In a filing Friday in federal court in Washington, Apple said confidential competitive secrets it provided to the U.S. Justice Department for the government’s antitrust probe of Google should not be shared with the search giant’s in-house lawyers because they’re “competitively sensitive.”
David McLaughlin for Bloomberg News:
Apple said it gave the Justice Department “competitively sensitive material” about its negotiations with Alphabet Inc.’s Google and that allowing lawyers inside Google to see the information would result in “material harm” to Apple.
Apple said in the filing it doesn’t oppose Google’s outside lawyers seeing the material but disclosure to Google’s in-house lawyers “would directly implicate future business dealings between Apple and Google, provide Google with a substantial advantage over Apple in negotiations, and potentially disadvantage competitor search engines that negotiate with Apple.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple should kill the default search deal with Google, not because there’s anything illegal with the deal – there isn’t – but it would help induce meaningful competition back into the online search market. In fact, Apple should kill the Google deal and introduce their own search engine. No defaults:, let Apple product users choose their default search engine during set up and make it even easier to change it at will.
Why does Google pay Apple billions of dollars annually to be Safari’s default search engine? Because Apple has the best customers in the world and Google’s Android doesn’t. Google needs access to discerning people with means because they simply don’t have it with the great unwashed who settle for IP- and privacy-trampling iPhone knockoffs. — MacDailyNews, February 12, 2019
Android is pushed to users who are, in general:
a) confused about why they should be choosing an iPhone over an inferior knockoff and therefore might be less prone to understand/explore their devices’ capabilities or trust their devices with credit card info for shopping; and/or
b) enticed with “Buy One Get One Free,” “Buy One, Get Two or More Free,” or similar ($100 Gift Cards with Purchase) offers.
Neither type of customer is the cream of the crop when it comes to successful engagement or coveted demographics; closer to the bottom of the barrel than the top, in fact. Android can be widespread and still demographically inferior precisely because of the way in which and to whom Android devices are marketed. Unending BOGO promos attract a seemingly unending stream of cheapskate freetards just as inane, pointless TV commercials about robots or blasting holes in concrete walls attract meatheads and dullards, not exactly the best demographics unless you’re peddling muscle building powders or grease monkey overalls.
Google made a crucial mistake: They gave away Android to “partners” who pushed and continue to push the product into the hands of the exact opposite type of user that Google needs for Android to truly thrive. Hence, Android is a backwater of second-rate, or worse, app versions that are only downloaded when free or ad-supported – but the Android user is notoriously cheap, so the ads don’t sell for much because they don’t work very well. You’d have guessed that Google would have understood this, but you’d have guessed wrong.
Google built a platform that depends heavily on advertising support, but sold it to the very type of customer who’s the least likely to patronize ads.
iOS users are the ones who buy apps, so developers focus on iOS users. iOS users buy products, so accessory makers focus on iOS users. iOS users have money and the proven will to spend it, so vehicle makers focus on iOS users. Etcetera. Android can have the Hee Haw demographic. Apple doesn’t want it or need it; it’s far more trouble than it’s worth. – MacDailyNews, November 26, 2012
“All men are created equal.”
Well, not when it comes to users of smartphones and tablets…
The bottom line: Those who settle for Android devices are not equal to iOS users. The fact is that iOS users are worth significantly more than Android settlers to developers, advertisers, third-party accessory makers (speakers, cases, chargers, cables, etc.), vehicle makers, musicians, TV show producers, movie producers, book authors, carriers, retailers, podcasters… The list goes on and on.
The quality of the customer matters. A lot.
Facile “analyses” that look only at market (unit) share, equating one Android settler to one iOS user, make a fatal error by incorrectly equating users of each platform one-to-one.
When it comes to mobile operating systems, all users are simply not equal. – SteveJack, MacDailyNews, November 15, 2014