Apple vs Google have undergone their fair share of bickering over the last 2 years, which will likely grow with the release of the slightly klunky Siri. No doubt Apple is planning on refining this feature as a mobile replacement of the Google toolbar — but I don’t see this working in their favor given the superior voice capabilities Google is getting behind , then again, I’ve been surprised before.
Despite this, and dozens of other ‘digs’ at one another, the actual company feud is overshadowed by their mobile devices — IOS vs Android. An iPhones’ user-base is impossible to generalize, and extremely easy to offend in those attempts at doing so. iPhones have been slurpped up by pop-culture, essentially becoming the only option for someone who wants to be ‘in’ and/or be able to pick up their phone and have it ‘just work’. Their style and intuitive nature has yet to be surpassed.
Android by converse has flooded the market with everything from terrible phones, to great phones — attracting a very large chunk of v1 iPhone adopters. Why? Android is an open format that allows for almost limitless customization and app-market. Geeks love the customization, and -tech hipsters- were happy to drop their iPhones for something more “less mainstream”.
The problem was — there hasn’t really been a whole lot for an Android user to boast about.
Sure there were some good phones, and being able to customize appearances, set processing/app limits was cool — but when held next to an iPhone, Androids were clearly a step behind.
‘Intuitive’ is certainly a buzz-word these days, but it’s with good reason. Apple has carved a niche in designing products that are essentially idiot proof — and with that — comes buckets of flash (well, maybe not literally….) and style. They’ve set the precedent that had yet to be answered. But, it looks like Google has armed themselves with an updated OS (ice-cream sandwhich), a monster phone, and very deliberate strokes of style.
The brilliance of this new focus is that they’re now catering to both the geek and mainstream audiences without having to try marketing to the former. Being an open platform, they will remain the geek/tech-head platform of choice, so they’ve dumped all of their money into developing an OS that’s ‘intuitive’. As cool as Siri is, this is a bigger deal in my book.
Who is J. Taylor Craig? 