How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple

#11

Post by batgaijin » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:37 AM UTC

wklauss wrote: post #6

redthrowaway wrote: post #3

The historical revisionism among the Appleistas is a bit disconcerting. This is not a matter of the "suits" overruling Jobs' "pirates". Apple's current anti-Google jihad is Jobs' baby. This is what he wanted. Now, it's entirely possible that he would never have authorized iOS shipping with a broken maps application, but to suggest that Apple's current direction is anything other than his idea and his impetus is naive…

Here we go again. Other than Jobs tantrum in his book and countless of headlines and blog post, where is this fantastic "jihad"? I see the same level of love/hate between Apple and Google than between Microsoft/Google or Google/Amazon. We just overanalyze it to disturbing extremes, but thats about it.

Are you serious?

What do you call the patent war between Samsung, HTC and every manufacturer of Android phones and Apple besides a proxy war?

Re: How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple

#12

Post by ChuckMcM » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:38 AM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #2

First, to get it out of the way: People are very right in mocking Apple. They deserve every bit of that. What they delivered with their Maps app is embarrassing. I do not want to defend that. The problem, however, is that this article assumes something to be unequivocally true even though we do not know whether it is: That Apple decided to build their own maps in order to hurt Google. It takes two to play. Both Apple…

I've said it elsewhere, I think this is a better explanation of the Maps fiasco than saying that Apple thought they could pull it off. We don't know of course, but we do know that Apple suing Google's OEMs has irritated Google's inner circle. So Apple can ship Google Maps without making call outs to Google's servers, and Google has implemented a payment scheme this year, recipe for reciprocity. [1]

[1] Ok so generally reciprocity is mutual benefit but I couldn't resist the alliteration.

Re: How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple

#13

Post by warmwaffles » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:39 AM UTC

wklauss wrote: post #5

I'm afraid the obsession is not on Apple over Google but on the media and blogs over Apple and every single thing they do. Of course Apple will watch its competitor closely, especially since both are now headed in same direction. And of course they need competing services. Likewise, I'm sure that Google is watching closely every move Apple makes. But nobody in their right mind would say Google has an "obsession" with…

Google maps sucked when it first came out. It will be fixed and both applications will improve. I think this is will only turn out two awesome map applications rather than just relying on google for everything.

Re: How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple

#14

Post by wklauss » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:45 AM UTC

batgaijin wrote: post #11

wklauss wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here we go again. Other than Jobs tantrum in his book and countless of headlines and blog post, where is this fantastic "jihad"? I see the same level of love/hate between Apple and Google than between Microsoft/Google or Google/Amazon. We just overanalyze it to disturbing extremes, but thats about it.

Are you serious? What do you call the patent war between Samsung, HTC and every manufacturer of Android phones and Apple besides a proxy war?

I will call it a patent war, not a jihad (I'm tired of reading religious analogies attached to technology, they are an easy trick to perform on the readers mind)

And, you know, there are PLENTY of companies involved in patent wars and we don't routinely position them on the "obsessed against their competition" category. They are just litigious. In some of the examples you mention the Android manufacturers are the ones suing Apple, not the other way around. Are they "obsessed" with Apple?. Are they carrying a jihad against Cupertino, as well?

Re: How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple

#15

Post by brisance » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:47 AM UTC

batgaijin wrote: post #11

wklauss wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here we go again. Other than Jobs tantrum in his book and countless of headlines and blog post, where is this fantastic "jihad"? I see the same level of love/hate between Apple and Google than between Microsoft/Google or Google/Amazon. We just overanalyze it to disturbing extremes, but thats about it.

Are you serious? What do you call the patent war between Samsung, HTC and every manufacturer of Android phones and Apple besides a proxy war?

It's overblown because if Apple were really upset at Samsung they wouldn't be supplying parts for iPhone 5. Remember, according to court filings Apple approached Samsung first to try to settle it before resorting to legal means.

Re: How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple

#16

Post by snogglethorpe » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:49 AM UTC

wklauss wrote: post #5

I'm afraid the obsession is not on Apple over Google but on the media and blogs over Apple and every single thing they do. Of course Apple will watch its competitor closely, especially since both are now headed in same direction. And of course they need competing services. Likewise, I'm sure that Google is watching closely every move Apple makes. But nobody in their right mind would say Google has an "obsession" with…

> If you cannot go forward on the current path, and standing still is not an option, the only possible move is take a step back and find a new route. Simple as that. Painful, sure, but it had to be done sooner or later.

Of course, they have good reasons to make their own mapping infrastructure. However, working on it does not mean they have to release it before it's ready (and it clearly isn't). They could have used the old Google maps app for iOS 6 (maybe with some surface tweaks), while continuing to work on getting their own maps into some sort of reasonable shape. Maybe they would have had to pay inflated fees to Google or something, but they certainly have the money to do that in the short-term. Of course the Google maps app has its own issues, but people are very used to it; continuing to use it on iOS 6, wouldn't have taken people by surprise or generated such an enormous amount of negative press for Apple.

The other possibility is that they didn't realize how poor a shape their maps were in. If that's the case, it's far more worrying, because it means they're in way over their heads, and suggests that the effort required to fix things is likely to be enormous.

Apple is usually closed mouthed, and tends to adopt a position of "trust us, really, we know what we're doing." Unfortunately that doesn't work so well in a case like this where they pretty clearly don't know what they're doing...

Re: How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple

#17

Post by andreyf » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:50 AM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #2

First, to get it out of the way: People are very right in mocking Apple. They deserve every bit of that. What they delivered with their Maps app is embarrassing. I do not want to defend that. The problem, however, is that this article assumes something to be unequivocally true even though we do not know whether it is: That Apple decided to build their own maps in order to hurt Google. It takes two to play. Both Apple…

the old Maps app was perpetually stuck in 2007 while Android phones gained 3D views and (much more important) vector maps and turn by turn navigation

I don't need or care about 3D view or vector maps or turn-by-turn navigation (although I see how the last one could be useful for a lot of users). I, like most city dwellers, need directions that take public transit into account. I can't believe Apple released an "upgrade" which downgrades such critical functionality.

Re: How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple

#18

Post by ef4 » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:50 AM UTC

The argument that Apple needs their own map for strategic reasons is fine, but it doesn't explain why they needed to ship it before it was any good. I can imagine three explanations:

(1) They think they need to start gathering user-generated map content. "Add your business to Apple Maps if you want iPhone users to find it."

(2) An internal struggle at Apple. If the supporters of the maps project thought it was at risk of getting dropped, they might have pushed it out the door to make it harder for the company to back down.

(3) They didn't realize quite how bad it was. Just because customers started finding hilarious problems on days one doesn't mean they're trivially easy to find. With enough eyes, all bugs are shallow.

Re: How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple

#19

Post by joeblau » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:53 AM UTC

I agree that the obsession against Google is hurting Apple, but I also feel that Apple is not the only company with a vendetta against Google. Twitter, Facebook, Yammer, Mozilla, and Dropbox are a few names that come to mind off of the top of my head. One thing that all of these companies have in common is that they had a product, and Google came though (or is coming) with its machine to copy/paste it as a Google product (Android, Buzz, Google+, Chrome, Google Drive).

Granted--That's what Google does; They take a product like search, mail, or maps and make it a lot better. Most of what Google creates up is top notch, but I think that Google may actually be the company isolating themselves from the rest of the software development community in the long run.

Re: How Apple's Obsession with Google Is Hurting Apple

#20

Post by Matsta » Mon, Sep 24, 2012, 3:53 AM UTC

Ahh yes, so we are all really going to ditch Facebook and Twitter for Google+ soon? I kinda doubt it

"Although Google+ may have as little as 10% of the active users of Facebook, it’s growing faster than Facebook ever did. And more importantly, Google+ has a vastly superior user experience to Facebook and has a much brighter longterm future, in my opinion."