Apple and Google used to be firm friends with Google CEO Eric Schmidt sitting on Apple’s board. But since he left and Android arrived, the enmity between the two firms has been growing steadily.
Steve Jobs slammed Google’s unofficial “don’t be evil” mission statement and all traces of Google branding have been wiped from iPhone OS 4.0. The cold war between Google and Apple is about to heat up and Steve Jobs has a range of secret weapons ready to deploy. Here’s our guide to the ones you should watch out for…
iAds
For all the cool products Google makes, most of its cash comes from one thing – search. iAds are a direct attack on that business with Apple angling to get advertisers hooked on interactive ads in apps. Steve Jobs addressed this battle with Google directly during the iPhone OS 4.0 launch: “We tried to buy AdMob but Google snatched them up because they didn’t want us to have them, so we bought a smaller company, Quattro.”
With Google facing the threat that US regulators at the FTC will block its deal to buy AdMob, it could struggle to compete while Apple motors along with the introduction of iAds. Steve Jobs was also pretty cutting about the worth of search advertising on mobile devices anyhow: “On a mobile device, search is not where it’s at…[people are] using apps to get data on the internet, not generalised search.”
Lala
While Google gobbled up AdMob to stop Apple from having it, Apple did much the same thing with music streaming service LaLa. Google had wanted to grab Lala to further bake its music streaming skills into Google Music Search and potentially Google Chrome OS.
With Lala, Apple is getting ready to put iTunes up into the cloud and offer a service that will combat the threat from rivals like Spotify. By grabbing Lala for itself and stopping Google from getting its hands on it, Apple staved off the threat of a Google branded streaming service for the time being.
Maps
During the iPad launch, Steve Jobs was careful just to talk about maps in general and avoided any reference to the fact that both the iPad and the iPhone currently use Google Maps. We may find soon that Google Maps is ditched altogether from the iPhone OS as Apple has its own mapping firm waiting in the wings.
Apple acquired mapping software developer PlaceBase in September 2009. PlaceBase’s mapping solution, PushPin, didn’t cover as many locations as Google Maps but offers a higher level of customisation and more layers than the search giant’s solution. Apple is bound to be beavering away on a new mapping app and Google Maps’ days on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad look like they’re numbered.
MobileMe
Google has colonised the cloud with Google Apps and Gmail but Apple has its own cloud-based suite of services in MobileMe. While it has failed to make much of it so far with the growing numbers of iPhone and iPad users out there, further MobileMe integration makes sense. Apple could even make MobileMe free to fight Google’s grip on iPhone owners’ email accounts.
Google fired its own shot in the email battle with Apple in February when it snapped up reMail, an iPhone app that let you store your entire email account on your phone to speed up searching. The reMail app was pulled from the iTunes App Store and looks likely to be reborn as part of an Android email app.
Apple TV
The next big battle ground in the Apple vs Google battle looks likely to be your living room. Apple has long called the Apple TV “a hobby” but with the news that Google plans to launch Google TV with a coalition of firms including Intel and Sony, that’s likely to change.
Apple has long been rumoured to be planning iTunes Replay, a cloud film and TV service for iTunes. Buying Lala and it’s own huge data centre make that look pretty certain. Rumours of the iPhone OS heading to Apple TV are also point to Apple’s designs on your gogglebox.
Bing
The idea that Microsoft’s Bing search engine could replace Google as the default web crawler on the iPhone and iPad would once have seemed unthinkable. But today, Microsoft is no longer Apple’s biggest foe. Apple makes cash from every search via the iPhone and iPad as Google shares ad revenue with it.
Bing has already made its way onto the iPhone with the Bing iPhone app but with references to Google gone from iPhone OS 4.0, it could slide into the gap. For that to happen though, Microsoft would have to be willing to share even more of its ad spoils with Apple and cope with the inevitable wailing from fanboys.
