Head of Android says iOS is like a $100k Mercedes-Benz

By

Sundar

Tim Cook and Craig Federighi took a few swipes at Android during WWDC’s keynote, but now that Google is readying its hype machine for Google I/O tomorrow, Sundar Pichai, the head of Android, tossed a few jabs Apple’s way in an interview with Bloomberg this morning.

Pichai noted that all the data points to people adopting Android faster than any other operating system, but the dude’s so gosh darn nice, he couldn’t insult Apple without flattering them in the same breath.

Addressing Tim Cook’s comments that Android is a “toxic hell stew of vulnerabilities,” Pichai said it’s difficult to compare the two, because iOS is like the $100,000 Mercedes Benz of mobile platforms, and Android is like your cheap ass Honda Civic, taking over the world one delicious dessert fueled update at a time.

“You have to be careful when you make a $100,000 Mercedes car not to look at the rest of automotive industry and make comments on it. … We serve the entire breadth of the market, globally across all form factors, et cetera.”

Yeah sure, Pichai says he worries about what Apple is doing, but he goes on to explain that the ambitions of Google and Apple are really different. So different, they’re like two different types of governments – they certainly have enough money to buy their own countries.

“I think they [Apple] are building a very good product and it’s vertically integrated, which helps them do certain things faster. I think of it almost … like two types of government. Some [forms of] governments will be able to do things faster because they are opinionated and get things done. Than you can have a noisy, cacophonous, cantankerous democracy, which is often better in the long run. So you have two different worldviews being presented.”

I’m not sure if that implies Apple is a communist German-car maker, while Google dons the stars and stripes and all the porn and malware privileges that come with it, but it looks like Google is sending a message before it’s annual developers that they’re tired of the iOS vs Android comparisons because one’s hell bent on global domination, while the other just wants to make the absolute best products.

 

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