Why we have this kind of headline? I thought Steve Jobs have put this kind nonsense to rest in his 1997 keynote address. I only cares about whether Apple is doing great and doing the right thing. Stop this kind of attack on other companies. Apple would love to have nothing to do with this kind of crap headline.
The title of the article is a bit click baitish. That being said, as Apple moves to becoming more of a services oriented company, they will be competing more and more with Google's services.
Apple is much bigger than Google and more importantly develops cutting edge hardware with unique capabilities. No one else in the industry has been able to follow and keep up with Apple. Google's hardware initiatives have all essentially failed. Samsung's Tizen is essentially crushing Android Wear. And with the sanctions against Huawei, Android Wear is virtually on life support.
The Pixel is dead. Apple controls nearly all of the cutting edge technologies when it comes to hardware. The watch OS is now in an unassailable position. Apple's chip designs are the best in the industry (better than Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, Samsung and Huawei). Apple gets the best of Samsung's display technology. Google does not control a single cutting edge hardware technology. And Microsoft is tied to an incompetent and flailing Intel.
Apple could cut Google off in an instant. All Apple would have to do is make Bing or Yahoo the default search engine on their devices and computers. The vast majority of users would not change the default. Apple maps may be inferior, but how many iPhone users have installed and are using Google maps instead? It's not many. And Apple maps are good enough. Apple could make the app superior to the Google product, but the incentive just isn't there. Not at present anyway. For Google, it's actually an urgency that they keep ahead of Apple. Google is far more dependent on that revenue stream than Apple.
Hence Apple continues their relentless focus on hardware. Superior hardware enables elegant state of the art total solutions. Apple controls its destiny from the hardware perspective. Google is desperately trying, but has been utterly incapable of developing competitive state of the art hardware. Google is dependent on others. Apple now is getting ready to go places that Google cannot. Microsoft is also in the same boat. And like Google, Microsoft is dependent on others for their hardware initiatives.
Microsoft and Google are just software companies. Neither of them will be able to compete with Apple over the long term. What surprises me is why companies like Microsoft or even Samsung, maybe Huawei don't purchase a company like DuckDuckgo or the perhaps the Korean search engine Naver and make a decent attempt to compete with Google. If I were in Jeff Bezos shoes and sitting on the fortune he is, I would seriously have purchased a company like. Naver and retool the program for an international market. Integrate it into a home grown browser based on WebKit and optimized for the best experience on the Amazon website. Naver should also be integrated into Alexa.
Apple is also sitting on a fortune. Cook should also seriously look into purchasing the Korean company. Apple would instantly own the South Korean search market. Google is totally inept in Korea. Google search is hardly even used over there. Apple could leverage Naver by extending it to the North American market and making it the default search engine for safari.
And while desktop Chrome gets a lot of love, developers cannot afford to ignore safari users if nothing else than the fact that safari dominates the best mobile platform, iOS. There have been occasions where I have been forced to use Firefox or tenfourfox. I found using Chrome a dreadful experience and stopped using it altogether. I haven't personally found a need for the Chrome browser, nevermind a compelling use scenario. Even when using Android, I disable Chrome and use other browsers like Opera.
Apple's move to its own silicon is an ominous development for both Google and Microsoft. Neither company will be able to compete with Apple over the long term. Google and Microsoft have excellent software teams. But Apple is equivalent to them. The far bigger issue is that Apple has a stellar hardware team. Google and Microsoft do not. Google has the Pixel and Microsoft has the Surface line of machines. And neither the Pixel nor the Surface (Pro) compete very well in their own markets, nevermind competing with Apple. Microsoft is even closing their own stores.
Google cannot put an array of Tensor AI chips into the Pixel. Apple will incorporate AI subprocessors right into their own SOC. AI will be native to the iPhone. Android will be dependent on network access to Google's servers for AI. That's just the start, people. The S series for the watch will be much more powerful than anything from Qualcomm. And Intel doesn't build mobile CPUs of any kind these days.
Eric Schmidt made a colossal blunder in stealing iOS. His vision of duplicating the Microsoft business model but with Google the dominant software platform for mobile has failed. Google could have been the eternal search engine on Apple hardware along with software such as maps and such. Google is going to have to envision a future in being displaced from Apple hardware. It's a very bad place to be right now.
Otellini of Intel also made just as colossal a blunder by rejecting Steve Jobs request of building a Strong ARM CPU for the original iPhone. Intel is also going to have to envision a future in which they are also displaced from Apple hardware.
Samsung also made a colossal mistake. Samsung should have abandoned Android. Developed Tizen independently and kept Apples business as the exclusive supplier of chips for the iOS platform. Samsung lost Apple's business. Samsung makes the best display panels and has managed to get Apple's business there. But the loss of the CPU and even the memory business was far bigger than any of the gains afforded by embracing Android. Samsung has had to compete with the Pixel and has lost the China market. The only bright spot are the Trump sanctions on China and companies like Huawei. Samsung, at least, no longer has to compete with Huawei on a worldwide basis on the Android platform. Samsung should have worked with Apple instead of antagonizing Steve Jobs when it came to Android. Now that TSMC has Apple's business, Samsung won't be getting it back.
Apple is poised to utterly dominate computing in another decade. That is, if the world can manage to keep the Covid crisis under control. That isn't guaranteed. At all.
The only reason I use Chrome is this wonderful Microsoft Teams function called:‘meeting options’. Doesn’t work on Safari so Apple please fix this so I can delete Chrome and use Safari instead. And yes I am using DDG as well because of the great search results I get without the Ads clutter. For translation I use DeepL far better on the Mac than anything else.
The more competition that Google has especially for its basic services the better IMHO. They have had it far too easy for far too long.
They have had it so easy to track us and build a picture of our lives.
I have tried to avoid using google for anything for at least 9 years but it is difficult. The make life easy for devs. For example those idiotic Capta's. I have to unblock google.com about once a week just to get them to work.
As for this move by Apple, bring it on. It won't be easy. Their 'stuff' is in just about everything we do on the internet.
Once upon a time google told its staff 'Do No Evil'. They seem to have erased the word 'No' about 10 years ago.
Google Drive is just faster for me. I still use Apple, since I like how everything can be in one place.
Google Maps are still better (I can edit the suggested stewed by adding a house number, the suggested places are usually something what I need; not like with Apple maps somewhere on another continent).
Spotify Music still my choice because of better search and playlists.
Microsoft Office is better than Apple’s offering.
Kindle is better than iBooks (just look at those huge margins in iBook).
Apple doesn’t excel in any of those things (my use case).
But as a system which keeps everything together and private - I go to Apple Phone and later iPad since 2007.
There is one major hole in Apple Safari, 4K video support for YouTube. Perhaps Apple Services need to implement either a YouTube type service or find a solution to the incompatibility with codecs. I would think the latter would be easier at this point although with Google going after Zoom now Apple could do well to look at Mail, YouTube and FaceTime in a whole new light.
I prefer Apple Maps but the inability to plot routes, with any start point is a big negative. Hope they fix that. And I wish they'd either buy or struck a deal with DDG to use their services somehow. I am not a DDG user most of the time but if they Apple branded it and built it into the address bar search I'd use it a lot more. Google would still be available of course.
The lack of draggable waypoints has long been my major gripe with AppleMaps.
Comments
If Apple can get it's Siri act together they can take massive revenue from Google search.
Apple is much bigger than Google and more importantly develops cutting edge hardware with unique capabilities. No one else in the industry has been able to follow and keep up with Apple. Google's hardware initiatives have all essentially failed. Samsung's Tizen is essentially crushing Android Wear. And with the sanctions against Huawei, Android Wear is virtually on life support.
The Pixel is dead. Apple controls nearly all of the cutting edge technologies when it comes to hardware. The watch OS is now in an unassailable position. Apple's chip designs are the best in the industry (better than Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, Samsung and Huawei). Apple gets the best of Samsung's display technology. Google does not control a single cutting edge hardware technology. And Microsoft is tied to an incompetent and flailing Intel.
Apple could cut Google off in an instant. All Apple would have to do is make Bing or Yahoo the default search engine on their devices and computers. The vast majority of users would not change the default. Apple maps may be inferior, but how many iPhone users have installed and are using Google maps instead? It's not many. And Apple maps are good enough. Apple could make the app superior to the Google product, but the incentive just isn't there. Not at present anyway. For Google, it's actually an urgency that they keep ahead of Apple. Google is far more dependent on that revenue stream than Apple.
Hence Apple continues their relentless focus on hardware. Superior hardware enables elegant state of the art total solutions. Apple controls its destiny from the hardware perspective. Google is desperately trying, but has been utterly incapable of developing competitive state of the art hardware. Google is dependent on others. Apple now is getting ready to go places that Google cannot. Microsoft is also in the same boat. And like Google, Microsoft is dependent on others for their hardware initiatives.
Microsoft and Google are just software companies. Neither of them will be able to compete with Apple over the long term.
What surprises me is why companies like Microsoft or even Samsung, maybe Huawei don't purchase a company like DuckDuckgo or the perhaps the Korean search engine Naver and make a decent attempt to compete with Google. If I were in Jeff Bezos shoes and sitting on the fortune he is, I would seriously have purchased a company like. Naver and retool the program for an international market. Integrate it into a home grown browser based on WebKit and optimized for the best experience on the Amazon website. Naver should also be integrated into Alexa.
Apple is also sitting on a fortune. Cook should also seriously look into purchasing the Korean company. Apple would instantly own the South Korean search market. Google is totally inept in Korea. Google search is hardly even used over there. Apple could leverage Naver by extending it to the North American market and making it the default search engine for safari.
And while desktop Chrome gets a lot of love, developers cannot afford to ignore safari users if nothing else than the fact that safari dominates the best mobile platform, iOS. There have been occasions where I have been forced to use Firefox or tenfourfox. I found using Chrome a dreadful experience and stopped using it altogether. I haven't personally found a need for the Chrome browser, nevermind a compelling use scenario. Even when using Android, I disable Chrome and use other browsers like Opera.
Apple's move to its own silicon is an ominous development for both Google and Microsoft. Neither company will be able to compete with Apple over the long term. Google and Microsoft have excellent software teams. But Apple is equivalent to them. The far bigger issue is that Apple has a stellar hardware team. Google and Microsoft do not. Google has the Pixel and Microsoft has the Surface line of machines. And neither the Pixel nor the Surface (Pro) compete very well in their own markets, nevermind competing with Apple. Microsoft is even closing their own stores.
Google cannot put an array of Tensor AI chips into the Pixel. Apple will incorporate AI subprocessors right into their own SOC. AI will be native to the iPhone. Android will be dependent on network access to Google's servers for AI. That's just the start, people. The S series for the watch will be much more powerful than anything from Qualcomm. And Intel doesn't build mobile CPUs of any kind these days.
Eric Schmidt made a colossal blunder in stealing iOS. His vision of duplicating the Microsoft business model but with Google the dominant software platform for mobile has failed. Google could have been the eternal search engine on Apple hardware along with software such as maps and such. Google is going to have to envision a future in being displaced from Apple hardware. It's a very bad place to be right now.
Otellini of Intel also made just as colossal a blunder by rejecting Steve Jobs request of building a Strong ARM CPU for the original iPhone. Intel is also going to have to envision a future in which they are also displaced from Apple hardware.
Samsung also made a colossal mistake. Samsung should have abandoned Android. Developed Tizen independently and kept Apples business as the exclusive supplier of chips for the iOS platform. Samsung lost Apple's business. Samsung makes the best display panels and has managed to get Apple's business there. But the loss of the CPU and even the memory business was far bigger than any of the gains afforded by embracing Android. Samsung has had to compete with the Pixel and has lost the China market. The only bright spot are the Trump sanctions on China and companies like Huawei. Samsung, at least, no longer has to compete with Huawei on a worldwide basis on the Android platform. Samsung should have worked with Apple instead of antagonizing Steve Jobs when it came to Android. Now that TSMC has Apple's business, Samsung won't be getting it back.
Apple is poised to utterly dominate computing in another decade. That is, if the world can manage to keep the Covid crisis under control. That isn't guaranteed. At all.