“This “smartphone showdown” is important because Apple and Google are advancing radically different business models to the fight. This is bigger than just a commercial clash between two tech titans. It’s a war between two fundamentally different visions for the future of computing, described in simplistic terms as “closed” vs. “open.” Apple’s model is end-to-end control over the iPhone process, from hardware to software to the mobile applications that it must approve for sale in the App Store. Google’s model has been to distribute the Android system for free to the developer community at large, and let a thousand flowers bloom.
…
last year, for the first time, Apple and Google spent more on patent litigation and intellectual property than on research and development”
see Apple vs. Google is the Most Important Battle in Technology – TIME.
Neither of these organizations is warm and fuzzy but Google is much closer to what I think IT should be about, getting things done as efficiently as possible. Apple hides so much rigidity that it virtually paralyzes IT behind restrictions. e.g. restricting the applications that can run on an iThingy. What business is that of theirs? Are users not to be in charge of their IT operations? Google meanwhile facilitates the whole world having IT that’s affordable from $50 tablets and smart phones to using their cloud of servers for little or no cost. Of course Google profits from the widespread use of IT but so does everyone else. That’s not greed. Apple only cares to promote IT that floods their coffers with gold and attacks competitors in courts.
17383
12713
207
3
2
23813 
11823 
11674 
4600 
4223 
1641 
198 
14 
2 
0 
0 
0 
The problem with Apple is they promote the idea that everyone should be a bisexual hipster subservient to the Apple cult. Google has no such following.
Apple makes people bisexual? You read that in your creationism textbook, Adam?
Seems to me that Apple has the whole “efficiency” thing down better than Google, simple BECAUSE they are the alpha and omega of their platform.
With Apple the consumer pretty much knows what they’re getting. There’s no need for phrases like “ice cream sandwich” or whatever in the marketing.
Apple wraps up the entire experience and sells it. Google tosses out Android and lets the vendors do whatever with it, leading to inevitable fragmentation.
The method that is better or worse depends on your perspective and priorities.
And for Adam – you too have seen people use Apple products that don’t fall into the “macfag” category. Same way as you sometimes see a Harley rider who isn’t a weekend wannabe one percenter. Neither is a “lifestyle” device for everyone, even if both attract the inevitable cadre of posers.