIllion $ in the bank and they probably feel they can design a better user experience than any of their competitors. For example Apple already purchased a maps company called Placebase and now they're getting into advertising to make it easy for developers to make money off of free apps (also helps Apple make money off of free apps). Another reason is that Apple hates the way MS does business. They hate their products and they hate their design. Bing is terribly designed from a visual standpoint. Google is already the standard and Apple isn't going to get into the search engine territory any time soon (that I know of) so it would make sense for them to continue using Google.
Second comers to profitable markets are a fact of life.
Apple itself was a second comer to music players and mobile phones.
So to call Apple imitators with derogatory terms ignores the reality of trying to sell a successful product: trying first what seems to be working elsewhere.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
im surprised to see that Jobs has bought up a company that provides info on mobile-phone users based on their behavior; if someone has bought his phone they you can be pretty sure on that basis that they're gullible, aspirational, technologically stunted and shallow. what more do you need to know?
From TFA
"A BusinessWeek report suggests
I suggest something else... who cares?
Some analysts believe the Apple-Google battle is likely to get much rougher in the months ahead
Some people think it may be warm in summer
Ovum's Yarmis thinks Apple may soon decide to dump

Or they may not
Google as the default search engine on its devices, primarily to cut Google off from mobile data that could
Or could not...
The entire post is BS. Could, If, May be, Or may be not
WTF are the Salshdot eds doing? This is a total non story, may be or perhaps, possibly.
Watch those corners
Have I missed a mention of MotoRola? Or the break from MotoRola Jobs made over "power" processors? Or MotoRola's apparent bowing out of the cellular market, despite the success of Razors, only now to return with Go-Ogle? To a global market soundly held by NoKia? Or the bandwidth that Go-Ogle negotiated? Because AT&T can barely handle the iPhone as it is.
The "fight" is over whether wireless services will be a subscription service of monthly bills or an ad based medium on a screen removed from a desk.
Both will exist, but it is likely the average of $50+/month that the telephony companies have enjoyed from every account holder will end. The rub is a parameter of time. No one knows. Verizon cut a deal with Microsoft because Google wouldn't bother as Google threatens both endeavors. From my perspective, such efforts of branding are the delusions of over-paid advertising companies.
What phone companies have been charging for the past 10 years is near extortion. We all need a phone, but supposedly want a phone with the latest feature. You can see it in every Verizon store-- the posh and large floor space for a few products. An ever present security guard. The salespeople dress and behave in a manner more fitting a broker or corporate executive than a geek selling technology. These are, to me, indicators of bored middle managers inventing a reality. ...there was a geeky dream once that simple voice connectivity would become free, paid for by the profit of more data intensive services. But the gadget grew with a camera and games and an organizer and a music device until finally we experienced phones that prohibited sampling any sound a user might wish to be used as a ringtone for the latest fad-- only $1.99. Branding...bah. Tacit cooperation of distribution and content providers...more likely.
Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
Allegiance. Alliance. On second thought, maybe allegiance is correct, given Microsoft's past behavior.
Mark my words: Apple will not partner with Bing. The reason for this is simple: Bing is an inferior product. Don't believe me? Using Bing for any length of time evidences this. I'll give you a simple example. Let's say you want the carbon Firefox icon. You search for "carbon firefox."
Here are the results for Google.
Here are the results for Bing.
Now, they share many sites, but out of the links provided more of the Bing results go astray. Bing, for example, decides it's horribly relevant to link you to The Carbon County Chamber of Commerce.
Your assertion that Apple isn't large enough to create their own search engine is also preposterous. How many employees does Yahoo! have? About 14,000. How many employees does Apple have? About 35,000. Apple will not partner with Bing because Bing simply isn't better than Google. Apple would likely create their own search engine before doing so.
As a side-note, that carbon Firefox icon is pretty nice.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Perhaps this will lead to a Live Mesh client for iPhone. It would be nice to sync files to the device over-the-air through a tool I already use.
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
It's Microsoft that has somehow convinced the OEM world outside of Apple that innovative, performant and stylish PC products are "niche" products to be avoided. They have somehow pursuaded the world's largest PC producers to pursue the course of cranking out generation after generation of low-margin commodity vanilla platforms that they have to move millions of to break even. The OEMs then utterly rely on Microsoft's Market Development Funds to buy advertising and promotions to create the illusion of product differentiation - and incidentally give Microsoft obscene negotiating leverage. This leaves the lucrative high-unit-margin premium platform space to Apple who's riding that pony to the bank with unheard of margins and profits.
Of course because Apple's making their own profits they don't need advertising money from anybody else - and they're making the most of their advertising spend by developing memes that people spread on their own because they're entertaining in and of themselves. My friends and I pass around links to Microsoft's advertising videos too, but that's probably not a good thing for Microsoft. The entertainment value there is that the videos are painfully awkward and don't inspire trust and confidence in the company or product or make them "cool".
But I doubt this will ever happen. What he said was "third rate". I'll agree with you - the whole holding Mac Office over their heads like it's the Holy Grail is just absurd. Especially when they defeature it and deliver it late like they do. This is just the sort of gamesmanship that prevents Apple from taking them seriously as a partner. That and the fact that he's right - they really do have no taste.
On the other hand it might make sense. Microsoft at least is a company Apple knows they can reliably handle. Google doesn't have that attribute. Ok, I'm not sure how this one will work out. It will be interesting.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Separated by a mere 10 miles in Silicon Valley, the two have been on famously good terms for almost a decade. Now the companies have entered a new, more adversarial phase. With Nexus One, Google, which had been content to power multiple phonemakers' devices with Android, enters the hardware game, becoming a direct threat to the iPhone.
Sounds like an opening line for a movie trailer. "Blood & Silicon. In theatres, march 2010"
I just can't see Apple and Microsoft working closely together - it'd be too much like one of those PBS Elizabethan dramas. Intrigue, shifting alliances, betrayal, maybe a little murder...
But however this plays out, I think we stand to benefit. Competition is almost always good. The rise of Apple is good, even for fans of Microsoft's products; and the rise of Google is good for fans of Apple's products. And for those who aren't fans of any of these companies, competition helps keep one player from accumulating too much power (or, with regards to the past, helps shift power away from the behemoths that've held it).
#DeleteChrome
From the tests I've run, it looks like Bing is actually more useful than Google right now. The main reason seems to be that the search engine optimization people seem to have figured out Google, and so the top results on Google searches have a lot of sites that are trying to sell you stuff related (barely) to your search. They either haven't figured out, or haven't turned their attention to, Bing yet, so the Bing search tends to be more useful.
No doubt that will change as Bing grows, but search is one of those things where now is all that matters, which is an argument for using Bing at the moment.
That said, 95% of the time I use Google, out of habit.
Apple has been EXTREMELY lucky with the iPod. Through it millions of people have become exposed NOT just to an Apple product but the idea that MS is NOT the end all of computers. Apple computer sales have soared thanks to the iPod effect and Apple is doing really really well at the moment.
The iPhone is "just" more of the same effect (and counting the iPod touch as the same). Showing people that far more then "just an MP3 player" can be not-windows.
Apple has gained HUGE sales because people are starting to accept that PC does NOT have to mean Windows... and then they are going to put Bing/MS on their own flagship products?
That would be like Shell putting a sticker on its F1 cars "runs on Exxon". McDonalds might as well advertise that chicken tastes better and flame grilled is the best for a burger.
The financial situation of the world is very understandable when you see the financial media produce this kind of shortsighted stuff.
Google and Apple compete on mobile phones, so Apple will run to MS, with which it competes on Operating System, productivity software, media codecs, MP3 players, browser oh and lets not forget MOBILE PHONES!
Surely Businessweek is aware MS is involved with mobile phones? I know they are not all that successful but surely someone in that office has heard of it?
So to screw google out of the data they get through search they give all that data to MS? That makes a LOT of sense.
Businessweek, read by the people that gave you the recession.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They're also committed to Plays4Sure, MS Java and COM.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
An alliance with Microsoft is what companies tend to do just before they self-destruct... maybe Apple's one-trick pony is coming to an end?
I mean if I was Apple I'd be worried about MS taking the Zune HD platform and turning that into a MS phone. (After flooding it with apps which is something MS would do.) I admit the Zune brand isn't the best right now but really a quick brand re-name to something like M-Phone would do the trick. (I mean look at Vista Mark II. Oh I'm sorry, it's called Windows 7 and people don't seem to have a problem that they would have if it was called Vista SP3
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
The real battle is between Google and Microsoft. Google's OS/hardware initiatives may incidentally have negative effects for Apple iPhone and Linux on netbooks.
Loose lips lose spit.
This isn't insightful. The bottom line is that the majority of iPod and iPhone owners are still using Microsoft and most of them have little interest in Apple.
What version of Firefox are you using? I have been using Firefox on Linux for years, and it has never done any such thing, as recently as today using version 3.5.7 (which is the same version available via getfirefox.com at this moment.)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I'm confused now. Haven't Microsoft and Apple been cooperating for decades now? After all Microsoft wrote MacPaint, and ported Office and IE to the Mac, while Apple for many years shipped with IE by default. Hey you can even get iTunes for Windows.
There is no competition between those companies.
Having got a nexus one, and owned an apple Iphone I have to say you need to take a second look at the google apps. Having the ability to navigate using streetview; identify items by phone; make VOIP calls. Where Google wins is the cloud and Apple need to catch up, as for playing bought tunes apple wins, but for streaming them they have to catch up. Maybe if Apple hadn't rejected some of these apps Apple iPhone would have better software.
Google want Android to be a platform people can recognize by name and expect a certain service. The way it is now, you go to a network operator and choose from names such as "HTC Dream" "Samsung i7500" and the best anyone has yet come up with is "Droid". Somewhere in the description you might find that it runs Android, but most people won't have a clue what that means.
Compare this to the iPhone, where there's one device everyone recognizes. There's only one place to go for it and you don't have to compare, because there's almost never a choice anyway. Things are so much simpler.
Has BusinessWeek learned nothing about Apple over the last 13 years?
Apple does not need to be the only or number one product in a sector to make money. It's nice when they are, because they really, really, make money when it happens. So Google now makes a phone. It is not likely to harm the phone with the better interface as much as the phones with lousy or no interface.
Meanwhile, Google pays Apple for the customers it delivers. I'm sure if Microsoft wants to pay, Apple will cordially listen, but it won't say yes just to frost off Google. They'll say yes if the green comes in from Redmond.
"Pod"casting or podcast are now recognized words, so Apple has at least one score there based on a successful product that overwhelmed the market so much that their branding becomes the noun or verb for what already existed. Not the first player, not the first downloadable audio file, but the first to have those "owned" so much that everyone knows what you mean.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What's that? The iPhone 3GS moved 1.6 million phones during its first week of sales?
Oh. Never mind.
Dog is my co-pilot.
I'm not a native speaker, but don't you mean allegiance to? or alliance with?
I don't see Apple doing this, while I think MS might make a step in this direction the culture at Apple is typically to avoid these kinds of partnerships. The few times they have tried this, the results have been less than satisfactory.
It's more likely Microsoft will buy someone outright like RIM -- the Windows Mobile platform isn't going anywhere, so the best play is to acquire the industry leader and integrate that with the Windows operating system. There are a few technical barriers for a roadmap like this (eg: BlackBerry is a Java platform), but it will give MS the mindshare it needs to dominate the mobile space.
It remains to be seen what kind of role Google can play in the mobile device market. While Android has some compelling features, it's not nearly as polished as the Apple iPhone nor does it have the maturity of something like the BlackBerry. More importantly, Google is not yet an innovator in the mobile device market - they have copied may of the ideas that are already there and may in fact still be technologically outpaced by the next generation of Apple's iPhone.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
When one of these android devices can perform like a iphone then it may happen, but that
is certainly not a issue for apple yet.
Got Code?
Apple, the company in second time, lead the world of IT into the future.
It fail in the PC turn. Now, it is leading the more personal Mobile wind.
Same setting, same ahead, better technology, but
Will Apple learn a lesson from MS ?
Oh yeah. And Apple will just let that through...
Y'know, the moderators saw it was a joke. Maybe a bit of a troll, but with enough humor in it to make it funny. All you saw was the bait, and you even admit that: "Alright, I'll bite."
On another day I might have enjoyed baiting you a few more times - as an opportunity to hammer home some more points while your belabored attempts to "correct" me just got more and more silly.
Tonight though I'm just going to let it go. You're welcome.
The big threat to Apple's dominance in the cellphone market isn't from a single competitor. Nexus One is receiving a lot of hype because of the Google tag. A few months ago Verizon generated its own hype with bold commercials for the Droid (which, for disclosure reasons, I will mention I bought and am happy with). The real story and threat to Apple is from the Android operating system, not Google directly. The N1 story actually seems closer to Zune than anything else: powerful software company attempts to break into hardware oriented sector and appears ill-prepared.
In the case of Apple the enemy of their enemy is not their friend. For a M$/Apple partnership to make any sense at all M$ would have to be throwing in the towel with Windows Mobile. Instead, it looks like the opposite will hold true. The smartphone market is just like the 80's and Google has taken huge steps to ensure themselves a tenable position in the brawl that is about to occur.
Most /.ers should be damn happy about the current climate. Google pretty much is sneaking the Linux OS through the back door w/o the general populace even understanding it (and the only way they'll ever switch to it). When phones become dockable portable computers it might very well be Linux the world is running on.
It is a slick looking piece of hardware with the highest resolution screen out there. As such it is attracting a lot of attention from the "Oooo shiny!" crowd. Well, that would be the crowd that is the iPhone's big market. It's quick success was not due to offering some amazing feature other smart phones don't, it was due to it being trendy and cool. Apple is exceedingly good at selling cool. That's what they did with the iPod. It wasn't the first MP3 player, wasn't the cheapest, wasn't the smallest, etc, etc. What it was is the first one that became a fashion accessory. People bought iPods because they were fashionable music players, not because they were music players.
Well, as people in the clothing fashion industry will tell you, fashion is extremely fickle. Trends can set in and stay a long time, or they can come and go quickly. As such a phone that has the same trendy appeal is one that is a direct threat to Apple's main market. If it becomes the "in" thing, Apple could lose a lot of their main market in a hurry.
Also note that the Nexus is something everyone is being made aware of. The reason is that Google controls a massive amount of online ads these days and they are pushing it through that. I see that damn thing all over the place.
So while I don't think Google will take over the mobile market, I don't think any company will ever do that there'll always be competition, I do think they pose a threat to the iPhone.
Apple does not dominate the smartphone market (17% in 3Q 2009) (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/11/apple-grabs-17-of-smartphone-market-in-latest-quarter.ars), and Google is (probably) not their biggest threat.
If Apple abandons Google, they should go to Alta Vista since they preceeded Google and have far more vast database.
Microsoft has invested in Apple with cash. Microsoft has developed software for Apple hardware which is "mission critical". Microsoft is not old line capital with low growth and is not a challenge to Apple anymore. Google still is to some limited degree.
In about 5-9 years Apple will be able to afford to buy Microsoft (and IBM) and will refuse to do so.
Am I crazy? Like a fox?
JJ
Microsoft ows a huge chunk of Apple since forever. It's almost the same company. Color me not surprised.
Most Apple users are not so M$ friendly. When Apple would switch to Bing, they will loose some of their reputation. However, they can get Forestle (www.forestle.org). That would fit with their customers.
I didn't speak about all iPhone users and that Apple wouldn't sell any after switching to Bing. I just said that they would lose some customers (and I don't see them gaining any by that move).
So no matter if there are computer illiterates among the masses of iPhone users (and I'm sure there are) - Apple would lose.
Could you perhaps re-phrase it in terms of cars?
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Uncool is contagious. Cool isn't.
So that's why nobody really cared about sitting at the cool kids' lunch table, right?
Or from 10 Things I Hate About You: "[I do this for you // what do you want from me in return // say hi to me in the hallway // ah, cool by association. Get it]"
Or from "Why Nerds are Unpopular" (http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html): "Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires. Unless they also happen to be good-looking, natural athletes, or siblings of popular kids, they'll tend to become nerds."
The world seems to disagree with you.
one should not forget that Apple is partly owned by Microsoft - the 'sales and image war' they have between themselves is quite superficial
OP was chosen in a random experiment for result click tracking; you were not.
Apple's new app, TouchText, can be used to send email on GMail. In case you live under a rock and haven't heard about TouchText yet, it's the app that you download and then you can text in a whole new way that totally avoids the annoying iphone keypad. All you need to know is the alphabet. Apple loves it. Everyone loves it! It's genius!
Per my subject-line above, & this URL below (where you asked your questions):
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1495166&cid=30715150
"Hi APK :)" - by Foredecker (161844) * on Sunday January 10, @11:57AM (#30715150) Homepage Journal
Hello Foredecker!
----
"Happy new year! Its been the Christmas and New years holiday. I've been on vacation. So has almost anyone else I'd need to talk to about this. We're all back now, but we're all very busy getting going after the Holidays." - by Foredecker (161844) * on Sunday January 10, @11:57AM (#30715150) Homepage Journal
Great, that's good news (& pretty much what you wrote in your email also)...
----
"Be patient :) Ill get to this. I just dont know when. I think I can get back to you by mid February, but it may be March.." - by Foredecker (161844) * on Sunday January 10, @11:57AM (#30715150) Homepage Journal
That's ok - See... this isn't just for "my benefit", but for all the folks that use HOSTS files
(Folks like Mr. Oliver Day @ securityfocus.com -> http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/491 who KNOWS it gains you better online speeds AND security (as he states it in his article there for SYMANTEC) , the folks @ mvps.org -> http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm and the folks @ bluetack/BISS who do also -> http://blocklistpro.com/biss-hosts-file-manager.html & many others online, like myself, who know BOTH the added speed and security benefits inherent in the use of a CUSTOM HOSTS file...
I mean, hey - After all:
You folks @ Microsoft can regain what you yourselves made as a BETTER STANDARD (setting a new one) in HOSTS files being able to use a 0 blocking address (which in turn yields a faster internal parsing format per each line record in a HOSTS file for blocking purposes by doing so, because of less characters per line (using 0, vs. 0.0.0.0 or worse yet, 127.0.0.1) as well as a small HOSTS file...) back as far as Windows 2000, albeit, in a service pack AFTER its original distro on CD... which you kept up even into VISTA, up until MS "Patch Tuesday" on 12/08/2008, when it was suddenly removed... why though?
The fairly "recent" changes to the IP stack in VISTA/Windows Server 2008/Windows 7 have resulted in some "StRaNgE" stuff happening like -> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-050.mspx OR here -> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/977544.mspx and, of course, what rootkit.com said about unhooking the firewall design based on NDIS6/WFP now being EASIER TO UNHOOK THAN THE OLDER MODELS OF WINDOWS HAD -> http://www.rootkit.com/newsread.php?newsid=952 ...
(I'm only trying to help you AND your company, by pointing this issue I have noted on HOSTS files being unable to use a 0 blocking address internally is all (because HOSTS files are invaluable for gaining both SPEED, and LAYERED SECURITY)... &, because the numbers & "physics of it" tend to bear out what I state here as the absolute truth is all as to the efficiency of the 0 blocking address format, vs. 0.0.0.0 &/or 127.0.0.1 ...)
There is, again, per my email to you, another issue surrounding this: That's the local DNS Client Cache FAILING on larger HOSTS files... that's another one to look into, in regards to this HOSTS files issue too.
Apple sells more iPhone 3GS in a week than all the Android phones combined sell in a month. The same exact thing can also be said for iPhone 3G and iPod touch ... each of those models sells more in a week than all of the Android phones combined sell in a month. Is the Zune a threat to the iPod? No. Same goes for Android and iPhone.
I guarantee you, the smartphone that pisses Apple off is the new Palm, because Palm hired away so many Apple employees and then produced a clone of iPhone. And Palm are selling more phones than Android.
One can even argue that Android helps iPhone and Apple. Android replaced Windows Mobile on the exact same phones, that means that Droid and Nexus One are running an Apple WebKit browser and ISO MPEG-4 media player instead of a Microsoft IE browser and Windows Media player. Therefore Android users are better Apple clients than they would have been with Windows Mobile, whether for Apple Store or for iTunes Store or as Mac users. Also, the work that Google does on mobile Search and Maps for Android benefits the iPhone. The work that Google does on its Android apps shows up in Google's iPhone apps. The battery door falling off the Droid and Verizon applying a sticker to it to hold it on makes Apple hardware look better by comparison. The 1GHz Nexus One having a less fluid interface than the 600MHz iPhone 3GS makes Apple software look better by comparison. Google's Nexus One launch with the round robin Google/T-Mobile/HTC "support" made Apple's support look totally fucking awesome by comparison. Google shipping malware out of Android Market was one of the first news stories that explained iPhone app approvals, and some people are now calling for Google to do approvals of Android apps, like they ban malware website from their search index. Google has proven that making and selling and supporting a smartphone and application platform is really, really hard. Google has proven that Apple made a lot of things look really easy over the past few years.
This is not a knock against Android. If you are happy with your Android phone, then more power to you. But what has that got to do with iPhone? Almost nothing.
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1519330&cid=30870690
LoudMusic, I had no idea how to send you a personal message, so I thought I'd comment here.. the following is a comment you wrote 9 years ago and has to be the funniest thing ever..
by LoudMusic (199347) on Tuesday October 23 2001, @01:52PM (#2467504) ...
Raise your hand if you have iTunes
Raise your hand if you have a FireWire port ...
Raise your hand if you have both ...
Raise your hand if you have $400 to spend on a cute Apple device ...
There is Apple's market. Pretty slim, eh? I don't see many sales in the future of iPod.
~LoudMusic