September 21, 1999: A little startup called Google comes out of beta, with the launch of a website that will let the general public easily search the internet for information.
To Apple, which is embracing the internet with its colorful new iMac desktop computer and iBook laptop, Google seems like the perfect ally. Sadly, the relationship between the two companies won’t remain rosy for long.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: With Apple’s Awe Dropping event bearing down on us, it’s time to once again put our professional reputations (and our personal dignity) on the line with our traditional predictions game!
Who will win this time? And will a CultCast listener steal the glory once again?!?
Also on The CultCast:
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Google can continue its search deal to pay Apple billions of dollars a year for a prime spot as Safari’s default search engine, as long as it’s not an exclusive placement, a court ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta said the proposed banning of such payments — which amounted to $26 billion to Apple and others in 2021, and likely grew since then — would actually help Google. Such a move also posed a “substantial risk of harm” to Apple, consumers and Google’s other partners, he said.
“Google will not be barred from making payments or offering other consideration to distribution partners for preloading or placement of Google Search, Chrome, or its GenAI products,” Mehta wrote in the 226-page ruling released Tuesday. “Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban.”
Add Google Gemini to the list of AIs that might go into the promised revamp of the Siri voice assistant if Apple can’t develop the tech itself.
Apple is working hard on its own large language models to provide Siri with a much-needed intelligence boost. But Cupertino is reportedly covering its bases by talking to other companies about using their AI instead. Google joined the list, according to an unconfirmed report published Friday.
The newly announced Google Pixel 10 includes Pixelsnap, a system that lets wireless chargers and other accessories cling magnetically to the back of the phone. If that sounds familiar, that’s because Pixelsnap is another name for Apple’s MagSafe system for iPhones.
But this is not yet another example of Google stealing a good idea from Apple. Instead, Apple helped make MagSafe into the Qi2 standard so other companies would build it into their handsets. And that’s what Google did, though it felt the need to rebrand Qi2 as Pixelsnap. Whatever the name, the more handsets with Qi2, the more iPhone users benefit.
August 19, 2004: Google floats its initial public offering on the stock market. The Google IPO cements the company’s status as a tech giant, as founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin turn into instant billionaires.
Relations between Google and Apple are good at the time, with Apple CEO Steve Jobs serving as a mentor to the search company’s two young founders. Google’s Eric Schmidt soon will join Apple’s board of directors. However, the peace won’t last long.
Google’s newest teaser for its upcoming Pixel 10 lineup mocks Apple’s failed rollout of a new, smarter Siri. “If you buy a new phone because of a feature that’s coming soon, but it’s been coming soon for a full year, you could change your definition of soon,” says Google in the ad.
It recommends frustrated users to “just change your phone” and gives a glimpse of the Pixel 10 at the end.
Apple users in the UK could see significant changes to how they download apps, browse the web and make payments on their devices following new regulatory proposals announced Wednesday by Britain’s competition watchdog.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) proposed designating both Apple and Google with “strategic market status” under new digital competition laws. That gives regulators unprecedented power to force changes to how the tech giants operate their mobile platforms.
“The targeted and proportionate actions we have set out today would enable UK app developers to remain at the forefront of global innovation while ensuring UK consumers receive a world-class experience,” CMA head Sarah Cardell said.
Experiencing random crashes with the YouTube app on your iPhone or iPad? Google recommends reinstalling the app to fix the issue.
While the random crashes also affected Android users, Google’s official solution does not require them to reinstall the app.
You can use Google reverse image search to find a higher-resolution (and higher-quality) original version of an image online. If you’re putting together a presentation, making a YouTube video or writing a blog post, you want the highest quality versions of every image. You might feel stuck if you only have a low-quality picture and you need to fill a bigger space.
Google reverse image search will let you upload a photo and find matches all around the web. You can find out where it’s from to cite the source and save the uncompressed original image. Let me show you how Google reverse image search works.
Gemini Live gets better on the iPhone, with Google rolling out free camera and screen sharing support to all users.
The feature allows you to feed a live stream of your surroundings using the iPhone’s camera, and interact with Gemini to get more information about it.
If Apple Translate doesn’t offer the languages you need, you can set Google Translate as your iPhone or iPad’s default translation app. Google’s translation app supports 249 languages, whereas Apple Translate currently can handle only 19.
That broad scope comes in handy if you regularly read materials written in languages that Apple Translate doesn’t cover. And Google Translate is not the only alternative translation app for iPhone.
Before too much longer, doing a search in the Safari web browser might bring up AI-powered results rather than the standard Google search engine, according to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services.
Cue points out that this is Apple following a trend, as the company sees Safari users increasingly turning to AIs in place of traditional search engines.
A new battle brews in the tech world as major app developers band together to challenge Apple and Google’s control over the mobile ecosystem, according to a new report. Meta, Match and Spotify join forces against Apple and Google, forming a lobbying coalition aimed at influencing policy around age verification requirements and addressing long-standing grievances about app store practices.
If the U.S. federal judge orders Google to sell Chrome, OpenAI would be willing to buy it. Nick Turley, the head of ChatGPT at OpenAI, revealed this during his testimony in the ongoing Google antitrust trial.
When asked if OpenAI would buy Chrome, he replied, “Yes, we would, and so would many other parties.”
Google is bringing Circle to Search, one of its best search features, from Android to iPhone. Like on Android, you can now circle on your iPhone’s screen to search for the on-screen content.
The feature is coming to Google Chrome and the Google app through Lens integration.
Popular tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee recognized Apple’s iPhone 16 series in two significant categories in his much-anticipated 2024 smartphone awards Thursday. No one will be shocked to hear iPhone 16 Pro won for Best Camera in the MKBHD Smartphone Awards 2024. But some might raise an eyebrow to learn iPhone 16 won for Best Small Phone.
And no iPhone took the coveted MKBHD Phone of the Year prize. That went to the “boring” Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, which also won Best Big Phone.
In a strategic move that could reshape the mixed-reality landscape, Google and Samsung announced a partnership Thursday to develop a new mixed-reality headset running on the Android XR operating system, according to a new report. Clearly, the Google and Samsung Android XR headset directly challenges Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s headsets in the premium market.
The collaboration aims to create a more accessible and diverse ecosystem for extended reality (XR) devices, potentially offering buyers, including Apple users, alternative options in the growing mixed-reality space. More competition could impact both features and pricing, of course.
The U.S. Department of Justice is reportedly hoping to require Google to sell Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser — it’s even preferred by a majority of Mac users.
And this is just one of the possible consequences of a federal judge ruling this autumn that Google is a monopolist.
The Gemini application for iPhone that launched Thursday gives users direct access to Google’s AI-powered virtual assistant.
Have a conversation, get advice or generate images with the app.
Apple added the ability to capture HDR photos with the iPhone 13 Pro back in 2021. Google introduced its own take, Ultra HDR, starting with Android 14 in 2023. Despite this, HDR photos from iPhones typically open as SDR images on Android phones and vice versa.
Thankfully, Apple and Google are working to resolve this issue by supporting a common standard for HDR gain map metadata.
With Apple Intelligence features coming out to much fanfare, it seems smartphone users don’t actually rank AI very high on their wishlists when considering smartphone upgrades, according to a new survey out Friday. With AI low on smartphone upgrade wishlists, what do they crave? Much higher among their hopes are longer battery life, more storage and better cameras. You know, the “classics.”
A U.S. federal judge ordered sweeping changes to Google Play, the default source for Android applications. Rival Android software marketplaces will get a big boost as a result.
While the iPhone App Store is similar, Apple’s and Google’s situations are different enough that iPhone users shouldn’t expect similar changes anytime soon. Long term? That’s a different story.
Tab groups, a feature of Google’s Chrome desktop browser for years, finally made its way to the iPhone and iPad version of the web browser.
The goal is to bring some order to the huge pile of tabs so many people keep open.
Google is rolling out AI-powered contextual search in Google Photos, its cloud-based photo backup solution. The feature aims to supercharge the search experience in Google Photos using AI.
Google’s Gemini AI models power the new ‘Ask Photos’ search in Google Photos.