Apple and Google used to be the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie of the tech world: beautiful beyond reason, wealthy beyond measure, and totally in love. So how did it come to this?
In 2006 Google CEO Eric Schmidt was named to Apple's board of directors. In 2007 Apple and Google took the top two spots in BusinessWeek's ranking of the World's Most Innovative Companies. Apple built Google search into Safari and the iPhone, and incorporated Google Maps into many of its applications. Google took pains to make their applications work for Mac users. They both hated Microsoft. It seemed like a match made in heaven. But little by little, things changed.
In mid-2007, there was a rumor spreading around the valley that Google and Apple would team up on a cloud computing initiative, possibly by replacing Apple's neglected .Mac service with a branded version of Google Apps. Eric Schmidt seemed to favor such an arrangement when he told Wired News, "We're a perfect back end to the problems that they're trying to solve." But he went further—probably too far. "They have very good judgment on user interface and people. But they don't have this supercomputer [that Google has], which is the data centers. What they have is a manufacturing business that's doing quite well."
Telling Steve Jobs that Apple is "a manufacturing business that's doing quite well" is like telling Bill Gates that Windows is a "poorly-debugged set of device drivers". One year later, Apple responded by launching MobileMe, a set of applications that includes online email, contacts, and calendars. Like Google Apps, but with over-the-air iPhone syncing. But the sparring wasn't over.
At the end of 2007, only five months after Apple's spectacular release of the original iPhone, Google announced Android, a competitive mobile platform. Steve Jobs responded by telling the New York Times that Android would "divide [Google] and people who want to be their partners." Like all celebrity feuds, the one between Apple and Google had moved into public view and was now taking place in the press.
In early 2009, Google announced that it had ported Picasa, its iPhoto replacement, to the Mac. Apple announced iWork.com, which is similar to but not the same as Google Docs. By this time no one was surprised by the passive aggression.
Yesterday Google launched Google Sync for iPhone, which adds the over-the-air sync functionality (perversely, using a Microsoft protocol both companies had to license) to Google Apps that has until now been the defining feature of MobileMe. Suddenly Cupertino and Mountain View seem a lot farther apart.
Celebrity marriages are hard to maintain and often end in very messy, very public divorces. But for the moment at least, Apple and Google are still together. Eric Schmidt still sits on Apple's board, but now recuses himself from mobile phone discussions at board meetings. Presumably he'll need to start doing the same when the subjects of online productivity applications—or photo applications for that matter—come up.
Apple and Google are two of my favorite companies. I hope they find a way to stay together. (And if they don't, as my friend Chris Selland points out, who gets custody of Al Gore?)
Charlie enjoyed reading your pop-culture perceptive on the Cupertino-Mountain view alliance.
Posted by: Jijesh | February 27, 2009 at 03:42 PM