Google and Apple are the Athens and Sparta of the tech industry. It’s in the DNA of both companies to rule the tech world. They will battle each other for supremacy and, in the process, greatly diminish each other’s power and reach. United, they could accomplish anything. But they will not be united. They will become increasingly divided.
It’s a Greek tragedy unfolding before our very eyes.
6 responses to “Why Google and Apple are the Athens and Sparta of Technology”
While Google defends open source and has a goal of innovation through open source develipment
. And Apple would rather make more money off you. Who do you think Is more to blame for this tragedy as you call it. Instead of reaching out to google they would rather throw a lawsuit out at Google’s partners. Wasn’t Apple using google maps up until ios6?
You might be wrong. Look at Canon and Nikon. Competition forced both companies to become better and put out quality products. It’s a win-win for consumers.
there’s an oracle joke in here somewhere.
without the struggle between Sparta and Athens there wouldn’t be no Parthenon, wich was funded with the gold of the Delian League. So this battle is not necessary bad, not for us.
With the exception of some interesting factoids concerning ancient Greek city-states, the article Mr. Elgan linked to clearly paints Apple as the aggressor against a harmless, “open” artistic community embodied as Google.
“And like Sparta, Apple expects to control what it controls totally, and for others to stay out of Apple’s business. Rivals who challenge Apple for dominance on its own territory are to be crushed.”
“Like Athens, Google can’t help constantly expanding its scope until it inevitably overlaps into Apple’s spheres of influence.”
Poor little Google. This article makes it seem as if Google actually INVENTS stuff on its own. We all know how ridiculous that premise is. As Tim Cook stated recently (and I’m paraphrasing), Apple wants other companies to stop living off Apple’s innovations, and start doing some honest work of their own. Since when has Apple ever been afraid of competition? Apple controls the industry because Apple innovates. The others merely follow. Poor little Google shamelessly copies anything it can get away with, and nobody knows that better than Eric Schmidt. Sorry, Mr. Elgan, Apple has every right to protect its intellectual property, the same right that you have.“But Google eventually transformed Android to look and feel a lot more like the iPhone operating system. It was all screen and no keypad, with swiping and pinching gestures and an app store model for apps.”
Eventually transformed? Try outright thievery. Android, as the whole world knows, is a complete rip-off of iOS.
“It looks to me like Apple has become obsessed with Google to the point where they are making irrational decisions. The Wall Street Journal has even called it Apple’s ‘crusade against Google.'”
I could go on and on about the things android has offered far longer then the iPhone, tether,turn by turn, Widgets, live wallpaper, data live wallpaper, google maps :), notification pull down, lock screen app access, the list goes on. And this isn’t really google against apple, in the hardware field its apple against everyone else, in software its apple against open source which cones from google and many many others outside of google. So really its a joke, and why apple can’t touch google, there really isn’t a reason to. They do on the other hand have to make it hard for the likes of Samsung, and HTC; Why, because they are scared of the threat of becoming anything but #1, its a shame.