Apple and Google once had what “looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Brad Stone and Miguel Helft report for The New York Times. “Today, such warmth is in short supply. Mr. Jobs, Mr. Schmidt and their companies are now engaged in a gritty battle royale over the future and shape of mobile computing and cellphones, with implications that are reverberating across the digital landscape.”
“In the last six months, Apple and Google have jousted over acquisitions, patents, directors, advisers and iPhone applications. Mr. Jobs and Mr. Schmidt have taken shots at each other’s companies in the media and in private exchanges with employees,” Stone and Helft report.
“While the discord between Apple and Google is in part philosophical and involves enormous financial stakes, the battle also has deeply personal overtones and echoes the ego-fueled fisticuffs that have long characterized technology industry feuds,” Stone and Helft report.
“Yet according to interviews with two dozen industry watchers, Silicon Valley investors and current and former employees at both companies — most of whom requested anonymity to protect their jobs or business relationships — the clash between Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Jobs offers an unusually vivid display of enmity and ambition,” Stone and Helft report. “At the heart of their dispute is a sense of betrayal: Mr. Jobs believes that Google violated the alliance between the companies by producing cellphones that physically, technologically and spiritually resembled the iPhone. In short, he feels that his former friends at Google picked his pocket.”
Stone and Helft report, “One well-connected Silicon Valley investor, who did not want to be identified talking about the Google-Apple feud, says he is stunned by the level of rancor he’s witnessed. ‘It’s World War III. Amazing animosity is motivating two of the most powerful people in the industry,’ he says. ‘This is emotional. This is the biggest ego battle in history. It’s incendiary.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This time around, there’s no poorly-written contract signed by an unprepared sugared water salesbozo.” Wherever Google infringes on their IP, Apple should make them pay dearly.
Google’s going to rue the day they got greedy by deciding to try to work against Apple instead of with them.
• We’ve been pushing the state-of-the-art in every facet of design… We’ve been innovating like crazy for the last few years on this and we’ve filed for over 200 patents for all of the inventions in iPhone. And we intend to protect them. – Apple CEO Steve Jobs when unveiling iPhone, January 9, 2007
• We like competition as long as they don’t rip off our IP, in which case we will go after them. We will not stand for having our IP ripped-off and we will use any weapons at our disposal [to stop it]. – Apple COO Tim Cook, January 21, 2009
Google may be biting off a lot more than it can chew.
A war with Apple, a war with the Chinese government and an FTC disapproval of it’s AdMob merger are just the first huge battles and the beginnings of Google fragmenting it’s focuses and expending huge financial resources.
Couple that with Google spreading itself very thin by branching out into virtually every aspect of everyone’s technology and market that it can get it’s hands on, when it’s main asset is a “search engine” which drives it’s advertising revenue , may actually be distractions that will cause it to start self destructing.
At the very least Google will tarnish the aura of the white knight it has enjoyed and cultivated, with huge fanfare to create a dark image for itself, that has no luster, fanfare or popular support.
These are not battles Google wants or needs.
For what seemed like the smartest company in the world, Google has shown us recently some pretty dumb moves…
The problem is google doesn’t believe in pattens.
I haven’t ditched google yet. But it is inevitable. I don’t like where they are going.
Very unfortunate. They should be allied to break the MSFT operating system monopoly instead of fighting each other…
Speaking of dumb moves…
Buzz
Enough said.
Hmm, I still love both companies, and I think this kind of war is no good for neither the one nor the other companies. Google and Apple have still lot of values and principles in common, like innovation as the engine of moving forward and a love for perfectionism in designing good and simple user interfaces and algorithms.
F#*K GOOGLE.
And in fact, I think Google has any right to do his own mobile operating system, why shouldn’t they. If Apple is a bit concerned about Android grabbing market shares from the iPhone OS, then they should concentrate on what they can do best, which is innovate and continue to improve the user experiece and their mobile OS, instead of starting personal industry wars.
In regards of multitouch, I would say: this is just not the type of technology, where you should insist on the patents you have. Apple can be very proud to have invented it and they have their place in the tech hall of fame for this invention. But multitouch is such a basic technology, that it would prevent innovation in the industry if it stays in the hand of one company. It would be like a patent on the computer mouse, preventing every OS or hardware system from using a mouse. It just makes sense that multitouch becomes standard for all mobile operating system, multitouch is just to generic no to be. Apple should be so generous to let this happen. They have enough competitive advantage through their pace of innovation hardly anyone can follow.
@breeze,
Sounds like deja vu.
MS all over again.
Google will really have to fcuk up to disappear from my life.
Even though Google is clearly better than Microsoft, it still is a little appalling that they blatantly copied the same technology that made the iPhone great. Has anyone ever thought what phones may be like today if not for the iPhone?
What happened to “Don’t be evil”?
The times they are a changin…
So if I were to boycott Google because I think they are turning into a shady company who else could I use as my search engine other than the dorky Bing?
@ PlomlompomII,
“But multi-touch is such a basic technology, that it would prevent innovation in the industry if it stays in the hand of one company.”
If it is a basic technology why the hell didn’t Xerox stumble upon it in the late 70s/early 80s? Multi touch was just invented recently by Apple and/or one of Apple’s recent acquisitions. It is new. It is patented. It is protected. It is not basic. When it comes to computers, the command line is basic. Later on, the mouse became basic. Then the track pad became basic. Maybe soon, multi-touch will become basic but it’s not there yet.
Just because your favorite OS coding company didn’t come up with it first, does not mean that Android or Web OS or Windows 7 Phone should be able to copy it for free. It is Apple’s IP and Apple does not license IP. Let them use their own innovations, multi-touch is not for sale.
If multitouch is so basic, why didn’t anyone else develop it? I can’t believe people don’t grasp the concept of protecting what you created with your money. Apple isn’t in business to get pats on the back and give away it’s innovation. It’s a business. Again I say, if multitouch is so damn basic and logical why wasn’t it used before by say, nokia?
Apple locks it’s customers in a some what nice cage but it’s a cage. Google gives people including Apple customers a lot of tools and information for freedom. Apple would be worse than Microsoft if it had the same side. If the iPhone is not unlockable or jailbreakable, forget it. Apple’s worshppers are like on drug. Posting from my unlocked jailbroken iPhone. Waiting for the arrival of the mutitouch NexusOne…
@evilgoogle
There are more search engines in the world than just Google and Bing. Ever hear of Yahoo? Ask.com?
deepdish, “The problem is google doesn’t believe in pattens.”
Patten (shoe) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Pattens are protective overshoes worn from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century. Pattens were worn outdoors over a normal shoe.
Google may need protective lawyers.
Fanboyz unite. Typical reading these days.
Google is a one hit wonder. That is really their trouble. They came up with a nifty search engine waay ahead of the competition. What have they done lately that is exciting in a bottom line kind of way? Crickets.
Anyone notice that the battle is between Apple and Google with no mention of Microsoft. Where they at? Times change.
What you fail to grasp is that the average computer user appreciates being locked in a cage as you call it because of its usability. Are you just dumb or blind to the problems with the fracturing of Android already?
I LOVE the little fight graphic in the article.
I am surprised that anyone could patent multi-touch. I personally saw multi-touch demonstrated back in 1985 in Scottsdale, AZ. A little engineering company had just developed a new line of color workstations they had just introduced to the market.
The company invited my sophomore high school programming class to show us the future. Needless to say we were IMPRESSED. Having just seen a 1984 Mac for the first time two weeks earlier our imaginations were going wild with the future of computing. (Mice, pull down menus, graphics, icons, touch screens with multi-touch). All these inventions were incredible! Although I did not know it at the time, these demonstrations shaped my career – I have been in the computer field ever since.
Patents should be defended and protected! I am just surprised that anyone could patent multi-touch. It was clearly in limited use in Scottsdale, AZ back in 1985.
The iPhone OS is a “closed” system for some very practical reasons. The single biggest is safety from viruses. To this point there is absolutely no fear of a virus, which makes for a care-free user experience. What makes me laugh is the idea that anyone would bitch about cell phones being too closed. Before the iPhone this would have been absurd.
‘It’s World War III. Amazing animosity is motivating two of the most powerful people in the industry,’ he says. ‘This is emotional. This is the biggest ego battle in history. It’s incendiary.’
And, this is all Eric Schmidt’s fault.
He had inside information gained from the time he served on Apple’s board and then he used it to formulate an iPhone-like phone for Google… in other words, he pulled a Bill Gates (a la Windows).
This is the second time an Apple ‘partner’ has done this and Steve is as pissed as hell for getting blindsided twice.
Expect the animosity and bitterness between these two companies to get worse. With Apple’s US$40+ billion war chest, there will be plenty of lawyers involved in protecting Apple’s IP.
MaWo: ‘person’. As in, ‘Schmidt = non grata’