At Daring Fireball today there’s a post about how the world apparently has maligned Apple for defending its turf against Google. It’s full of some choice quotes like the following:
“What’s goofy is the idea that Google would do this — to aggressively change Android from a BlackBerry/Windows Mobile competitor into an iPhone competitor — and that anyone would expect Apple not to retaliate”
This quote completely misses what people are surprised by. What people are actually (somewhat) surprised by by is that Apple seems to make business decisions based on things like “revenge” and “retaliation”. Few people are surprised by iAds. It makes perfect sense to want to monetize the ad stream in their appstore. But lets look at what Jobs said earlier this year:
Of course Google entered the phone business. It makes economic sense for them to enter it. And of course they’d like to have the most popular phone on the market. This isn’t just a shot at Apple, as much as Jobs may dream it to be. But Android is also a shot at RIM, Nokia, Palm, and MS. The reasons why Google wants to be in the mobile game are obvious. Almost as obvious as the reason that Apple wants to be in the advertising game. Jobs seems to think that since they didn’t go after search they shouldn’t be touched. What kind of logic is that?
Here’s a question… why didn’t Apple enter the search game? Jobs would imply the reason to be that they wouldn’t encroach on the territory of Google because of friendship? Partnerships are important, but if they didn’t go into search and are leaving billions in profits on the table, I think they’ve neglected their fiduciary obligation.
With all that said, I do think that revenge and retaliation are great motivators. But when you put the fact that you’re doing things out of revenge/retaliation out there, people will pass judgment. Daring Fireball and Apple (if there’s a difference between the two entities) should be aware of that.
The Tech Punbit 