Another Way Apple's Fight With Google Is Hurting Users

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/another-way-apples-fight-with-google-is-hurting-users.php

by tdgrnwld • 14 years ago

117 139 14 years ago

capo4• 14 years ago

It's beyond vindictive at this point, this is a flat out anti-competitive move by Apple.

swalsh3• 14 years ago

Its true, I'm amazed they are able to get away with it too. Microsoft simply bundled software, but never did it outright prevent competition on its OS. Apples closed garden is outright blocking competition... How is no one looking into this?

jamroom• 14 years ago

Apple does not have a monopoly in the mobile OS space.

dailyrorschach2• 14 years ago

As pointed out below 1) they don't have a monopoly.

2) It wasn't just the bundling of IE, but also the use of APIs to prefer and favor IE over third party browsers, and restrictive agreements with OEMs.

Also part of the finding of fact in the case was the nature of how web browsers were obtained in that time period, long, slow downloads. Giving the bundled option a serious advantage. But again before we even get into the anticompetitive-ness of Apple, which no doubt many of their practices are, without a monopoly, it's fair play.

melling8• 14 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

Apple has 25% mobile market share. Android has 50%. Microsoft has about 90% desktop market share for over a decade. DirectX was made to kill off OpenGL. C# was made to kill off Java and keep software running on Windows. Microsoft killed of Netscape and a decade later IE6 isn't completely dead.

http://www.ie6countdown.com/

Android isn't going away and by my estimate it will always have more market share than iOS.

Btw, Microsoft completely killed of all other PC operating systems when they required PC vendors to pay for shipping DOS, regardless of the OS they actually shipped.

coliveira• 14 years ago

The difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Microsoft was controlling (or trying to control) the whole ecosystem of PC makers. Apple doesn't want to do this, exactly because they don't want to open their platform for other players the way Microsoft used to do. What they want is to maintain tight control over their closed systems (iOS/MacOS X). And this is not really news, Apple always played by these rules and their customers know how it works.

This way of operating is what most tech commentators don't really understand. I think the beauty of this strategy is that you don't need to have a monopoly to make the most profits. At any time, there will be a majority of the market using other products, but since Apple is optimizing their platform for quality and high profit margin, they will command the leadership in profits (if they continue doing good products that maintain their customers happy, I mean).

arrrg5• 14 years ago

I do not understand how this is anti-competitive. Please explain.

duiker1015• 14 years ago

Because this is like a child that cries and scream that he is the best. A competitive behaviour would be releasing an actually decent app and let the users choose what to use.

andyjohnson0• 14 years ago

If there was a competitive market then Apple would release Google's search app to the App Store and allow iPhone users to choose which one to use. The author or the article suggests that Apple is intentionally delaying approval of the app to force iPhone users to use Siri. The author (and others) argue that this is anti-competitive.

atirip3• 14 years ago

No. This is not hurting users in the long run. What will hurt is having tens of apps, all having separate voice recognition software. It is correct to have only one. Like it is correct to have only one keyboard. Not tens of different keyborads with every app having his own.

tejaswiy• 14 years ago

Where's the siri API then?

outside1234• 14 years ago

Yes, clearly having choice is confusing and anti-user. That is why the internet with multiple places to buy shoes, multiple place to get news, and multiple place to talk about technical topics is so unsuccessful.

atirip3• 14 years ago

So how many pair of shoes you wear? Two pairs? Really? One the right size and the others, really big ones over them? Really?

The point was, which you clearly missed - there can not currently be two voice assistanst AT THE SAME TIME in use. Googles thing does not replace Siri. If Google had something to replace Siri and Apple blocked it, then yes, that would be anti.

xyzzyz• 14 years ago

> Like it is correct to have only one keyboard.

I beg to disagree. Android allows you to easily install additional keyboards, for people who want to switch to, say, Swype, or to use a different input method for their non-Latin alphabet.

swalsh3• 14 years ago

Fair enough, i'd love to only have one keyboard. But if my choice is between a keyboard with 26 letters + num pad, and a keyboard with simply a num pad. I'm more interested in the former. The point is, Apple has a market dominance right now, and is using that advantage to block innovative products from competing with them.

Besides, if the better search is an app, but you desire unification more there is no reason to download the app.

tomjen3• 14 years ago

If you think it is correct to have only one keyboard, then you haven't see the alternative keyboards that ship with Android.

So much better.

adriand• 14 years ago

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.

lmm2• 14 years ago

Until we see google blocking apple's apps from the android market, I don't think there's any moral equivalence here.

flyinRyan2• 14 years ago

Lazy statement. You know Apple doesn't make apps for the android market.

capo4• 14 years ago

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.

siglesias4• 14 years ago

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.

betterth• 14 years ago

>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.

I'm so tired of this blatantly anti-Apple bias.

zerohm3• 14 years ago

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?

efuquen• 14 years ago

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.

fatbird• 14 years ago

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?

stanleydrew4• 14 years ago

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.

stcredzero• 14 years ago

> 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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Hohenzollern

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.

asr• 14 years ago

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.

brudgers2• 14 years ago

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.

stanleydrew4• 14 years ago

The Google Voice app does not allow you to make phone calls from an iPod. It's not a VoIP client.

warfangle• 14 years ago

If you flip the players around, could you see Google allowing Siri on the Google Play market?

I could. (Siri would even be able to launch apps, etc, due to Android's more robust API)

randomdata• 14 years ago

Siri can launch apps, though sadly the interaction with those apps pretty much stops there.

RyanMcGreal3• 14 years ago

A few points in the interest of fairness:

* 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.

freyr3• 14 years ago

> Apple has also pledged "thermonuclear war" to "destroy Android"

In fairness, this was a comment made by Steve Jobs. Apple never made such a pledge and Steve Jobs is no longer at Apple.

awj• 14 years ago

> 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".

VengefulCynic• 14 years ago

Much as I find anti-competitive behavior contemptible, this article makes a glaring, uncorroborated assumption that Google's voice-to-speech functionality is currently being held up by Apple.

Looking closer, it's not even clear that ReadWriteWeb asked either party for a comment... note: "Google’s PR response to questions like this is that “we’re working closely with Apple” on getting it released." and "Well, Apple doesn’t talk about these things, so all we know is that it isn’t out."

duiker1015• 14 years ago

Fact, you can search how much you want, you will not get a word more than that. With apple is hard to know anything about your apps let alone the app of another huge competitor.

Matt_Cutts• 14 years ago

During the search breakfast back in early August, Google did say that they'd submitted the app. Here's a CNET article that covered the search breakfast: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57489395-93/google-exposes-... The relevant part is "The update to the Google Search app has been submitted to Apple, and Google expects it to be approved in the next few days, Huffman said."

If anyone wants to watch Scott Huffman's demo of natural language voice search from the search breakfast, the relevant section of the video is on the web: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a2VmxqFg8A#t=10m43s

blhack• 14 years ago

...wow.

Gee whiz, I wonder why apple suddenly has a bitter taste towards apple? This makes siri look embarrassing.

jonmwords• 14 years ago

Thanks for that, Matt! I've replaced the promo video with the actual demo in the post.

basseq• 14 years ago

Not only held up by Apple, but held up by Apple for anti-competitive reasons. Fact of the matter is: we don't know. Conjectures are just that.

This is nothing more than a blog rant.

gavinlynch3• 14 years ago

Because I see this article as the continuation of a discussion about Apple v Google products, here is my macro view of the entire thing:

I honestly don't understand. People act as if Apple is entirely incapable of creating a superior product down the road from Google's. I think that there are obvious competitive advantages to replacing Google's Maps with Apple's Maps in iOS6.

But it seems that everyone just makes the baseline, "duh" assumption that clearly their only possible motive is to screw Google.

Is it not possible that Apple also -actually- believes that version 1 of iOS6 Maps is just the precursor to a product that they will eventually make far superior to Google Maps?? These are not mutually exclusive concepts.

So this hand-wringing about how Apple is screwing users... Call me naive, but I amk completely open to the idea that this is a short-term issue that actually has the possibility to -benefit- users in the long-term, as Apple takes it's lumps and learns what users want in a Maps application, and then eventually deliver things users didn't even know they wanted in a Maps application.

I've really yet to see anyone acknowledge this thought.

edit: You know, I'd at least appreciate a counter-point with the downvotes to my argument. Honestly interested in why I am incorrect. Just saying. shrugs

mcantelon2• 14 years ago

Eventual hypothetical superiority in the future doesn't help user experience in the present. Why not allow people to choose which app they want to use?

gavinlynch3• 14 years ago

I don't understand your point. Google is free to create a stand-alone version of Maps for the iPhone. They have not done so.

karatehammer3• 14 years ago

That would make too much sense and doesn't fit into the us versus them worldview that Steve so elegantly espoused at his company and to his flock.

brudgers2• 14 years ago

"I am a devoted Apple customer"

Not only is this the reason the author percieves the situation as harmful, but avoiding the harm is entirely within the author's control. Just purchase different devices.

w1ntermute• 14 years ago

After all these years purchasing only iDevices, it can actually be pretty difficult for many of these people (particularly journalists) to even envision purchasing and using a non-Apple device. They've just been drinking the Kool-aid for far too long.

untog2• 14 years ago

Well, there are rational reasons, too. At this point people have spent five years building up a collection of apps- if you switch to Android, you lose the whole lot.

spitx• 14 years ago

Elevation Partners Managing Director Roger McNamee on Apple lately:

Apple is "already doing what you'd expect a dumb monopolist to do."

Source: http://bloom.bg/OXP5Ad#ooid=Q5azF4NTq51l-7YDNIS84TWeSqfF0SQv...

cs702• 14 years ago

I see two fundamental issues at the heart of the problem:

* iOS allows users to install only applications approved by Apple. This makes about as much sense as a house with built-in technology that prevents the owner from using any furniture, kitchen equipment, and entertainment device that isn’t pre-approved by the home builder.

* iOS prevents users from installing and accessing other app stores. (Other proprietary mobile OSs make it difficult or impossible to install third-party app stores.) This makes about as much sense as the home builder having the legal and technological power to prevent the homeowner from visiting certain shopping malls in the area.

Installing any app you want -- and any app store you want -- on your own device ought to be an inalienable right.

Edit: I updated the second point to reflect that Android does allow the installation of third party app stores -- see comments below. (Thank you mokeyfacebag, stanleydrew, and ZeroGravitas for pointing this out!)

stanleydrew4• 14 years ago

Your second point is not accurate. I have the Amazon app store installed on my Galaxy Nexus.

Edit: now that you have completely changed your second point, my comment is not a valid response. Please refrain from substantially changing your comments once posted.

monkeyfacebag2• 14 years ago

> Both iOS and Android prevent users from installing and accessing other app stores.

This is not true for Android. Some OEMs might ship a version of Android that is tied to a single app store (e.g., Kindle Fire), but I'm quite certain that vanilla Android can install any old .apk from any source.

bduerst2• 14 years ago

The carriers can threaten lawsuits to app providers if they allow the application to work on their network.

Case in point: Google Wallet.

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

Yep. On my Samsung I can sideload, er, dubious applications.

czr80• 14 years ago

Game consoles.

vibrunazo• 14 years ago

Are dying and being replaced by mobile, partly, for this same reason.

http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-wha...

ZeroGravitas• 14 years ago

Your comment claimed (up until a moment ago) that Android prevents users from installing and accessing other apps. Now it says 'proprietary mobile OSes', which from certain angles Android is. Yet my Android phone has multiple app stores on it.

zerohm3• 14 years ago

I think most law makers agree with you.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/feds-ok-iphone-jail...

But keep things in perspective. Apple chooses to sell appliances, not platforms. Apple products are more like toasters than houses. I agree that I should certainly have the right to modify my toaster, but I don't begrudge the designers for making it difficult for me to do so.

monkeyfacebag2• 14 years ago

Of course now that MS is tying Metro style apps to their proprietary app store in the next version of Windows, the distinction between appliance and platform is starting to blur.

mtgx• 14 years ago

Completely agree. I don't mind if they lock-down the apps to be from the store only by default, like Android has done it from day one, or the new Mac OS versions have started doing, as long as you're still going to allow users to side-load any apps they want. I'll never choose a platform that doesn't at the very least give the option to install from other sources than the ones approved by the OS maker.

This is why the whole new Windows 8 direction scares me, too. For now at least, they are allowing desktop apps on Windows 8, but on Windows RT, Microsoft is just as bad as Apple with iOS. They won't allow you to sideload any apps. So if you want to use an app that wasn't approved by Microsoft, you'll have to jailbreak the Windows RT device. Sames goes for WP7/WP8.

freyr3• 14 years ago

Have you heard of, for instance, UL? The electronics in your home have almost assuredly been tested and certified. Large retailers won't sell you non-certified electronics.

Apple has every right to vet the apps it sells in its app store. And it makes sense to do so.

But I agree with your second point, that consumers should have the option to obtain apps from other stores.

VMG• 14 years ago

> Installing any app you want -- and any app store you want -- on your own device ought to be an inalienable right.

What about game consoles? Calculators? Cars? Washing machines?

It's absurd to force a company to provide features and services by law. That is a huge violation of free trade and the rights of those who sell devices. You know what you can and can't do on a device before you buy it. If people cared as much about the issue as you do, they'd buy phones that allowed that. They don't. That is why your house analogy is so far off.

dinedal• 14 years ago

There's a difference between allowing users to install any app you want, and actively preventing the installation of an app or app store.

If someone creates software that runs on a game console, or calculator, and distributes it where users have a choice to install it or not, I agree with cs702, it should be up to the user/owner of the device if they want to take the risks to install it or not, the manufacture of the device shouldn't actively prevent such installation, but simply say, "If you do this, we won't support it, and it voids your warranty, but it is your device now."

They don't even after to make it easy for the users. It's not that Apple should provide another way for them to install another app store, that's a feature. It's that Apple shouldn't religiously hunt and destroy every means of jailbreaking just _because_ it allows users out of the Apple Control Sphere.

SigmundA2• 14 years ago

There is however a precedent of this model that has worked well and as far as I know never been successfully challenged, game consoles. Game consoles could be general purpose computing devices if it where not for the manufactures limiting the applications to just games and going to great lengths to discourage side loading.

Apples App store and approval process is basically an online version of the classic game console model with much cheaper entry fees for developers and must less restrictive rules.

All the reasons why game consoles have been successful vs PC gaming apply to Apples success, lower piracy, less problems for users, less complexity for developer because of controlled hardware and software platform. All the same limitations apply as well.

cheald• 14 years ago

I think the analogy is apt, but it's worth pointing out that most consoles are crippled against sideloading as an anti-piracy measure. They don't want you to be able to rip a game DVD, burn copies for your friends, and let them all play the game for free.

Apple prevents sideloading simply to have greater control over the platform.

rogerbinns2• 14 years ago

There is a fundamental difference between well written Android applications and iOS ones. iOS apps are expected to run as an island. Everything they want to do should be included into the binary. There is essentially one entry point (a main() equivalent). Think of it like a statically linked binary (which it mostly is).

Well written Android applications are structured like mashups. There is no main. There are multiple entry points for screens (aka Activities) as well as entry points for processing (Services), data (ContentProviders) and even a mechanism (BroadcastReceiver) for telling all interested apps about events (eg battery charge level changing, incoming calls, apps being installed). There is a mechanism for decoupled communication (Intents) which allow specification of a verb (eg VIEW, PICK, DIAL, EDIT) and one or more bits of accompanying data (eg text, urls, images). It is trivial to bring up/use part of another app that didn't even exist at the time yours was released and have the experience combined. (You can always tell iOS apps ported to Android because they don't do mashups or collaborate with the apps already on your system.)

This means that an iOS app will never be improved by other apps installed on the system, while Android ones can be. And because of Intents it becomes possible for a user to choose their own experience - want to use a different browser or app for viewing images? No problem. For example I installed the GitHub app on Android and it added itself to the AccountManager. Now other apps can collaborate with it (eg it supports the SEND verb which creates a Gist) or ask it to display an issue/user/commit.

The (long winded) point behind this is that app installations are far more valuable to Android users. If things were only decided on technical merit then Android will end up nailing iOS because of this. But that walled garden sure looks nice to many people, and it is rare for users to really notice what is going on and they definitely won't have both devices to continually contrast and compare.

CrankyPants• 14 years ago

> This means that an iOS app will never be improved by other apps installed on the system

I've got apps launching links in iCab, other apps using files from the Dropbox app, etc., so that seems a bit inflexible.

I get that Android's app-to-app crosstalk is considerably deeper, it's just the characterization of iOS that doesn't seem totally right to me.

Me10002• 14 years ago

> Installing any app you want -- and any app store you want -- on your own device ought to be an inalienable right.

You're acting like: 1. Jailbreaking doesn't exist. 2. Apple is actively working to prevent people from jailbreaking their devices.

This is simply not the case. Apple is neither technically nor legally hindering anyone's ability to jailbreak their devices.

Your problem is analogous to complaining you ought to have the inalienable right to go outside, but you were born in a home with doors. But once you open the door, the world is yours for the taking. No one is stopping you.

DrHankPym• 14 years ago

Doesn't jailbreaking void your warranty?

cageface3• 14 years ago

Apple has stated publicly that they consider jailbreaking illegal and void your warranty if you do it. It's only still possible because people keep finding holes in their code.

Your analogy doesn't work because the only way to open the door on your Apple house is to pick the lock.

tsmith• 14 years ago

Yet another reason why the iPhone 5 is the worst iPhone ever produced. Not because it is bad - objectively it is in all ways better than previous iPhones - but because it is comparatively worse than the current state of the art (Galaxy Nexus). Maps are horrible, voice search not as good, no NFC, less radio bands, etc etc.

The iPhone 5 marks the first time in the product line's history that it was not advancing the state of the art.

robomartin• 14 years ago

You can look at this at least two ways:

1- Apple you S.O.B's, why won't you let me do as I wish with my phone

2- Apple, this is your product and I understand that you have the absolute right to do with it as you wish.

I actually find myself in both camps.

Sometimes I wish Apple would let go and treat this like selling Windows or OSX: They provide the OS and let others integrate apps as deep and wide as they wish. Yes, this would mean things like providing developers full access to all resources as opposed to the restrictions we work under today.

On the other hand, I also find myself in a position from which I respect the quality and stability the platform has offered since day one. It's almost like this is a benevolent totalitarian regime.

Until iOS 6 and Maps.

What I see now is a company that might not be making the right decisions for it's customers and users. You could argue this has happened with OSX as well. By releasing a substandard Maps application Apple has proven that it is now willing to make decisions that do not include quality, stability and the users' best interest in the process. I cannot, in any way, imagine that this would have been approved by Steve Jobs. Maybe I think too much of the man, but I don't think I am wrong.

Apple cannot make all the right decisions for this platform. No company can. Not in the long run. At one point you have to let go and allow others to help evolve the platform in ways a single company could not possibly imagine. Not doing so has the potential to tilt the scales and have users eventually vote with their purchases and move to other platforms.

cageface3• 14 years ago

This is exactly my issue with Apple. Once you've handed over all control to a benevolent dictator you're powerless if that dictator becomes less benevolent or competent in the future.

Until Apple allows opt-in sideloading of apps I'm done with iOS.

wutbrodo• 14 years ago

Except for the fact that Apple has NEVER been benevolent. My first brush with Apple was choosing to buy a Creative mp3 player (despite literally everyone I know having an iPod as their player) because of the absolutely ridiculous restrictions that Apple put on copying files from the device to a computer. This wasn't a "hacker" problem that "typical" users didn't face; I've lost count of the number of people who asked me how to do exactly that with their iPods over the following few years. I've always been baffled at the characterization of Apple as focused on the user; user satisfaction has always seemed like a side effect of their main goal, which is profitability. Obviously in the ideal case, these two goals should be one and the same, but it's pretty obvious that very, very often, they are not. There are always things a company can do to help their market position that hurt their users, and Apple is practically a pioneer in coming up with and implementing them.

saurik• 14 years ago

You can't have it both ways: people absolutely love to trot out the platitude "competition is good" about all sorts of situations--even when open source projects are rewritten from scratch when the other project would have happily accepted patches, people are still all "competition is good"--but now, suddenly, it is all about "cooperation"? Why isn't this another "competition is good"?

Apple is not playing unfairly here (as you might argue in other battles, such as with Samsung), and neither is Google. They are competitors, and both Maps and Voice/Siri are key functionality for these mobile devices: Google spent a bunch of time building their technologies, and if Apple wants to use it on their highly profitable hardware maybe they should have to pay a lot for it; example: half their margin.

This is, then, what competition is: it is two people/companies duplicating effort to get a similar result, purposely putting each other down whenever possible, and setting up situations where they have whatever advantages the system allows over the other. The customer often loses in these situations, because so much blood and sweat has to be lost to the "fight".

The alternative, "cooperation", normally is frowned on in these circles. Even in the aforementioned cases of open source projects, such as the with web browsers (where the cost is painful fragmentation caused by some vendors misunderstanding or not disliking specifications enough to not bother implementing them) or compilers (the gcc/clang split has been brutal: clang doesn't really compile things correctly, and yet is now the only compiler from Apple for Mac OS X), people are again all "competition is good, deal with it".

Well, sometimes, often, possibly always (yes, even for the restricted domain of "prices" and even when cooperation includes "trusts", at least apparently according to Judge Posner; however you certainly needent go that far with this argument): "cooperation is better, yielding a more powerful result for less development cost"; this is, after all, the premise of open source collaboration.

mycodebreaks• 14 years ago

This clearly shows how laggard Siri is when compared to Google search. This is how things are at present. Google clearly has an edge in this area. I agree that Apple will keep working and improving Siri, but there are many problems in the road which Google can solve much better than Siri can.

When Apple doesn't allow Google search because it is competing with Siri(Ssshh.. actually, it's a lot better than Siri), I am losing as a user.

I wish both companies can work together. In an ideal world for users, the backend technology is powered by Google and the interface and interaction is designed by Apple. That will make a groundbreaking product for sure.

Tycho• 14 years ago

Seems like quite a short-sighted perspective. In the long-run, it will be a great benefit to users to have two companies with billions of dollars to spare competing head-on to build big-data services driven by machine-learning and crowd sourcing, plus AI services, search engines, knowledge bases...

Another Way Apple's Fight With Google Is Hurting Users

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