The nets are abuzz with the renewed rumors that Google is planning on releasing a serious competitor to the iPhone in early 2010, causing people to speculate on exactly what form the Google phone will take. The question we really need to ask however is how will a phone designed from the ground up to use all of Google’s products affect their working relationship with Apple?
The Google phone has been a persistent rumor since before the announcement of Android and with yesterdays announcement from Techcrunch that the Google phone is in fact real and should be coming in early 2010, the rumor mill has gone crazy. Techcrunch says that the phone will be designed by Google from the ground up to run Android better than any of the current crop of devices using the smartphone OS, Droid included. This stands to reason and will probably be the only way that Google stands to make Apple really concerned, as they finally take the stance that Apple has for years, that the only way to make your software perform how you want it to is to make your own hardware.
Rumored to be an ultra-slim device that outstrips even the next-gen HTC “Dragon/Passion” device that is currently being used by Google execs, it looks like the most likely candidates for manufacture of the Google phone look to be LG or Samsung and with many Samsung parts in the current iPhone, there could be enough pressure brought on by Apple to take them out of the hardware race, leaving LG the most likely partner.
So assuming that Google’s hardware is ready for launch in early 2010 and Android is shown off to the greatest extent yet, what does this mean for the relationship that Apple and Google have shared from the beginnings of the iPhone?
Currently Apple’s device is saturated with Google products, the Maps app uses their mapping service, Gmail is prominently featured in the Mail options and is probably the easiest third-party mail service to set up on the iPhone and Safari’s default search (probably the only search option many will ever use on the iPhone) is the Google search service. If Google launches the GPhone early next year with all of these products and more, like Latitude and Google Voice, that Apple has already made clear are not welcome on the iPhone, how much can Apple do to divest itself of the similarities that will no doubt make consumers think about jumping ship to a different piece of hardware than the iPhone?
Apple has already taken some steps to indicate that they have no qualms about taking their leave of at least some Google services. With the acquisition of the mapping company Placebase, a layered map alternative to Google’s mapping service Apple has positioned themselves not just as a provider of web-based mapping services but also to offer themselves a replacement for Google in the built-in Maps app.
Google search is probably more neutral ground as far as it’s integration into the iPhone OS, I mean, what are you going to offer as an alternative? Bing? Wolfram Alpha? I think not. The Mail app is a similar no-win scenario, I don’t think Apple is willing or able to tell people that they shouldn’t use Gmail.
I know that there are a lot of tech journalists out there that get their panties all in a bunch when people start equating business decisions to personal grudge matches between people involved with companies, but it’s hard to argue against the fact that we’ve seen a greater separation between the two companies this year than ever before. I don’t think that anyone can ignore the fact that Steve Jobs is known to take things personally, even on a “purely business” decision, the man has pretty much made his career on making business decisions based on his personal feelings about companies and individuals. I just don’t see someone with as mercurial a personality as Jobs settling for using another phone’s apps when the phone that he helped give birth to basically invented the current successful “app phone” model.
The biggest issue here is that any integration of Google’s products and services is going to be better on the Google phone than it is on the iPhone and I don’t see Jobs or Apple settling for second best, especially when it comes to the iPhone, which has become one of it’s most imortant products. Don’t be surprised if the 2010 iPhone 4G features less Google branding on it’s apps than ever before. Hopefully this leads to better integration and more feature rich apps that are designed to work with the OS in a cleaner, more useful fashion, because some of the core apps could feel more natural in day-to-day use.
The renewed Google phone rumors have definitely set the stage for the biggest battle of the smartphone wars that we have seen since the announcement of the iPhone. A battle with worthy competitors, frenemies with deep ties and hopefully resulting in the best phone the world has ever seen. Coming your way in 2010.
image[Nextweb]
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