My bet is that no search provider with a name nobody can pronounce or spell will ever succeed in the market.
Any takers?
Quote:
Originally Posted by guinness
Really, Google wants to control information, and how to deliver it.
I don't think so. Google is an advertising company. Everything else they've ever done has lost money in significant amounts. It's kinda like how Apple keeps the iTunes store going to sell iPods and iPhones. Though I don't think iTunes loses very much; I think I read that it's more or less a break-even proposition. Still, Apple does it to enable one of their two core businesses, just as Google does everything it does to enable its core business.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveGee
Then again... what is that data-center in NC gonna be used for?
I don't think one should underestimate just how much data Apple has to churn through on a day-to-day basis. There's the movie trailer site (which serves up a jaw-dropping number of bytes, and extremely quickly), there's obviously iTunes, there's Mobile Me and all its bits and pieces, there's the Apple online store (which is admittedly probably weak tea by comparison). Apple has several really amazingly reliable online services, and I wouldn't be surprised if their data centers exist to support those, rather than to do anything new and dramatic.
Though I could be wrong. I think it'd be really neat if, for example, a future upgrade to Mobile Me included Time Machine backups over the Internet. The challenge there is the last-mile problem, though. It takes long enough to do a fresh backup of my MacBook Pro to my AirDisk over wireless; I can't imagine how many days it would take to shove all those bytes up my Internet connection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
If Google someday found a good way to sensibly offer their services to the average non-techie consumer?
Yeah, and if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon. Seriously, Apple's position in the market is secure for the foreseeable future. I know those are famous last words, but Apple's got an easy five-year head start. Not only does Apple build devices that work for the average person in ways nobody else does, but they've also got this massive degree of brand recognition in the public. There are Apple retail stores all over the place, "iPhone" is fast becoming synonymous with "handheld communications device" the way "iPod" did with "portable music device," and the iPad announcement made the front pages of the New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. That's not the sort of thing that can be lost overnight to an advertising company that wants to break into the gadget business.
The next big sea change in technology in general is the opening up of the market to the general consumer. For the better part of thirty years, computers and the Internet were the exclusive domain of the hobbyist. It started at the Homebrew Computer Club and grew, but the core remained highly technical and simply beyond the reach of the average person ? not because you had to be a super-genius to get into it, but because it required an investment of time that most people simply weren't interested in making. It's only been in the past decade (more or less) that that's begun to change, and now we're starting to see a push toward selling technology to people who have no interest in technology at all. The iPad's just the beginning; I bet Apple has some really interesting things locked up in their R&D labs that ? well, that would bore the hell out of the average computer geek. Because they're not meant for them.
I'd argue ? and I'm not 100-percent sure I'm right about this, but I think I am ?*that Apple has a bigger lead over the rest of the industry now than it's ever had before, going all the way back to the beginning. The Macintosh was clearly ahead of its time, a quantum leap beyond anything else. They didn't maintain that lead, though, and paid the price for it in the early 90s. Mac OS X is, technologically, a quantum leap beyond either Windows or (ha) Linux, but the pace of advancement there is slowing as the product becomes more, for lack of a better word, perfected. The iPhone was a quantum leap ahead of what we once quaintly called "smartphones" but now just call "phones," and what Apple doesn't want to happen is for their competitors to stomp all over Apple's patents in an effort to close that gap.
The Times story makes it sound personal, and that's fair. We are talking about people after all, Jobs chief among them. But at the same time, this isn't Don Quixote out there tilting at windmills. Apple has a quantitative and qualitative head start on the rest of the industry. They're the first ones to break into the fourth wave of information technology (computing in general, business computing, personal computing and now transparent computing), and no, I really don't think that head start is a fragile thing that Google can surmount by the concerted application of brainpower. It requires a different kind of thinking than what Google is experienced at. And sure, maybe they'll adapt, in five or ten years. Or maybe they'll pull a Microsoft and make attempt after attempt to crack the broader market, failing catastrophically every single time, but sustained by their core business so they can stay alive and keep trying.
Jobs was famously quoted as saying, back in the 90s I think it was, that Microsoft has no taste. He wasn't being insulting when he said it; he was just stating the fact as he saw it. Microsoft has technical acumen and business acumen but no taste. No ability to distinguish between something that's revolutionary and something that sucks. Google is largely in the same place. They're brilliant, and their sheer size and momentum have allowed them to accomplish a lot in a very short time ? remember, Google only became a publicly traded company in 2004! But as a company, as a brand, they have no taste. Google Wave and Google Buzz aren't the kind of missteps that a company like Apple would make. Apple's corporate culture is such that half-baked ideas like those would never make it out of the lab, much less out of the building.
The difference, culturally, between Google and Microsoft, though, is going to be defined by what happens in the next four or five years. By the end of its first decade, will Google have found a sense of taste? Or will they still be pouring money onto their research efforts like a backyard chef pouring lighter fluid onto his barbecue, hoping something catches fire?
I dunno. All I do know is this: In four or five years, Apple will have released at least one product that will make the iPod, iPhone and iPad look quaint. Apple's not gonna stand still while the company's lawyers fight like bulldogs over who infringed on whose intellectual property. They're going to continue to surge ahead, building on that five-year headstart.
I for one am pretty interested to see what they come up with.
Wasn't the Android Tablet revealed prior to the iPad?
Yes...
There have been several Android-based tablet/slate devices on the market for quite some time now.
Example: I utilize an Archos 5 IT/Android at least a few times a week, and have been for about 5 months now (long before any 'official' evidence of Apple's iPad even existed)
Considering that Apple stole the gui idea for the Mac from Xerox PARC, I don't think that he should now complain that others steal ideas from Apple! This is the tech world. Every company steals ideas from everybody else. Manufacturers will provide what people want, even if it is a similar product.
Yes, I meant it as a question... And while at it, almost the same with Gmail... It seems like as far as Free Web Mail, it's mainly between Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail.... Probably in that order, but I don't now what that Market Share Pie Chart looks like... Mobile me is probably tiny slice on there, right?
Hope these YouTube and Gmail Qs are addressed here... I am really curious...
That is what I Don't get. What is there to fight? YouTube doesn't hurt Apple's business in any way. I don't see Apple offering a competing free video upload service like YouTube. I don't get your concern.
You know I was just thinking the same thing, Steve would have learned from the betrayal of Bill Gates. Steve should follow Triple H "Don't trust anyone".
In what way was Steve betrayed by Bill Gates?
Just curious, being unable to think of any instance.
Considering that Apple stole the gui idea for the Mac from Xerox PARC, I don't think that he should now complain that others steal ideas from Apple! This is the tech world. Every company steals ideas from everybody else. Manufacturers will provide what people want, even if it is a similar product.
I am pretty sure What Apple did like 50 years ago with or without Zerox's approval has nothing to so with Google stealing Apple's touch screen technology. Your stretching just a little.
"We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business"
Only because you didn't let them run their little applications (natively) on your toy. Without google search, youtube, maps, etc, iPhone wouldn't be even close to a great product that it is today. But Apple would allow only those Google applications that serve their purpose and tried to block others, that would serve Google to extend their mobile search market share.
Apple didn't enter search business (yet) only because Google "stole" them AdMob before their nose. Obviously Jobs doesn't know how to lose in business and now he tries to make this personal. If Google didn't push Android OS and Nexus phone, in 5 years they would be an irrelevant mobile search company. They played all this almost perfectly, so I guess you could say that they were "evil". I think Jobs' "personalization" of this will hurt Apple in years to come. Maybe it's time to thank him for his service to Apple??
Considering that Apple stole the gui idea for the Mac from Xerox PARC, I don't think that he should now complain that others steal ideas from Apple! This is the tech world. Every company steals ideas from everybody else. Manufacturers will provide what people want, even if it is a similar product.
You know, it's actually astonishing how this bit of urban myth gets endlessly recycled. Pretty reliably, if someone in a mood to dis Apple knows nothing else about the platform, they've heard tell that Apple "stole" the GUI from PARC, and are happy to repeat it as if we've never come across that particular gem.
Do they have schools somewhere? Is it handed down from father to son?
"We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business"
Only because you didn't let them run their little applications (natively) on your toy. Without google search, youtube, maps, etc, iPhone wouldn't be even close to a great product that it is today. But Apple would allow only those Google applications that serve their purpose and tried to block others, that would serve Google to extend their mobile search market share.
Apple didn't enter search business (yet) only because Google "stole" them AdMob before their nose. Obviously Jobs doesn't know how to lose in business and now he tries to make this personal. If Google didn't push Android OS and Nexus phone, in 5 years they would be an irrelevant mobile search company. They played all this almost perfectly, so I guess you could say that they were "evil". I think Jobs' "personalization" of this will hurt Apple in years to come. Maybe it's time to thank him for his service to Apple??
Or, Google has fucked up massively by alienating the owners of one of the biggest mobile OSes out there, at a time when mobile is poised to become the dominant platform, at a time when that OS is showing nothing but sustained and rapid growth.
I hope Apple cleans Google's clock on this. Android is a direct copy of the iPhone, with a few tweaks.
Apple does a truly usable software keyboard, and suddenly Google has one.
Apple does an app store, and then, oh look, Google introduces one (an utterly crappy one at that).
Apple does multitouch, and wow, here's Google with multitouch.
Apple introduces the iPad, and a few days later: tada, here's Google showing off its concept of a tablet.
Google's only saving grace is that it gives its OS away for free to a bunch of second-tier companies who can't do the heavy lifting themselves. But Google's not bringing anything truly new or revolutionary to the table, and they don't deserve to be recognized as leaders in this particular space...
Schmidt is a freaking weasel and I hope Apple drills him and Google a new a--hole.
Google is officially on my sh*t list. Apple should drop Google for Bing in all devices running Safari. They should drop the Google map backend as well. Just get rid of these crooks.
Considering that Apple stole the gui idea for the Mac from Xerox PARC, I don't think that he should now complain that others steal ideas from Apple! This is the tech world. Every company steals ideas from everybody else. Manufacturers will provide what people want, even if it is a similar product.
How people can keep repeating this drivel is beyond me. Jobs asked Xerox if he and Wozniak could use the ideas, and Xerox happily let them. That's not stealing.
And oh by the way, Xerox didn't know what to do with the ideas - they had no clue about adapting the GUI into an actual product. Kind of like Bill Gates, who famously said that people would never use a mouse to control a computer.
If Google someday found a good way to sensibly offer their services to the average non-techie consumer, they could easily take over from all the other online service providers. Apple's services on the other hand look good and work well, but they just don't offer what people actually want. It seems to me that while it's possible for Google to somehow acquire design "chops" and to get better at PR and customer support, I don't think Apple will ever figure out the "social side" of the Internet.
Wonder if Google becomes the only online service provider that also controls the portal devices they might end up like AT&T. The Feds broke up AT&T since they controlled almost all of the lines and produced most of the phones.
I hope Apple cleans Google's clock on this. Android is a direct copy of the iPhone, with a few tweaks.
Apple does a truly usable software keyboard, and suddenly Google has one.
Apple does an app store, and then, oh look, Google introduces one (an utterly crappy one at that).
Apple does multitouch, and wow, here's Google with multitouch.
Apple introduces the iPad, and a few days later: tada, here's Google showing off its concept of a tablet.
Google's only saving grace is that it gives its OS away for free to a bunch of second-tier companies who can't do the heavy lifting themselves. But Google's not bringing anything truly new or revolutionary to the table, and they don't deserve to be recognized as leaders in this particular space...
Maybe this is one of the reasons why Apple is defending their patents?
Just curious, being unable to think of any instance.
There's a big history there, at least of Microsoft screwing Apple. One instance is QuickTime. When it was first developed, it was far ahead of any other computer media player. Apple sent Microsoft the code to QuickTime so that the Microsoft OS could interact with it, under strict conditions. Gates then took the code (stole it), copied it into Windows Media Player, and did everything he could to kill QuickTime, including threatening to bankrupt Apple if Apple continued to develop QuickTime for Windows.
Apple didn't sue Google and Google isn't selling Android. Apple sued HTC. HTC is actually selling the technology, not just showing it off--key to a patent infringement case.
Apple has the patents. Google might have confidential, in-house, prior art dated before Apple filed its patent applications*, but Apple has the patents because Apple published its technology with the US PTO for us all to see. HTC has squat.
*Maybe somebody has time to look up the earliest iPhone patent filing dates, but IIRC they were filed roughly late 2005.
Comments
He is. Lord Jobs' genius is equally matched by his baggage. Great with ideas, not so great dealing with others.
And you know this because you have worked with him, right?
My bet is on Cuil.
My bet is that no search provider with a name nobody can pronounce or spell will ever succeed in the market.
Any takers?
Really, Google wants to control information, and how to deliver it.
I don't think so. Google is an advertising company. Everything else they've ever done has lost money in significant amounts. It's kinda like how Apple keeps the iTunes store going to sell iPods and iPhones. Though I don't think iTunes loses very much; I think I read that it's more or less a break-even proposition. Still, Apple does it to enable one of their two core businesses, just as Google does everything it does to enable its core business.
Then again... what is that data-center in NC gonna be used for?
I don't think one should underestimate just how much data Apple has to churn through on a day-to-day basis. There's the movie trailer site (which serves up a jaw-dropping number of bytes, and extremely quickly), there's obviously iTunes, there's Mobile Me and all its bits and pieces, there's the Apple online store (which is admittedly probably weak tea by comparison). Apple has several really amazingly reliable online services, and I wouldn't be surprised if their data centers exist to support those, rather than to do anything new and dramatic.
Though I could be wrong. I think it'd be really neat if, for example, a future upgrade to Mobile Me included Time Machine backups over the Internet. The challenge there is the last-mile problem, though. It takes long enough to do a fresh backup of my MacBook Pro to my AirDisk over wireless; I can't imagine how many days it would take to shove all those bytes up my Internet connection.
If Google someday found a good way to sensibly offer their services to the average non-techie consumer?
Yeah, and if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon. Seriously, Apple's position in the market is secure for the foreseeable future. I know those are famous last words, but Apple's got an easy five-year head start. Not only does Apple build devices that work for the average person in ways nobody else does, but they've also got this massive degree of brand recognition in the public. There are Apple retail stores all over the place, "iPhone" is fast becoming synonymous with "handheld communications device" the way "iPod" did with "portable music device," and the iPad announcement made the front pages of the New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. That's not the sort of thing that can be lost overnight to an advertising company that wants to break into the gadget business.
The next big sea change in technology in general is the opening up of the market to the general consumer. For the better part of thirty years, computers and the Internet were the exclusive domain of the hobbyist. It started at the Homebrew Computer Club and grew, but the core remained highly technical and simply beyond the reach of the average person ? not because you had to be a super-genius to get into it, but because it required an investment of time that most people simply weren't interested in making. It's only been in the past decade (more or less) that that's begun to change, and now we're starting to see a push toward selling technology to people who have no interest in technology at all. The iPad's just the beginning; I bet Apple has some really interesting things locked up in their R&D labs that ? well, that would bore the hell out of the average computer geek. Because they're not meant for them.
I'd argue ? and I'm not 100-percent sure I'm right about this, but I think I am ?*that Apple has a bigger lead over the rest of the industry now than it's ever had before, going all the way back to the beginning. The Macintosh was clearly ahead of its time, a quantum leap beyond anything else. They didn't maintain that lead, though, and paid the price for it in the early 90s. Mac OS X is, technologically, a quantum leap beyond either Windows or (ha) Linux, but the pace of advancement there is slowing as the product becomes more, for lack of a better word, perfected. The iPhone was a quantum leap ahead of what we once quaintly called "smartphones" but now just call "phones," and what Apple doesn't want to happen is for their competitors to stomp all over Apple's patents in an effort to close that gap.
The Times story makes it sound personal, and that's fair. We are talking about people after all, Jobs chief among them. But at the same time, this isn't Don Quixote out there tilting at windmills. Apple has a quantitative and qualitative head start on the rest of the industry. They're the first ones to break into the fourth wave of information technology (computing in general, business computing, personal computing and now transparent computing), and no, I really don't think that head start is a fragile thing that Google can surmount by the concerted application of brainpower. It requires a different kind of thinking than what Google is experienced at. And sure, maybe they'll adapt, in five or ten years. Or maybe they'll pull a Microsoft and make attempt after attempt to crack the broader market, failing catastrophically every single time, but sustained by their core business so they can stay alive and keep trying.
Jobs was famously quoted as saying, back in the 90s I think it was, that Microsoft has no taste. He wasn't being insulting when he said it; he was just stating the fact as he saw it. Microsoft has technical acumen and business acumen but no taste. No ability to distinguish between something that's revolutionary and something that sucks. Google is largely in the same place. They're brilliant, and their sheer size and momentum have allowed them to accomplish a lot in a very short time ? remember, Google only became a publicly traded company in 2004! But as a company, as a brand, they have no taste. Google Wave and Google Buzz aren't the kind of missteps that a company like Apple would make. Apple's corporate culture is such that half-baked ideas like those would never make it out of the lab, much less out of the building.
The difference, culturally, between Google and Microsoft, though, is going to be defined by what happens in the next four or five years. By the end of its first decade, will Google have found a sense of taste? Or will they still be pouring money onto their research efforts like a backyard chef pouring lighter fluid onto his barbecue, hoping something catches fire?
I dunno. All I do know is this: In four or five years, Apple will have released at least one product that will make the iPod, iPhone and iPad look quaint. Apple's not gonna stand still while the company's lawyers fight like bulldogs over who infringed on whose intellectual property. They're going to continue to surge ahead, building on that five-year headstart.
I for one am pretty interested to see what they come up with.
Apple uses a keyboard different than QWERTY?
Wasn't the Android Tablet revealed prior to the iPad?
Yes...
There have been several Android-based tablet/slate devices on the market for quite some time now.
Example: I utilize an Archos 5 IT/Android at least a few times a week, and have been for about 5 months now (long before any 'official' evidence of Apple's iPad even existed)
That's hilarious. I think Steve has the upper hand with his "Giant-Crane-with-Dual-iPad-smack-to-the-head" move.
Yes, I meant it as a question... And while at it, almost the same with Gmail... It seems like as far as Free Web Mail, it's mainly between Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail.... Probably in that order, but I don't now what that Market Share Pie Chart looks like... Mobile me is probably tiny slice on there, right?
Hope these YouTube and Gmail Qs are addressed here... I am really curious...
That is what I Don't get. What is there to fight? YouTube doesn't hurt Apple's business in any way. I don't see Apple offering a competing free video upload service like YouTube. I don't get your concern.
You know I was just thinking the same thing, Steve would have learned from the betrayal of Bill Gates. Steve should follow Triple H "Don't trust anyone".
In what way was Steve betrayed by Bill Gates?
Just curious, being unable to think of any instance.
Considering that Apple stole the gui idea for the Mac from Xerox PARC, I don't think that he should now complain that others steal ideas from Apple! This is the tech world. Every company steals ideas from everybody else. Manufacturers will provide what people want, even if it is a similar product.
I am pretty sure What Apple did like 50 years ago with or without Zerox's approval has nothing to so with Google stealing Apple's touch screen technology. Your stretching just a little.
Only because you didn't let them run their little applications (natively) on your toy. Without google search, youtube, maps, etc, iPhone wouldn't be even close to a great product that it is today. But Apple would allow only those Google applications that serve their purpose and tried to block others, that would serve Google to extend their mobile search market share.
Apple didn't enter search business (yet) only because Google "stole" them AdMob before their nose. Obviously Jobs doesn't know how to lose in business and now he tries to make this personal. If Google didn't push Android OS and Nexus phone, in 5 years they would be an irrelevant mobile search company. They played all this almost perfectly, so I guess you could say that they were "evil". I think Jobs' "personalization" of this will hurt Apple in years to come. Maybe it's time to thank him for his service to Apple??
Considering that Apple stole the gui idea for the Mac from Xerox PARC, I don't think that he should now complain that others steal ideas from Apple! This is the tech world. Every company steals ideas from everybody else. Manufacturers will provide what people want, even if it is a similar product.
You know, it's actually astonishing how this bit of urban myth gets endlessly recycled. Pretty reliably, if someone in a mood to dis Apple knows nothing else about the platform, they've heard tell that Apple "stole" the GUI from PARC, and are happy to repeat it as if we've never come across that particular gem.
Do they have schools somewhere? Is it handed down from father to son?
"We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business"
Only because you didn't let them run their little applications (natively) on your toy. Without google search, youtube, maps, etc, iPhone wouldn't be even close to a great product that it is today. But Apple would allow only those Google applications that serve their purpose and tried to block others, that would serve Google to extend their mobile search market share.
Apple didn't enter search business (yet) only because Google "stole" them AdMob before their nose. Obviously Jobs doesn't know how to lose in business and now he tries to make this personal. If Google didn't push Android OS and Nexus phone, in 5 years they would be an irrelevant mobile search company. They played all this almost perfectly, so I guess you could say that they were "evil". I think Jobs' "personalization" of this will hurt Apple in years to come. Maybe it's time to thank him for his service to Apple??
Or, Google has fucked up massively by alienating the owners of one of the biggest mobile OSes out there, at a time when mobile is poised to become the dominant platform, at a time when that OS is showing nothing but sustained and rapid growth.
Do they have schools somewhere? Is it handed down from father to son?
More like grandfather to grandson, at this point.
I hope Apple cleans Google's clock on this. Android is a direct copy of the iPhone, with a few tweaks.
Apple does a truly usable software keyboard, and suddenly Google has one.
Apple does an app store, and then, oh look, Google introduces one (an utterly crappy one at that).
Apple does multitouch, and wow, here's Google with multitouch.
Apple introduces the iPad, and a few days later: tada, here's Google showing off its concept of a tablet.
Google's only saving grace is that it gives its OS away for free to a bunch of second-tier companies who can't do the heavy lifting themselves. But Google's not bringing anything truly new or revolutionary to the table, and they don't deserve to be recognized as leaders in this particular space...
Schmidt is a freaking weasel and I hope Apple drills him and Google a new a--hole.
Google is officially on my sh*t list. Apple should drop Google for Bing in all devices running Safari. They should drop the Google map backend as well. Just get rid of these crooks.
Time will tell.
Considering that Apple stole the gui idea for the Mac from Xerox PARC, I don't think that he should now complain that others steal ideas from Apple! This is the tech world. Every company steals ideas from everybody else. Manufacturers will provide what people want, even if it is a similar product.
How people can keep repeating this drivel is beyond me. Jobs asked Xerox if he and Wozniak could use the ideas, and Xerox happily let them. That's not stealing.
And oh by the way, Xerox didn't know what to do with the ideas - they had no clue about adapting the GUI into an actual product. Kind of like Bill Gates, who famously said that people would never use a mouse to control a computer.
Apple should be scared of Google.
If Google someday found a good way to sensibly offer their services to the average non-techie consumer, they could easily take over from all the other online service providers. Apple's services on the other hand look good and work well, but they just don't offer what people actually want. It seems to me that while it's possible for Google to somehow acquire design "chops" and to get better at PR and customer support, I don't think Apple will ever figure out the "social side" of the Internet.
Wonder if Google becomes the only online service provider that also controls the portal devices they might end up like AT&T. The Feds broke up AT&T since they controlled almost all of the lines and produced most of the phones.
I hope Apple cleans Google's clock on this. Android is a direct copy of the iPhone, with a few tweaks.
Apple does a truly usable software keyboard, and suddenly Google has one.
Apple does an app store, and then, oh look, Google introduces one (an utterly crappy one at that).
Apple does multitouch, and wow, here's Google with multitouch.
Apple introduces the iPad, and a few days later: tada, here's Google showing off its concept of a tablet.
Google's only saving grace is that it gives its OS away for free to a bunch of second-tier companies who can't do the heavy lifting themselves. But Google's not bringing anything truly new or revolutionary to the table, and they don't deserve to be recognized as leaders in this particular space...
Maybe this is one of the reasons why Apple is defending their patents?
In what way was Steve betrayed by Bill Gates?
Just curious, being unable to think of any instance.
There's a big history there, at least of Microsoft screwing Apple. One instance is QuickTime. When it was first developed, it was far ahead of any other computer media player. Apple sent Microsoft the code to QuickTime so that the Microsoft OS could interact with it, under strict conditions. Gates then took the code (stole it), copied it into Windows Media Player, and did everything he could to kill QuickTime, including threatening to bankrupt Apple if Apple continued to develop QuickTime for Windows.
I don't see Google doing anything wrong here.
Apple didn't sue Google and Google isn't selling Android. Apple sued HTC. HTC is actually selling the technology, not just showing it off--key to a patent infringement case.
Apple has the patents. Google might have confidential, in-house, prior art dated before Apple filed its patent applications*, but Apple has the patents because Apple published its technology with the US PTO for us all to see. HTC has squat.
*Maybe somebody has time to look up the earliest iPhone patent filing dates, but IIRC they were filed roughly late 2005.