Katie MarsalIn a recent conversation with Charlie Rose of BusinessWeek, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt talked about his company's relationship with Apple. Rose asked about tension between Google and Apple since Google began partnering with smartphone makers for the Android mobile operating system.
"Apple is a company we both partner and compete with," Schmidt said. "We do a search deal with them, recently extended, and we're doing all sorts of things in maps and things like that."
He continued: "So the sum of all this is that two large corporations, both of which are important, both of which I care a lot about, will [remain] pretty close. But Android was around earlier than iPhone."
Schmidt also characterized the iPhone as a "closed" model controlled by Apple. He portrayed Android as a "turnkey solution with similar capabilities" to the iPhone, but one that gives vendors the "alternative" they seek.
Early this year, rumors suggested that Apple was in talks with Microsoft to make Bing the default search engine for the iPhone. Though that never came to be, the option to utilize Bing search was added to iOS 4.
However, Google has remained the default search provider for iOS devices, and Schmidt's recent comments would suggest that the company will remain the standard search provider for some time to come.
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57 Comments
Yeah, I totally remember how Android was out in the marketplace redefining the smartphone category long before iPhone. Right, Eric, right.
By your logic, I actually started working on a new smartphone concept 21 years ago, so actually, my project that I'll be calling "Schmidtee" came before "Android", you pathetic buffoon.
Yeah, I totally remember how Android was out in the marketplace redefining the smartphone category long before iPhone. Right, Eric, right.
By your logic, I actually started working on a new smartphone concept 21 years ago, so actually, my project that I'll be calling "Schmidtee" came before "Android", you pathetic buffoon.
Chill man, grab a coffee and take a walk.
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I think he does exaggerate a bit. Maybe work on Android was public before iPhone OS was public, but Apple is so secretive, nobody outside of Apple knows when they first started work on it. Things like this all overlap anyway. OS X is part of iOS and similarly I'm sure, Chrome/Android/Chrome OS all have quite a bit of overlap. Hopefully this indicates the relationship between Apple and Google is reaching an equilibrium and that the tension might be easing.
Yeah, I totally remember how Android was out in the marketplace redefining the smartphone category long before iPhone. Right, Eric, right.
By your logic, I actually started working on a new smartphone concept 21 years ago, so actually, my project that I'll be calling "Schmidtee" came before "Android", you pathetic buffoon.
Android was publicly announced in November 2007, 5 months after iPhone hit the market. One can imagine how long they were in development for, but considering Google only acquired Android Inc in July 2005, I imagine iPhone was in development at this point, and the move into making Android a mobile operating system based on the Linux kernel came after Google's acquisition (though former Android Inc employees lead the team).