

Steve Jobs Is Building AppleWorld - And Google's Running Scared - profquail
http://seekingalpha.com/article/183630-steve-jobs-is-building-appleworld-and-google-s-running-scared

======
ajross
_Apple quickly realized that apps would one day overtake .coms. They knew that
mobile devices would overtake PCs._

Indeed. Which is why they spend a full year denying that the iPhone needed
native apps and trying to shut down all the jailbreak work before finally
caving and shipping an SDK with the next rev of the hardware.

Apple got lucky with the iPhone; it was the right product at the right time,
and the App Store was a once-a-decade gold rush. But it certainly wasn't in
Jobs' master plan for world domination.

I kept looking for insight in this article and not finding any.

~~~
TrevorJ
Yeah, this is ridiculous because all the cool apps in the world can't overcome
the fact that they are only available on a single device. What makes web
applications great is the platform and location agnostic nature of them.

~~~
joubert
App coolness is not a function of the number of devices it runs on.

a) people probably buy iPhones _because_ of specific cool apps that are
available on it (similar to the battle between the 3 game consoles)

b) an iPhone user doesn't care whether the cool app they love run on a
Crackberry. I suspect Android users also don't care if an app they love
doesn't work on an iPhone.

~~~
TrevorJ
This is certainly true for apps that take advantage of the hardware. The thing
is, a lot of apps out there just encapsulate web functionality inside an app
so for those not so much.

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dannyr
I won't use the word 'scared' but I actually think Apple is worried about
Google.

In my opinion, It is Google that is getting into Apple's territory (Android,
Chrome OS) and Apple is trying to stave them off.

A lot of Apple's IPhone users depend on Google services and not the other way
around. This is why Apple would probably have its own Search and Map services
in the near future.

~~~
joubert
iPhone users don't depend on Google Maps & Search per se; rather they depend
on maps and search, which at time of this writing there's at least one other
major provider (quality, market penetration notwithstanding). This can be
swapped out.

What I would not like to see is only 1 search provider, 1 map provider.

Reminder: must check whether there is an OpenStreetMap iPhone app.

~~~
catch23
To a certain extend, iPhone users do depend on the Google suite of products.
If you're a GMail user, you probably have lots of saved locations on your
google maps, items on your google calendar, and contacts & voicemail on google
voice. The android integrates all of these "must-have" apps very nicely on a
mobile device.

Apple hasn't done so great with their mobile.me platform. Had they done
better, the iphone would have been a great mobile device for their
mail/contacts/maps.

~~~
joubert
Only if you actually use GMail. I wonder what percentage of iPhone users use
GMail on their phones vs. other email services. I don't use GMail. My calendar
syncs with my non-G calendar and my Mac. Ditto for contacts.

In what respect does Android integrate these features better than the iPhone
does?

The one thing that sucks on Google Maps is you don't have access to reviews
(or at least in no way that I can determine). At least they show subway stops.

I think success here is probably determined by number of hardware units sold.

PS: Apple doesn't do maps.

~~~
dannyr
"In what respect does Android integrate these features better than the iPhone
does?"

Way, way better on Android. This is the main reason why I'm not switching to
the IPhone.

Your phone contact list is the same as your GMail's. When you add/edit a
contact online, it syncs with your phone.

You can add a Google Calendar widget on your Home Screen.

The best is the GMail app which according to most people is better than the
Mail app on the IPhone.

Basically, when using your Android phone for the first time, you login with
your GMail credentials and you automatically have your contact and calendar on
your phone.

"PS: Apple doesn't do maps."

They will soon. Apple bought PlaceBase last year.

[http://blogs.computerworld.com/14835/apple_purchased_mapping...](http://blogs.computerworld.com/14835/apple_purchased_mapping_company_in_july_to_replace_google)

~~~
blasdel
mail.google.com in MobileSafari is better than the Mail app on the iPhone

I only have my gmail account set up in the native app to get push
notifications via exchange integration.

------
pyre
The mobile computing platform has a long ways to go before it will overtake
desktop computing. For check-email-and-view-web-pages type tasks, it really
works well, but I don't see people doing 3d-modelling, desktop publishing,
software development or just plain spreadsheet work on a mobile device in the
near future. Maybe I just don't have the vision to see interfaces that will
make these operations doable on a smaller screen.

~~~
PanMan
I'm guessing we'll have workstations for those tasks for some years to come.
But of all computer usage, how much is web/email, and how much is 3D modeling,
sw dev, etc? I'm guessing not that much, if you look at a general crowd (not
HN).

------
joe-mccann
LMAO...here's the key sentence in that article:

Disclosure: Long AAPL

Seriously, how could you possibly have an objective opinion about the proper
valuation of arguably one of Apple's biggest competitors, Google.

Moreover, Apple's P/E right now is 33. Let me repeat that. 33!. If the two
stocks prices are two switch places, then Apple's P/E sky rockets to an absurd
80. So you should be getting long $AAPL? Hmm, not at these levels...

~~~
joubert
Over the long term, stock price factors in earnings expectations. So to assume
P/E will be 80 is incorrect.

Also, Google stocks are more expensive than Apple's at a current P/E of 37.

<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple+google>

But yeah, the article is really bad "financial analysis".

------
TrevorJ
Google has a massive advantage because A) The barrier to entry is low because
most of the services are free and B) Just because somebody owns an Apple
device doesn't mean they can't use Google.

There's some overlap but the companies just don't do the same things. Unless
they decide to lock themselves in a segment of the market that overlaps
completely, there's no reason they can't both be successful.

------
bad_user
I don't get it ... what's AppleWorld?

My first thoughts is that it will be an amusement park with Start Trek-like
themes and with chapels where you can get married by a Steve Jobs look-alike.

No wonder publishers were the first to get gaga about cloud-computing :)

~~~
pyre
Arg. Accidentally down-voted. Sorry.

[EDIT] I'm not sure why _I_ got down-voted. Is this a 'revenge' for my mistake
(not necessarily done by the parent poster)? Is apologizing for my mistake
something that I shouldn't have done? Color me confused. (Note: I don't
believe that this post deserves to be _up_ voted past 1.)

~~~
minalecs
this may be a side note, but using chromium nightly builds on mac, I see no
down vote button anywhere. Just the upvote. anyone know the reason for this.

~~~
s3graham
I think there's a karma threshold you have to cross before you're allowed to
downvote. (Or maybe that's only for colours?)

~~~
spicyj
Yes. It's 200 or 250, if I remember right.

------
greyman
Google probably is not scared, but what I found out, unexpectedly, that
Google's services are indispensable less and less for me.

In the past decade, Google search had been essential for my internet life. But
in the last months, when I was to find out what is happening now in certain
area, Twitter search does it for me; if I want to watch some area for longer
time, I subscribe to a few rss feeds. If i want to find out basic facts about
something totally new to me, Wikipedia will serve that. And in rare cases,
when I need to find out something specific, I use Google. But even in this
area, Bing is catching up.

Then, I use a few Google services like GMail or Greader, since I found them to
be the best, but if some better clients will arrive, I'll switch.

To sum it up, it seems to me that Google doesn't have anything truly
irreplaceable now - they were ahead of the game with the general search, but
they couldn't maintain their focus on it, so the margin isn't that big
currently.

Now, it seems to me that the main battle is fought about what will be the
ultimate Internet platform in terms of hardware+software. Here, Apple and
Microsoft are the biggest animals so far, with Google and maybe Amazon trying
to participate. But in the grand scheme of things, Google already isn't the
main Internet player it maybe used to.

~~~
Tichy
Except that atm Twitter search only reaches back one week, and to get older
Tweets, you have to go to Google or Topsy or something.

------
padmanabhan01
// 24 months from now, the two stocks will have changed places and Apple will
be at $585 and Google will be at $210.

I can't believe someone is writing an article in a finance site that doesn't
know what stock prices mean, in absolute terms.

~~~
z8000
I read all of the comments here hoping to find this. Thank you.

------
Tichy
Don't get me wrong, but if some people choose to live in AppleWorld, we might
as well put them all on a spaceship together and send them off into space. I
don't mean it in an evil way - just saying they would probably be living
isolated lives, only interacting with each other. So they might as well live
on another planet.

I for one wouldn't want to live in Disney Land, and not in Apple World either.

------
mark_l_watson
Interesting article, but I disagree mostly due to my personal preferences: I
am more comfortable using GMail+GCalendar+Gdocs in my workflow, buying MP3s
cheaply on Amazon, and having the relative openness of the Android phones over
the iPhone.

Still, for non-techs, the Apple do it all approach would be very tempting if
not for the much higher cost of Apple gear.

I may be calling this wrong, but I think that we are going to the
commoditization of just about everything: cheaper bandwidth, cheaper devices,
low cost or free software, etc. The market will grow but individually products
and services will get much cheaper.

Very long term, will most people be willing to pay for the Apple cost premium?

~~~
count
When you factor in the time and effort savings from the extensive
polish/integration work that Apple does, plus the 'style' bonus value, Apple
really isn't that much more expensive. Hell, the iPhone is only a whopping
$0.25 more than the Droid over the 2-year life of the contract. The iPhone is
_easily_ $0.25 more awesome than the Droid!

------
ryandvm
If any tech company is creating their own "world", it's Google. Apple should
be the fearful partner here.

------
teilo
Seeking Alpha has been in love with Google for some time now. They positively
gush about all things Android, even when Android = Fail (like their horrible
multitasking - trust me, my phone is a G1, and the multitasking sucks),
repeatedly predicting how Android is the obvious winner in the mobile OS wars.

So it doesn't exactly surprise me that they would put out tripe like this
about Apple. I have to think that their editors are heavily invested in GOOG,
and are prepared to sell short on AAPL. Not exactly an unbiased source.

------
joubert
It all boils down to where your majority revenue comes from:

Google: advertising. Can they diversify?

Apple: hardware. With desirable hardware, you calculate what is the price
point to maximize profit and execute.

Some other random comments about the article:

1) Share price is meaningless in isolation. $10 can be very expensive while
$3,000 can be very cheap.

2) The rumor mill now has Google Tablets as well. Wow, I must have been asleep

3) AppleWorld must collaborate with Virgin Galactic.

------
portman
_"Apple quickly realized that apps would one day overtake .coms."_

I'm sorry, what? In what conceivable metric do apps outnumber .coms?!

~~~
Raphael
$

~~~
portman
Let's ignore the _trillions_ of dollars being made by _ALL_ .coms and just
focus on one of them: Amazon.

2008 revenues of $20BB.

To match that, Apple would need to sell $66BB worth of apps in one year. If
the average price on the app store is $.25 (incl free), that would be 264
billion app downloads just to match the 2008 revenues of ONE dot-com.

There are no scenarios, no-matter how outlandish, in which the app store can
overtake websites in $.

------
joe_the_user
_"'ll bet that in one of those Apple board meetings that Google (GOOG) CEO
Steve Schmidt used to attend, he realized that Jobs was on the verge of
building AppleWorld and he's been scared ever since."_

I don't think it's possible to build a "closed digital world" that will have
the traction of the entirety of the open Internet.

Closed systems are great for creating an ideal model of how thing "ought" to
work. But the "wide world" tends to take those innovations and expand them
beyond the limits of a closed ideal system.

Apple has made great profits on the Macintosh but it's also become happy with
the Mac having a highly profitable niche position. That seems like the fate of
the entire "Apple World" situation. Remember Disney never extended Disney
World beyond Florida.

I'm sure Google is running. "Scared" seems like a bit of a reach. I suspect
that Google is more afraid of entities which try monopolize and monetize their
Internet pipes.

~~~
josh33
This closed world is close to possible with control, which is exactly what
Apple has achieved with the iPhone. They limit which apps make it on, and
which content can be displayed. I do not doubt that sooner than later Apple
will offer filtering for internet, and will package it in an appealing way
(security). It seems foolish now, but just wait.

~~~
count
Indeed - as long as Apple is willing to accept less than 100% penetration in
the market, there are many people more than happy to live in Steve Jobs'
closed world. It sure beats the current competition in my eyes...

------
dejb
> Once you enter AppleWorld, you have no reason to leave.

Except of course if there is better stuff outside AppleWorld which there
invariably is. This would only work if the residents of AppleWorld are so cut
of from the rest of the world they are not aware of all the cool stuff
outside. But then it starts to look more like a prison.

------
sahaj
both companies have very different business models and are going after
different aspects of the same overall market. it's like comparing intel with
microsoft. one is after the information and how to host and provide it and the
other is after the device that will display that information (and the personal
media). if it wasn't for apple's closed strategy, everyone would be using
google voice to make free phone calls and send txts. btw, this is going to
happen. Apple will be selling the iPhone thru google.com/phone one day.

besides the internet is large enough for both companies to coexist.

disclaimer: long AAPL, long GOOG.

------
euroclydon
Let's see, Apple had a closed operating system before they went to unix with
OSX, and we know where OS9 was headed. It's only when they co-opted unix that
they achieved such great success with Mac market share.

~~~
bad_user
Are you saying that OSX is more open than OS9? :)

~~~
euroclydon
I'm not sure "open" is the idea I'm going for here, rather OSX exposes a
larger existing ecosystem of tools, libraries, applications, all of which are
open source. Now the topic of the original article was about a closed
environment versus an open one, and it certainly seems to me that since OSX is
unix, that it's part of a larger, open environment, and I think that's why
their desktop market share has increased since OS9 and below.

------
doronba
Apple has too much stock (literally and figuratively) in Steve Jobs. It is not
at all clear that Apple has the capability to survive and innovate without
him.

~~~
joubert
I actually wondered today who at Google sets their tone/vision?

I think one of the companies that relies the least on a persona for their
facade in the market is Adobe.

------
jtth
It's times like these that make me thankful for IMAP.

------
moron4hire
If mobile devices "would overtake PCs" then why does everyone still have a PC?

~~~
PanMan
Everyone? There are about 1.1 billion PC's, and 4.6 Billion phones in the
world..

~~~
joubert
Don't many people have multiple phones?

------
sabat
_Google (GOOG) CEO Steve Schmidt_

Heh. Apparently, from inside AppleWorld, all CEOs are named "Steve".

