The 2 industry giants who had at one point been partners against Microsoft seem to be having a pitched battle as Google who had merely started as a search engine somehow keeps getting Apple hit in the crossfire.
It's not exactly new or has been a recent contest between the 2. The tug of war has been going on for close to a decade as Google - in its ever expanding search for new ideas - always somehow seem to find itself crossing paths and ending at odds with, Apple.
When the iPhone was launched back in 2007, neither Apple nor Steve Jobs saw Google as a competitor - perhaps even Google had not seen itself that way - hence Google Maps came with the original iPhone.
A cozy partnership the 2 had had, until Google's Android became the world's biggest android platform and included turn-by-turn navigation in the Android phones but not with the iPhones.
Apple hit back by killing off Google Maps and coming out with its own version which unfortunately, had not been up to the task, resulting in a PR nightmare.
Later on Google comes up with a map for iPhone 5 complete with navigation resulting in over 10 MILLION downloads in the first 2 days. All seems well, the 2 looks to have buried the hatchet. Of course, from a different point of view, it would also look as if Google saved the day for Apple.
Based on Walter Isaacson's biography on Steve Jobs, not only did it get Jobs' attention, it got him wanting to go thermonuclear and spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion to destroy Android which, to his eyes, had cloned the iPhone.
Some critics found it odd that even when Jobs saw the importance of mobile and knew of Google's Android, he somehow failed to put 2 and 2 together. Perhaps he had been comfortable in the knowledge that both companies were partners not competitors, having a personal relationship with Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
Both companies have virtually dominated the smartphone market. The main difference is that Apple makes both hardware and software. It has maintained a healthy foothold through the years, continuing to surprise and embarrass its doomsayers and critics.
Google, on the other hand, merely mainly provides the free software for mobile units. Its own efforts at marketing its own hardware has resulted to feeble Nexus' sales proving negligible at 0.1% as compared to Apple's share of 94% of global smartphone profits. Even Samsung's bigger profit share when compared to Apple's, is considered flat and weak.
Hardware profit domination; this is the argument that some put up to in defense of Apple, considering it far more important than Android's 84.7% to Apple's 11.7% (the remaining 3.6% divided between Blackberry, Windows and others) on the software end of the argument.
It might prove diligent perhaps were one to consider that these same figures also represent ACTUAL handheld units made by many other manufacturers. Perhaps a bit extreme, but one cannot help but compare it to the argument between expensive, high quality automobiles as compared to their far more reasonably priced counterparts. Everyone wants quality but affordability would always be an issue.
As the battle rages on, and as financial analysts continue to predict what's what, who's winning at the moment and who shall emerge victorious, both companies continue their expansion.
Apple has some $233 billion stockpiled. It has recently announced plans for a development office and app design center in separate sites in India. It has invested $1 billion on a ride hailing app with Uber's Chinese rival and Warren Buffet, considered one of the most successful investors on the planet, had just taken a $1 billion stake in the company.
Google in the meantime, is adapting more lifelike images to its upcoming version of Android with a keen eye on virtual reality. It has unveiled a virtual home assistant, a more advance messaging platform and has invested in fiber networks, internet balloons and self-driving cars.
No one is counting Apple out yet. In fact more seem confident in the company's health than otherwise and with good reason. For the longest time many seemed certain of Apple's defeat by Microsoft but Apples has survived, in fact thrived, coming out with twice the market value of its rival. People still line up, long ones at that, to get an iPhone every time a new one comes out.
Far from wishing myself to be counted amongst the doomsayers, but I cannot help but notice there are signs, there HAVE been signs, to warrant concern, at the very least, introspection.
Google's parent company, Alphabet, had overtaken Apple's market value early this year albeit briefly, but it had.
Google should not have caught Steve Jobs unaware knowing what he knew in the past, but IT DID.
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