apple google grudge
2 weeks ago
Published January 25, 2023 by

FT: Apple still harbours a grudge against Google

From Patrick McGee's "Apple beefs up smartphone services in ‘silent war’ against Google" ($) posted Wednesday by the Financial Times:

Apple is taking steps to separate its mobile operating system from features offered by Google parent Alphabet, making advances around maps, search and advertising that has created a collision course between the Big Tech companies.

The two Silicon Valley giants have been rivals in the smartphone market since Google acquired and popularized the Android operating system in the 2000s.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs called Android “a stolen product” that mimicked Apple’s iOS mobile software, then declared “thermonuclear war” on Google, ousting the search company’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt from the Apple board of directors in 2009.

While the rivalry has been less noisy since, two former Apple engineers said the iPhone maker has held a “grudge” against Google ever since. One of these people said Apple is still engaged in a “silent war” against its arch-rival. It is doing so by developing features that could allow the iPhone-maker to further separate its products from services offered by Google.

My take: Not much new here.

5 Comments

  1. Tommo_UK said:
    I’m not sure it’s much of a war. Google is just collateral damage of Apple’s innovation and success and Google’s lack of an ability to monetise anything excerpt search and advertising. It squanders R&D on vanity projects which come to nothing.

    Anything which lights a fire in the form of good rhetoric is good for the narrative though, so soldiers march on!

    7
    January 25, 2023
  2. Miguel Ancira said:
    Never understood why Steve let ES on the board thinking Google would not do the same thing. I am sure it was planned by him so as not to have a monopoly.

    2
    January 25, 2023
    • William Baggs said:
      My guess is that Steve was itching to show off to ES. He did it by bringing him on the Apple board. I also suspect that the iPhone project was super secret and would never have otherwise been shown to him. Steve thought he could work his magic on Dr Schmidt and was deeply hurt by the betrayal. I remember Steve talking of ideas “leaking up” in a different context but thought later that he must have been thinking about Android. It has been a long journey but it is working out for Apple and the consumers have woken up to the evil of big data. I bet Steve would have lived a bit longer had this betrayal not happened. I doubt however that Apple would have been in a better place had SJ not passed. He was a mixed bag.

      1
      January 25, 2023

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