Behind the bitter rivalry between Apple and Google—and how it’s reshaping the way we think about technologyThe rise of smartphones and tablets has altered the business of making computers. At the center of this change are Apple and Google, two companies whose philosophies, leaders, and commercial acumen have steamrolled the competition. In the age of Android and the iPad, these corporations are locked in a feud that will play out not just in the marketplace but in the courts and on screens around the world. Fred Vogelstein has reported on this rivalry for more than a decade and has rare access to its major players. In Dogfight, he takes us into the offices and board rooms where company dogma translates into ruthless business; behind outsize personalities like Steve Jobs, Apple’s now-lionized CEO, and Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman; and inside the deals, lawsuits, and allegations that mold the way we communicate. Apple and Google are poaching each other’s employees. They bid up the price of each other’s acquisitions for spite, and they forge alliances with major players like Facebook and Microsoft in pursuit of market dominance. Dogfight reads like a novel: vivid nonfiction with never-before-heard details. This is more than a story about what devices will replace our phones and laptops. It’s about who will control the content on those devices and where that content will come from—about the future of media in Silicon Valley, New York, and Hollywood.
[...]... Apple stores, they are available for purchase in the same places Seeing Apple s market dominance challenged so swiftly and broadly was uniquely painful for Jobs and remains that way for the company’s other executives Jobs thought, and Apple executives still think, that Google and the Android community cheated to create their success They think that Google executives stole Apple s software to build Android,... less like personal betrayal and quiet down—that Apple s new CEO, Tim Cook, would take the emotion out of the battle and find a way to settle it But if anything, Apple has gotten more aggressive and nasty toward Google since then It still has dozens of patent lawsuits in at least seven countries pending against the Android community—mostly 16/580 against Samsung and Motorola (owned by Google) In the... looking to use this giant global audience as another way to finance and distribute their clients’ work But despite the power of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Microsoft, at the moment they all still have to largely go through two companies Apple and Google to get to the increasingly massive audiences using smartphones and tablets for their news, entertainment, and communications What this means is that... know what changing the world really has been like Before there could be the smartphones and tablets we all now buy and take for granted, there was yelling, screaming, backstabbing, dejection, panic, and fear over what it would take to get those projects off the ground and into consumers’ hands They want you to understand what the iPhone and Android projects were like at the beginning and so that is... even relevant anymore The differences between the two platforms are narrowing by the day Sure, they are different structurally Apple makes every inch of the iPhone—the hardware and the software (though the devices are assembled in China) Google just makes the software for Android phones It allows phone manufacturers such as Samsung to make the hardware But both platforms now have an equivalent number... pluses and minuses: Apple s platform is a little easier to use, but it only offers three products—the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPod Touch 14/580 Google s platform offers many more phone choices, and often has the latest phone features ahead of Apple, but it lacks the polish of Apple s interface Still, both platforms are now equally available among large carriers worldwide, and, with the exception of Apple. .. that Google unveiled Android and its own plan to dominate the world of mobile phones and other mobile devices Google hasn’t just tried to compete with the iPhone, it has succeeded in competing with the iPhone Android took hold in 2010, and it has exploded in popularity since To Apple s astonishment, there are now more smartphones and tablets running Android software than there are iPhones, iPads, and. .. far It said the only purpose of the purchase was to buy Motorola’s patents It said it would be easier to 18/580 fight a litigious opponent like Apple if it owned the company that invented the modern cell phone and all the patents associated with that That’s true, but the claim hid another equally powerful reason: the acquisition means that Google will always be able to make phones to compete with Apple. .. hard to recall the last time Jobs was so unprepared going into a show Grignon had been part of the iPhone launch-preparation team at Apple and later at the presentation site in San Francisco’s 37/580 Moscone Center But he had rarely seen Jobs make it all the way through his ninetyminute show without a glitch Jobs had been rehearsing for five days, yet even on the last day of rehearsals the iPhone was... And how many people are going to see it? No two companies have more reach than Apple and Google Fewer still have more money Together they controlled $200 billion in cash alone by mid-2013 That’s not only enough to buy and/ or finance an unlimited amount of content for their audience; it’s actually enough to buy most of Hollywood The market capitalizations of News 26/580 Corp., Time Warner, Viacom, and . the two went to war. When Jobs died in October 2011, there was hope that the dogfight would feel less like personal betrayal and quiet down—that Apple’s