Using Google on Apple: The End is Near
Google on Apple: The End is Near
I love using Google services on Apple hardware, but now I
fear those days are numbered
Mike Elgan By Mike Elgan
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Computerworld | Jun 15, 2015 3:00 AM PT
The chat room and social network religious wars between
Apple and Google demand that you take sides. But I've always felt that the best
experience includes a cherry-picking of Apple hardware, Google services and
apps from both.
For example, on my MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone, my No. 1
application is Google Chrome, where I obsessively use Google Search, Google
Photos, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google News, Google Maps,
Google+, Inbox and more.
Yes, I use non-Google services, but eight out of the top
10 sites I use are Google services.
After the announcements at Apple WWDC last week, and at
Google I/O last month, it's clear that the days of using Google services on Apple
hardware are numbered.
Soon we'll be forced to choose between all-Google or
all-Apple.
Why your virtual assistant has an entourage
Google Now often knows what you want before you do, and
it can predict when you should leave your house in order to get to the airport
on time and do other helpful tricks. None of this works unless you're using
Google's Gmail, Google Search, Google Calendar and Google Maps. That's where
the data comes from. So for a couple of years, to embrace Google Now fully
meant also embracing at least four other Google services.
Google I/O ushered in a powerful new Google Now. A new
feature called Now on Tap brings contextual awareness into your apps as well
(when developers support the feature). For example, if you were listening to a
song in a music app, you could ask Google Now: "Who sings this?"
Google Now would get the contextual information from the app, instead of its
own Knowledge Base, and just answer your question. A chat app could enable
anyone engaged in a conversation about a restaurant to simply ask Google Now
(without leaving the app) what time the restaurant closes, and Google Now could
answer based on information it got from Yelp -- a different app.
Now on Tap is a huge benefit that Google Now fans are
going to love. There's just one catch: You need an Android phone to use it. So
now, in addition to using all those other Google services, you also need to use
Google's mobile operating system to take full advantage of Google Now.
And last week at WWDC, Siri, Apple's virtual assistant,
gained amazing new powers as well.
For starters, Siri got the a major feature that Google
Now once had exclusively: preemptive notifications, which interrupt you with
important information rather than waiting for you to ask. The next Siri, in the
upcoming iOS 9, will feature integration with (and reliance upon) Spotlight
search, as well as Apple's Calendar and Maps applications.
So if you're an iPhone user like me who favors Google
Search, Google Calendar and Google Maps, Siri won't let you take full advantage
unless you switch to Apple's alternatives.
Like the Now on Tap feature in Google Now, Siri will
offer developers an API for third-party integration. Needless to say, these
will be iOS apps and no other kind.
Both Google Now and Siri just got way, way better. But
they both achieved those improvements by favoring the full-time, exclusive use
of either Google or Apple apps, services and operating systems.
Let's follow two trend lines and see where we end up. The
first is the way virtual assistant apps are becoming increasingly reliant on an
entourage of products from a single company.
The second is they way users are becoming increasingly
reliant on virtual assistant apps. As we move into the wearable era, and as
virtual assistants like Google Now and Siri become better, we'll depend on them
more and we'll believe them to be more important and central to us in our daily
lives.
As these trends converge, people like me will be forced
to stop using Google services on Apple hardware; we’ll have to fully embrace
one platform at the expense of the other.
And there's one other factor forcing the choice between
Google and Apple: Apple's business model.
Apple's mission to replace Google services
Google makes its money on advertising, mostly. So Google
has an interest in encouraging people like me to use advertiser-supported
Google services on my Apple hardware.
Google tries to make its apps work as well as possible on
iOS. One recent example emerged last week in the Google Maps for iOS app. Let's
say you're using Google Maps on your desktop computer and you want to send a
location to your phone. Google can't enable this feature for iPhone users in
the same way it does on Android because it doesn't have the same access to the
mobile operating system. So Google came up with a brilliant workaround that
uses notifications to transfer the command. (To use the feature, enable
notifications for Maps in your iPhone's Settings, then a new "Send to device"
link will appear in Maps for any location you find via a Maps search.)
Apple, on the other hand, makes money by selling
hardware, software and cloud services, and by distributing content. Apple has
no interest in encouraging me to use Google services. In fact, it's trying to
replace them because it sees Google services as nuisance gateway drugs into the
Google ecosystem.
That's almost certainly the explanation for the following
Apple moves:
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently dissed advertiser-supported
businesses (a not-so-subtle reference to, mainly, Google). He said: "You
might like these so-called free services, but we don't think they're worth
having your email, your search history and now even your family photos
data-mined and sold off for God knows what advertising purpose."
Apple announced new features for its Spotlight search on
OS X that replace key aspects of Google Search. For example, Spotlight now has
natural-language search, making it easy for users to search both desktop and
Web at the same time by asking simple questions. Silicon Valley entrepreneur
Jason Calacanis says the use of Spotlight to replace Google Search is part of a
mission to "destroy Google."
Apple launched Apple Maps in 2012 as a replacement for
the default Google Maps on mobile devices and is now copying aspects of
Google's StreetView system of driving around and photographing everything.
One day soon, you'll have to choose
Because Siri and Google Now will get better over time by
integrating apps and services controlled by Apple and Google, respectively --
and because we'll rely more on those virtual assistants -- users will be
discouraged from using Google services on Apple hardware.
Because Apple is actively working to replace Google
services for OS X and iOS users -- and integrate Apple's alternatives into
Apple's operating systems -- Apple users will be increasingly discouraged from
using any Google products at all.
Some of this is happening by accident, but some of it is
happening by design.
The result for people who love both Apple and Google is
that we'll have to choose: Either use Apple hardware with Apple's services, or
switch to Android devices and use Google's services.
The days of using Google on Apple are coming to an end. I
fear we’ll all have to choose between going all-in with Apple or all-in with
Google.
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