News from 'The Apple Blog'

With the recent unveiling of Google TV and rumors swirling of a pending cloud-based Apple TV, it’s interesting to see how both companies’ strategies will play out in this market. Apple, meeting with limited success with its product, has called its device “a hobby” but Google is forging ahead with what it believes could revolutionize the industry. So how do they compare?

What’s In a Name?

For starters, they both feature similar names. Simply take your company name and slap TV on the end. Very original, Google, but a point goes to Apple for having the idea first.

Beyond just what’s on the box, though, what do both of these companies stand for? What do users really associate with these brands? For Google, it tends to be searching and information. For Apple, it tends to be entertainment. You can back up this argument just by looking at what these companies do. Google has set the standard for search engines and Apple has created an entire ecosystem of products around iTunes, including content and third-party support.

How Does the Hardware Match Up?

Details on the new Google TV are sketchy, though we know it’s really more of a platform than just a piece of hardware. External set-top boxes will be produced by Logitech and partners like Sony will build the technology into their televisions. Additional television vendors will be added over time as they build in the technology as well. But how does the hardware compare? Here’s what we know.

Google TV

• 1.2GHz “Sodaville” Atom Processor
• 4GB of Memory
• 802.11n Wi-Fi & Ethernet
• Dual HDMI ports
• Dual USB ports
• S/PDIF out
• Video Chipset: Unknown
• Storage: Unknown
• OS: Android

For comparison, let’s look at what the current Apple TV offers.

Apple TV

• 1GHz “Crofton” Pentium M Processor
• 256MB of Memory
• 802.11n Wi-Fi & Ethernet
• HDMI port
• Component Video, Stereo Audio, Optical Audio Out
• USB port (for service only)
• Video Chipset: NVIDIA G72M with 64MB DDR2 memory
• Storage: 40GB or 160GB
• OS: Mac OS X 10.4.x

Purely looking at the specs, it looks like the Google TV blows the Apple TV out of the water, which is understandable considering the Apple TV hasn’t seen a hardware update (aside from a larger hard drive) since its launch in 2007. But rumor has it that a new Apple TV is around the corner and it could provide some stiff competition, boasting an A4 processor similar to the iPad and capable of delivering 1080p content.

The Experience

So what’s the big deal about Google TV? In Google’s eyes, it’s all about giving users the ability to find the content they want across a wide variety of mediums including broadcast TV, YouTube and pretty much anywhere on the Internet. The device also includes a built-in web browser (with support for Flash) allowing users to access content from virtually anywhere.

While the current Apple TV doesn’t support interfacing at all with broadcast TV, nor full Internet access, it still offers similarities with Google TV, like YouTube or accessing photos from the cloud from sources like Flickr or MobileMe. In fact, it even beats Google’s approach by tapping on the power of the iTunes Store, providing users with tons of content that they can buy or rent and download.

That’s really where we see a big difference in the strategies of both companies. On one hand, Google is attempting to aggregate all of the content from a wide range of places into one simple list of search results. How effective will this be? If I search for “Battlestar Galactica” will I find random YouTube clips, bootleg TV shows and other vaguely related ephemera mixed in? As I mentioned earlier, Google TV is a platform running Android, which means that an SDK will be available to allow developers to create specialized apps. In theory, Netflix could easily develop its own Google TV app just as it did for the iPad. Unfortunately, the openness of this platform can also be a disadvantage. Look at HTC’s Android-based products, for instance, which feature different interfaces for similar tasks.

On the other hand, Apple’s strategy has been to provide content that people want, but holding that content to a high standard of quality mixed with a simple to use interface. To see what I mean by this, look no further than the App Store which, for better or worse, has maintained a growing selection of quality apps. Or consider the iTunes Store. It’s easy to browse and find a show that I want, view any of the seasons that are available to purchase and sometimes even have my choice of SD or HD content.

While the current Apple TV may not have some of the features of Google’s offering, it does play very well with Apple’s iTunes ecosystem and that’s something that Google cannot, and hasn’t yet shown a desire to, compete with.

The Future

Even at this week’s D8 conference, Steve Jobs still referred to the Apple TV as a “hobby” and, while we are eagerly anticipating rumors of a cloud-based Apple TV to come to fruition, we’re still left where we began — a box that is just a hobby. In fact, at the conference he expressed his views on set-top boxes altogether.

The problem with innovation in the TV industry is the go-to-market strategy. The TV industry has a subsidized model that gives everyone a set top box for free. So no one wants to buy a box. Ask TiVo, ask Roku, ask us…ask Google in a few months. The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everyone a set-top box, and that pretty much undermines innovation in the sector. The only way this is going to change is if you start from scratch, tear up the box, redesign and get it to the consumer in a way that they want to buy it.

We’ve speculated before about what a future Apple TV could look like and rumors are circulating that the next version could be based on the iPhone OS. This inevitability opens the door to an App Store and, at least in my opinion, works to address the issue of getting content to the consumer in a way that they want to buy it. Apple has tried several approaches to this (iTunes Extras, for instance) but nothing has really seen the runaway success like the App Store.

For comparison, a good number of people feel the print industry is dying, but looking at the success of the Wired iPad app, all of a sudden developers have a powerful canvas to push existing content and new ideas of content to consumers. Would a similar model be successful in the living room environment? What do you think? Do you think Google TV will really be a game-changer or a lackluster platform? Is Apple’s direction or Google’s the best? Share what you think.

For those interested in cloud computing or data centers, check out our Structure conference in June.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Google TV: Overview and Strategic Analysis

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News from 'The Apple Blog'

It’s becoming abundantly clear that Apple needs to improve MobileMe. Obviously, Android is now Apple’s biggest threat in the mobile space and Google’s innovation wheel isn’t slowing down. To fully understand just how bad Apple is at running Internet services, let’s take a trip back in time.

At the Macworld keynote on January 5, 2000, Steve Jobs released iTools which was built for Mac OS 9. Features included:

• An @Mac.com email address
• 20 megabytes of iDisk web storage
• An easy to use web page builder called Homepage
• A KidSafe product that ensured a safe Internet experience for the little ones

If you’re dying to know more, here’s the press release. What made the offering such a breakthrough is that it was an absolutely free service, back when Google was still just a search engine. Because of the seamless integration with Mac OS and the fact it was free, millions of Mac users signed up for iTools. This was the highlight of Apple’s Online Services product and, ever since, Apple has struggled to keep up.

In 2002, iTools was rebranded as .Mac and the price shot up to $99.95 a year. Apple dropped KidSafe, upped the iDisk storage too and introduced “Backup” which was an OS X app to backup files and folders to the online iDisk.

It was pretty clear that Apple didn’t truly put a lot of thought into .Mac because, while Apple.com was touting, “Macs don’t get viruses”, .Mac touted that you get a McAfee’s Virex Antivirus software for free just for joining and Apple stores across the U.S. were required to maintain a 60 percent attach rate for .Mac on all new Macs sold.

Apple still had a better service than any other web service, mostly because the cloud services that were existent saw Macintosh as too small of a market (remember this is 2002) and Apple seamlessly integrated .Mac into the system to the point where a power user may be nagged to just buy it already as Quicktime and iMovie had a “Send to .Mac” feature and Apple Mail placed .Mac as the first choice when adding a new e-mail account.

Apple lost thousands of subscribers in the shift to a paid model but many stayed until Google and other competitors began strengthening their cloud offerings. In 2008, Apple finally upgraded the aging online subscription model with real features that power users were aching for.

MobileMe, released in June of 2008 at WWDC, still included e-mail, iDisk and your own personal homepage (via iWeb ’09) but the new killer feature was sync. You could now keep multiple PCs, Macs, iPhones and now iPads in sync instantly via the web with calendars, contacts and email talking to each other to ensure the latest info is always on the device you have with you.

Apple’s foray into cloud syncing was a failure at first. Steve sent out this letter shortly after MobileMe’s launch admitting the MobileMe launch was a failure saying, “The launch of MobileMe was not our finest hour.” Apple gave out free months of service to people who purchased the new service and improvements were made. Since then, Apple has done little to add to the service and MobileMe is now completely overshadowed by every other competitor in the market. Even startups like Box.net started by a couple of guys with some angel financing were able to top Apple’s iDisk that was introduced back with iTools in 2000.

Apple added features like “Find my iPhone” in 2009 and continued to make slight improvements, but Google offers e-mail, sync, storage, calendars, contacts and more for free. Sure, Google has advertising but no one seems to care, because $99 for an email address and some syncing between devices is completely ludicrous now that we’re half-way in to 2010. We featured a post in February, “10 Ways to Make MobileMe Perfect” which detailed exactly what Apple needs to do to find relevance again among a slew of superior products from competitors.

Another great example of Apple completely missing an opportunity with MobileMe is the iPad. Why must you sync with iTunes and deal with a difficult-to-use interface to get documents on and off of the iPad? Why isn’t MobileMe the key that makes iPad a true on the go device? In his review, John Gruber writes:

Apple has MobileMe, but because it’s a paid service, they can’t (or at least won’t) assume that all iPad owners are going to use it. But then even those of us who do u

se MobileMe get stuck with a first-run iPad experience that involves a tethered USB connection to a computer. The Apple Way is to assume that your primary data stores for these things are locally stored on your Mac or PC — Address Book, iCal.

I think most of the Mac community has accepted that iTools, .Mac and now MobileMe is a product for new users and not a service for power users and my personal motto became, “those who know, don’t use MobileMe.” It wasn’t until Google’s I/O conference last week in San Francisco that I realized how poorly Apple is positioned in the fight for mobile dominance.

Google released Android version 2.2 with over the air everything. You can purchase music in your web browser and it’s on your Android phone instantly. The same goes for Google Maps links, which you can click “send to phone” and the maps app opens automatically. The real power of Android is entering your Google ID and all of your data comes down from the cloud and stays in sync without ever plugging into a computer. Apple has completely failed at this.

I’m not writing the death of MobileMe just yet. Apple’s recent beta release of a new and improved MobileMe webmail is a step in the right direction, but it still has a long way to go.

Apple purchased Lala.com which is an incredible startup that allows you to stream music that you’ve purchased from anywhere and Apple has announced the closure of Lala on May 31 (only a few days ahead of WWDC). One can only imagine that Google’s ultra-cool over the air music purchase technology demoed last week will soon be old news as iTunes in The Cloud becomes a reality where your entire music library travels with you anywhere as long as you have an Internet connection.

The ultimate task for Apple is to bite the bullet and make MobileMe free again. It’s easy to compare Google to Apple’s products when one is free and the other is $99, but when comparing two free services and accounting that MobileMe is built into every Apple device you own, it’s a much easier consideration for users. Doing the math is easy when you consider that Apple might make $99 per user per year but losing an iPhone sale to Google’s Android platform is a far greater loss and Apple needs to free MobileMe from a subscription model to compete head on with Google.

Of course, there’s a lot more Apple can do beyond simply offering up MobileMe for free. Remember iWork.com? This collaboration tool goes head to head with Google Docs in many ways but it’s still in beta over a year after being previewed at Macworld 2009 and Apple lead us to believe it would actually be charging for this when iWork left public beta.

I could go on and on comparing Apple to Google in every way, but it’s clear that Google is the winner and that wouldn’t change even if Apple dropped the price of their suite of tools to $0. That boat has set sail and Apple is still offering a miniscule 20GB iDisk storage and iDisk is just as reliable as it was 10 years ago. Let’s hope Google’s kick in the butt with Android 2.2 will encourage Apple to step it up and bring MobileMe up to speed very soon.

For those interested in cloud computing or data centers, check out our Structure conference in June.

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News from 'The Apple Blog'

The iPhone may have given up its edge in the U.S. market over Android recently, in terms of smartphone OS share, but globally it still leads Google’s mobile OS. That’s according to market research firm Gartner (via PC World), who recently conducted a survey of the global smartphone terrain covering the first quarter of 2010.

That lead is thanks to two key international markets in which the iPhone still boasts a significant lead over its Google competitor. In Europe and Asia, Apple maintains a lead that amounts to around a 3 million unit advantage over Android. It’s still a significant lead, but the fact is that Android is still in a very strong position in all world markets.

It’s especially strong because it’s the fastest growing of all the smartphone operating systems represented in the survey, and it’s experiencing that growth during a heady time for smartphone sales in general, with global sales overall seeing record increases. Put simply, Android is grabbing the most significant portion of an expanding pie.

Android’s share grew from 1.6 to 9.6 percent in Q1 2010, while Apple’s share went from 10.5 to 15.4 percent. Both are still behind Symbian and RIM, but the shares of both those companies shrank during the period measured. Symbian, the worldwide leader, dropped to 44.3 from 48.8 percent. RIM slid from 20.6 to 19.4. Windows Mobile is the big loser overall, dropping from 10.2 to 6.8 percent, which puts it behind Android in the global rankings.

It’s a mixed bag for Apple. On the one hand, it’s still performing well in the global market, and two of the three major smartphone markets still have them positioned ahead of Android. On the other hand, Android’s growth is meteoric, and the numbers would seem to indicate that customers new to the smartphone market are leaning in Android’s direction overall.

What’s crucial to keep in mind is that Android’s share grew from next to nothing to a significant percentage. It’s highly likely that it’ll continue to have similarly strong performance globally, since it can really only go from nothing to something once. Now that it’s entrenched itself in the market at large, its growth rate will likely slip to something much more reasonable, like Apple’s five percent gain.

Will Android continue to threaten Apple’s piece of the smartphone market pie? No doubt. Will it blow past iPhone OS and emerge as the dominant force in the market? That’s much less likely. Android and Apple will contend with each other on the world stage, but it’ll be a real fight, not a one-sided affair.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Who Owns Android’s Future? Google — Or Apple?

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