“It began with the conflict of interest accusations against Schmidt insofar as the Android phone was concerned,” Dvorak writes. “Schmidt was privy to the strategies regarding the iPhone and was also part of Google, which was making a competitive phone. So, he was out! I think, Apple should have kept Schmidt, because it would be better for the two companies to work closer together than to go head-to-head.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, that way, with Apple TV as the mole’s guide, Google TV wouldn’t have sucked.
Dvorak writes, “Thus, the blood feud began. This week, it worsened when Google said it was going to kick H.264 to the curb and will remove it from its Chrome browser. This is like shoving a dagger into the heart of HTML 5 and the new video tag.”
“When will this blood feud stop or will it ever? …In the short term, Google can win a few battles and be annoying. In the midterm, Apple wins as none of what Google is doing is a real threat in any way that Apple cares about. The long term is a toss-up, but Apple probably gets the nod the way things are going,” Dvorak writes. “Just look at one single head-to-head showdown: Apple TV versus Google TV. Deconstruct these two initiatives and tell me who wins?”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Those new meds or whatever seem to working out for Johnny.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tony” for the heads up.]
LOL at MDN last take.
I am a pharmacist, and he is on some good stuff.
(Disclaimer. I really do not know what he is taking, if anything.)
Google’s base customers are only around the search engine and youtube. Apple’s and Microsoft’s base customers are not so monoculture.
“Those new meds or whatever seem to working out for Johnny”
Either that or his dwindling relevance.. I guess Leo Laporte doesn’t wanna carry him anymore
The full article Is a must read!
Especially his take on the “google TV vs ATV2”
I guess pitting Apple against MS isn’t getting the hits it use to?
I have a feeling, if Apple ever left this planet, somehow within Dvorak’s lifetime, he’d cry the hardest like a lost puppy. Deep inside, he’s a closeted Apple fan. Nah. I need stronger meds myself to buy that.
You made me laugh!
Does anyone know browser usage stats? Does Chrome really have enough influence to call removing H.264 “shoving a dagger into the heart of HTML5”? This really only affects Chrome for the desktop. We can’t consider Android phones true Chrome browsers because OEMs could easily just add an H.264 plug-in to stock Android. Plus, Google has absolutely no conviction on anything at all, so if this little power play goes south (which I think it will), they will just backtrack and make an excuse.
Apple is not the starry-eyed naiveté it was during the earlier Apple-Microsoft era. Apple was too trusting of Microsoft by licensing its jewel and it lost badly in the court case against Microsoft.
Now Apple, and Steve Jobs is a lot more wiser and wary of false friends. Google on the other hand is the upstart which has not yet learned how to behave with courtesy and its predatory behavior has not endeared itself with many savvy people. Apple has good experience but Google has hubris to guide it.
@Jay-Z
Good point. Chrome is not a key browser platform at this point, and the lack of H.264 support will help to ensure that it remains a niche product. It is far from a “dagger in the heart of HTML5” — more like a pea shooter.
Google is like that annoying 5 year old kid in the playground hanging around the cooler older kids. Like that kid Google exhibits a monkey see, monkey do behavioral pattern.
Oh Apple is going into mobile telephony…let’s jump in and copy them. What UI metaphor are they using? Huge icons that you access by swiping the screen & clicking on a graphical representation using your finger? Oh, oh, oh let’s follow that. Let’s abandon our original BlackBerry derived UI for Apple’s superior implementation.
Oh, oh, oh, Apple’s brought out an iPad. Oh, what’s that? Oh, a new market niche! Tablets! Gee, why didn’t we think of that before? <slap head> What are we missing here!? Oh, oh, oh let’s rush Honeycomb out for CES 2011.
Complete retards. Droid doesn’t.
FTA: “Apple, meanwhile, is biding its time trying to figure it all out without panicking. Apple wins.”
Absolutely insightful. And completely unexpected. What is Dvorak up to?
Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.
They are not new meds, Dvorak is back on his Prozac, Wellbutrin & martini cocktail. Usually doesn’t last long, ends up lost for months on the streets.
Dvorak lost me when he wrote “I think,…”
HTML5 has a lot more going for it than just a video codec. Until Google reconstructs it’s entire sites with Flash…
Google’s leverage is YouTube. If they decide to restrict that content to their WebM codec only, would it be enough to kill HTML5? I think not.
The [sic] is a one-word reminder why no one who values their time should read Dvorak. Apple dropped “Computer” from their name *4 years* ago. Fscking asshat.
hhmmm.. that should have read…
This is like shoving a dagger into the heart of Chrome
Another of the anti-Apple-nutcase-brigade has apologised and called himself a total idiot for his earlier statements…
The one and only Brett Errands, in the WSJ no less:
http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/stocks/could-apple-hit-1000-1294865754161/
Well,unless you’re Ballmer, Zune Tang, a birther or flat-earther, some things are just plain obvious.
@ m159:
You’ll notice that Google said absolutely nothing about YouTube. It’s this kind of thing that reveals Google’s lack of conviction. If they really wanted to kill H.264, they’d announce YouTube is converted and ready to go. Instead, they said they were announcing it ahead of time “to give everyone time to adjust” or some such nonsense. They’re really announcing it ahead of time so they can see how people react. If people balk, they can back out saying they hadn’t anticipated the overwhelming public support. Google does not have a history of taking risks.
It was clearly a conflict of interest.
Schmidt should have recused himself from every discussion of iPhone development. He didn’t have to say why — but he should have said “I can’t be a part of the discussion”.
“This is like shoving a dagger into the heart of HTML 5 and the new video tag.”
Well, it is an attempt to do so. Not supporting something in Chrome is not going to kill anything.
This isn’t necessarily anti-Apple. Apple doesn’t need Google to support the same codecs they support. At some point, there will be a better standard and Apple will push to adopt it. Better to let Google fight that battle and bring back the days of “your browser is missing this arcane codec, please download it” to its users. They can totally do the beta testing. Good times.
I give google less than one year to produce a mea culpa on their stupidity. The reason for their abandoning h264 is so non comparative to Apple’s dropping Flash – which by the way is not Open Source.
To coin a phrase, Google-ites will not get the full benefit of the web in the next few years. Flash is now but by 2013 I do not believe that it will rule. Big Mistake and a lack of forward thinking.
I’m not a pharmacist but I do play one on TV.
John is backing Apple just to see if the pissed off Google fanboys (Fandroids) can create as many hits as the pissed off Apple fanboys (Sheeple). It’s just a test. No medications were used in the planning of this test.
I miss ZuneTang.
What the heck has H.264 to do with HTML 5? HTML 5 uses Ogg. HTML is an open standard and could not support H.264. Dvorak is confused.
Google “IS” evil.
We need a Droid Tang.
Uh-oh…..has Andrea Mitchell seen this article…?
One of the problems I see is that everyone has forgotten who is MPEG LA LLC is and whom are in the MPEG LA AVC/H.264 Licensor pool. According to MPEG LA’s own documentation the licensor pool members control if, when and how much royalties will be charged in the AVC/H.264 Licensors pool the largest members are Apple Inc, Microsoft Inc., Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Panasonic Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sharp Corporation, Sony Corporation, Victor Company of Japan, Limited, Toshiba Corporation, Sony Corporation and Cisco Systems Canada IP Holdings Company all of these pool members and some of the smaller ones all have a vested interest in keeping AVC/H.264 Free while every member in the pool as a say the major patent holders typical get what they want. In the last round of talks by the pool members smaller pool members that wanted to start charging royalties were compensated in cash by the bigger players to agree to the 2015 extension of the free licensing. In 2015 if you think it will change, I think your betting on a dead horse that never leaves the gate. In 2014 the pool will vote again to leave AVC/H.264 free and again the members that have a vested interest in keeping it free will compensate the smaller members in the pool for an extension. Only when the AVC/H.264 patents are no longer relevant will a royalty be imposed.
The whole Apple-Google-Microsoft triad reminds me of George Orwell’s book, “1984” — the three totalitarian states (Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia) in constant war with shifting alliances and historical revisionism. They were so strong that they fought over the “disputed zone” as none of them could be defeated by each other, or even when two joined together to fight against one.
Funny how Microsoft a few years ago was the “enemy of the state” (of Mac)!
Dvorak’s mellowing. He actually wrote an informative
article.
@TonyBanks
As I was reading this, I got to thinking I hadn’t seen ZuneTang in quite a while.
But I have to disagree with you. I don’t miss him/her/it at all.
I was one of the many people who asked him to STFU years ago.
google just killin itself these day…
Confused on h.264.
Does Adobe Flash not encode the video file using the same or a varient similar to the h.264/h.263 codec? It’s a container with media layers.
As for Google VO8 taste just as great codec again, it’s a derivative of the very same codec. So h.264 lives on inside whatever housing package some company wishes to dream no?