Apple, Google, and Skynet.

Ever since Eric Scmidt joined Apple’s board of directors I’ve had a feeling that the combination of Apple and Google would become Skynet. The friendly ties between Google and Apple led into a still ongoing investigation of the two companies, as if two companies are closely linked for profit, it is considered illegal.

While Apple does tend to have a slight amount of information leaked, it is usually not 100% accurate. Take the 09 iPod event for instance, There was huge speculation, leaked pictures of cases showing off camera holes in the top centers of the Nanos and Touches, there ended up being no camera in the touch, as that would be competition for it’s own iPhone, and there was a camera in the Nano, in a different spot than the cases had shown. The innovations that come out of Apple are groundbreaking, they deigned batteries for the MBPs with square cells instead of cyllindrical ones, utilizing around 30% more space that was otherwise wasted. The multitouch trackpad was an incredible innovation, and after using Heather’s MBP consistently, I actually prefer it to a mouse.

Google however started as a cute little search engine. They have lately become an advertising and map giant, along with many other services as well. Google adsense has revolutionized online advertising. Since Google is the most popular search engine, they know what you are interested in. If they know what you’re interested in, they know what to try and sell to you. Therefore advertisements are more appealing to you, leading to more clicks, leading to more money for Google, the website you were browing when you clicked it, and potentially, the site you are directed to after clicking it. Google also has Google Maps and Google Earth, two similar services with different purposes. The introduction of streetview was incredible in itself, and still amazes me when I use it, being able to look at your local town square or Seattle’s town square. Documents is an extremely useful service they offer, and it like most Google services, is free as well, as compared to Microsoft Office. Reader and YouTube are things I use daily, as does a lot of the world, and I can’t wait until Wave is out of the invite only stage and I can delete my FaceBook. These aren’t anywhere near all of the services offered by Google, as I’ve only touched base on everything Google has their hand in, but you get an idea of what all they do.

Recently though, Apple’s ties with Google has gotten sour. With the rejection of the Google Voice application, Apple’s recent acquisition of a map company, and Google’s ventures into territory that directly competes with Apple, there seems to be a lot of tension between the two companies that wasn’t there 6 months ago. Apple buying the maps company means that it can use it’s own maps for location tagging in iPhoto, the Maps application on the iPhone, and they can potentially venture into the same territory Google is dominating in with its own maps, though it will likely never be successful as Google’s own maps. The rejection of Google Voice has been met with hostility by consumers moreso than Google, seeing as AT&T tends to have some power over Apple’s own App store. Revently though AT&T announced that it would allow VOIP applications to work on it’s 3G network, so there is a chance that GV could eventually appear on the App Store, though this is too far after the fact I believe, and we probably won’t see GV anytime soon on the iPhone. Another big thing with this is Eric Schmidt’s resignation from Apple’s board of directors because of conflicts of interest. Seeing as he is the CEO of Google this makes sense, Google has Chrome as their Safari competiton, along with it sharing the name with their new operating system that is targeted towards netbooks. Android is another big factor, as it directly competes with the iPhone. Schmidt was missing out on more and more meetings because they were about the same types of ventures that Google was starting to dabble in. I found out last week that Arthur Levinson, board member for both Apple and Google, who served as an indepenent member of both boards, has resigned from Google.

Apple seems to have been the more aggressive in ridding itself of Google than vice versa, and while I see the reasoning for this being that they need the FCC off of their back, and the genuine conflict of interests, it saddens me to see two of my favorite companies break their ties like this.

And for the record, I still believe Google will become Skynet, but Apple won’t be a part of it.

Picture Via Tubaloo.

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Tags: Apple, FCC, Google, Levinson, Schmidt, SkyNet

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