Smartphones: The battle between Google and Apple

Google chairman Eric Schmidt is declaring open warfare on Apple, said Matthew Shaer in CSMonitor.com. He wrote a provocative primer last week “for anyone thinking about ditching their Apple device” for one powered by Google’s Android OS. It’s the latest evidence that the two tech giants are getting personal in their battle for customers. Google’s Android system now has a billion users worldwide, and dominates the domestic smartphone operating system market—beating the market share of Apple’s iOS by 10.4 percent. Perhaps both companies should send a thank-you note to “the once omnipresent BlackBerry,” whose “continuing implosion” has allowed its rivals to keep growing.

Schmidt’s timing is no coincidence, said Connie Guglielmo in Forbes.com. “The before-Christmas pitch comes as Apple goes into the holiday shopping season with new versions of its best-selling smartphone and iPad tablets to woo customers from Google Nexus and Samsung Galaxy devices.” And Schmidt surely knows that Apple users are hardly easy prey for Google, said Sam Mattera in Fool.com. A recent study found that 81 percent of iPhone users get another one when they upgrade; “Loyalty to Google’s platform was decisively weaker—just 68 percent bought another Android handset.”

The competition was bound to get personal, said Luke Dormehl in CultofMac.com. Fred Vogelstein’s new book, Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution, explains why. In the tech world, many companies “are still run by their founders,” Vogelstein said. “Everything gets taken much more personally than it would if, for example, they were running ExxonMobil or another giant corporation.” Google is still very much in founders’ mode, and right now it’s also on top. Schmidt didn’t write his post “on a whim,” Vogelstein said. He “obviously feels like things are moving in Android’s direction fast enough that he can get as aggressive as he now is.”

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Still, Google better watch out, said Tim Bajarin in PCMag.com. While it focuses on edging out Apple, it should remember to keep an eye on Samsung. The Korean phone-maker “has become a behemoth in the tech landscape” lately, and it is very aware that “a hardware-only business model is not sustainable.” Since “Google will not share the wealth” with Samsung any more “than it does with the other Android licensees,” it wouldn’t surprise me if the company ditched Android altogether. Even as the rivalry with Apple continues, Samsung vs. Google might be “the next major industry battle.”