At one point he states: "Google charges Apple for having Maps loaded onto that Apple hardware. And as I’ve noted before, this is a substantial sum: rather more than Google currently makes from Android for example." but the quote he uses (his own) to support this actually combines search and maps with no indication of the proportion of revenue between the two products: "The figures also suggest that Apple devices such…
I remember there was a lot of misunderstanding about Google's revenues from Android when everyone started writing articles about it a few months ago. Most of their "facts" came from 2010, when Google still had like 4% of the US market, and Apple had like 20-23%. And somehow they extrapolated that to mean that Google also makes 4x less from Android right now . But Google has grown much faster than Apple since then, an…
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/12/business/la-fi-googl...
In the US, Google accounted for 28% of smartphones versus Apple's 21%.
Apple opened its App Store in July 10, 2008. Google opened up its Android Market in 22 October 2008.
If you follow Apple's conference calls, you'd realize that Apple gives frequent updates of the amount being paid out to developers. In the last quarter, Apple paid developers approx. $500 million. So far as I can see, Google doesn't release figures for what they pay Android developers in either app or ad revenues.
If Google was to be more transparent with their revenues and how much Android developers receive, then there could be a genuine accounting for how each platform is doing, but ironically in these instances Apple is far more open than Google.