Is Apple Afraid of Google?

It has been reported that Apple’s Steve Jobs had a bit of an anti-Google rant recently, saying things like ‘We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake, they want to kill the iPhone.” and also complaining that Google’s “Don’t be evil” mantra was “a load of crap”!

I’ve not heard of Steve Jobs whining like this before and suspect he’s somewhat afraid of Google’s ability to compete – especially as their Android software is platform independent and will be supported by a widening range of hardware (Dell, Motorola, etc.). Clearly Steve has had it too easy for a while and feels threatened by some good, honest competition!!!

Having used the Nexus One or ‘Google Phone’ as people call it for a few days – I can understand why he might be a little stressed out. The Nexus One is certainly better than the first iPhone was. To make Steve Jobs even more stressed, as of today the Nexus One has ‘multi-touch’ support … considered the last barrier for Android to overcome if it wanted to truly be an iPhone ‘killer’. Android won’t stop there – it will keep getting better.

Mr Jobs may also be worried about increasing speculation of a ‘Google Tablet’ being already under development. You can see some photos of what it might look like here. Unlike the iPad which runs the same sort of OS as the iPhone does, speculation is that a Google Tablet will run Chrome OS (a lightweight OS also designed for Netbooks) making it much more of a tablet computer than the iPad currently is. People take multi-tasking for granted these days and Apple need to do something about it.

In my humble opinion, Google is making all the right moves and Apple are being forced to defend their position on several fronts. Surely Mr Jobs didn’t think the rest of the world would sit back forever and allow it to continue to grab market share? He’s clearly worried, and so he should be!