Android Development Talk

Why Does Apple Need To Follow Google’s lead ?

Jun 2, 2010 Android Phones

Two years back in 2008 Android became available as open source , the first Android phone G1 was announced by Google few months after that , it wasn’t as impressive as we see the present day Androids , the hardware was large and clumsy , which also looked ugly , the Android OS lacked polish nor did it look as appealing as the present day’s Froyo . But android has been a threat to Apple since the day it emerged as a mobile platform .The broad and open features it provides to enhance the device are something you don’t see with iPhone , and even if you do see them they are not always free like Google products .Google Cloud service is the new set of features from Google, they are well executed and free.

Just imagine you buy an iPad, iPhone, or a new MacBook Pro. You turn it on and login with your Mobile Me account. You already have one since it’s free. Instantly that device has all your media and other data. There’s no more USB syncing. Mobile Me should be the true hub for all your data, while your laptop should be just another client device with equal rights as your iPhone or iPad. All your devices should sync with the cloud.

But for Mobile Me to be this hub, and for Apple to maintain their dominance on the mobile front against Google, they must make Mobile Me free. Until they do this, Google will have better cloud integration with their mobile devices.

• Mobile Me is not a significant source of revenue for Apple. Most money comes from sales of Macs, iPhones, and iPads.
• Mobile Me costs $99 per year. While that’s a fair price for 20GB of email and storage, most people won’t pay it if there are free alternatives. Even though GMail is filled with ads, people choose free. So Mobile Me will have a hard time growing and being successful on its own.
• Mobile Me should be a loss leader designed to tie together Apple hardware, and to sell more of it. OS X development sells Macs and iPhones. Mobile Me development should be thought of the same way. By making Mobile Me free, more people will experience the Apple ecosystem, and it would make Apple hardware stickier. You won’t buy other hardware if the integration with your personal cloud isn’t there.
• While Google’s cloud services are fine, Apple can show these can be done better. Ad free and beautifully designed. I predict people will use Apple’s version and prefer it.
• Mobile Me can go beyond email and calendars. It can be your media repository with an online iTunes, and it can be your online document storage with iWork online.
• One of the great benefits of Google Docs is being able to collaborate with others. This is only possible because almost everyone has a Google account, and this is because they are free. Mobile Me needs the same.
• In many ways, Mobile Me isn’t that good! By making it free, they will gain a lot of users, and therefore gain resources from Apple to make it better. They will be able to hire smarter people who will be drawn to work on a large platform.

And the next time you’re looking for a new phone, there’s pressure to stick with Apple products because the hardware, software, and cloud will be perfectly integrated.

Customers stick to brand only when they find its worth, the user experience and satisfaction play a key role in the success of any business model, money is always not the point , there are thousands and even many more other ways any organization can generate profits . Starting from Gmail to the navigation on GMaps is free, and users have the authority to use the services as they like and not as Google wants them to, this is where Apple has always shown a red light .But the question also arises here, how long would a company survive if it hurts its very own users and their expectations? It’s not that Android geeks are expecting too much out of the platform, but of course Google gave its users what Apple has not and Android application development is also growing at a very fast pace giving the Android platform a lot of attention . Both the competitors are working in their own ways but we cannot say who’s better at this point of time, there’s more to come by the end of the year.

Apple can continue trying to sell Mobile Me as a standalone product, but they are slowing adoption of their cloud services and hurting their overall mobile platform. Instead they should focus on selling hardware, and give away the best software and services to run on that hardware . This in turn is also going to encourage iPhone & ipad application development and also give users the best experience possible by integrating such services with iPhone.

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Tags: Android vs iphone, Google vs Apple