Apple ’s in a foreign locating vis - a - vis many of its large rivals . While the company has in the past enumerate many of the most outstanding tech companies in the world — IBM , Microsoft , Intel — as rivals , in more late year , it ’s been strategically savvy aboutturning those erstwhile competitors into ally .
Which is n’t to say that the company does n’t still have knock-down foes . But the nature of the technology diligence today is that none of these companies exist in a vacuum ; there are so few at the highest of levels that ultimately all of them exist in a liminal state between friend and enemy . And for Apple , no company is more prominent in that frenemy zone than Google .
But with the up-to-the-minute update to its computer software program unveiled at last month ’s WWDC , Apple has once again taken peck of shots at Google , rolling out features that vie directly with Mountain View ’s own offer , all while deftly steering around the post the companies keep to work together .
Found in translation
Perhaps one of the big surprise in the new initiatives undertaken by Apple this year is the focus on translation . It ’s something that the company has only dabbled in previously , offer the ability for Siri to do some underlying lookup of password from other languages .
But in this class ’s platform update , displacement is front and center . Not only does it have its own app — for which Apple emphasize the secret , on - machine nature of translation — but it ’s also built right into Safari , let surfer to in a flash read a webpage .
Io 14 has a new Translate app .
Google Translate has been the de facto version measure on the entanglement for age , and the company has ceaselessly expanded it to include most of the humankind ’s words , as well as go beyond just typed translations to spoken , handwritten , and even images as well .
By comparison , Apple ’s current transformation feature is meagerly . It only support a handful of languages at present , rather than the more than 100 offer by Google Translate . But Apple — again taking a Sir Frederick Handley Page from Google ’s playbook — has billed the displacement characteristic as a “ genus Beta ” so far , reinforce the approximation that the company has only just started down this path . It seems unlikely that Apple will be able to challenge the chokehold Google has on web translation , but if it continues to better its on - equipment feature , it may be able-bodied to seize the default position for users of its own platforms .
On the map
In 2012 , Apple made one of the biggest changes to its young nomadic weapons platform when it opt to discontinue its relationship with Google for the iPhone ’s build - in function app , and instead rolled out its own replacing .
Apple slow and steadily continue to improve Maps .
Even now , almost eight twelvemonth later , the fellowship still hasn’ttotallyerased the backlash it get for what , at the prison term , was surely a sub - par solution compared to Google ’s own offering . But over that prison term , Apple has spend a lot of vigour in better its mapping product , rebuilding the data from the land up , tot young feature like indoor mapping and Look Around , and this yr integrating a long - missing capability : cycling counsel .
It ’s emblematic of the scheme that a immense , profitable company like Apple can afford to take : slow and steady build an entire system from scratch and gradually improving it over the class of years . Rolling out a Maps service that would have competed straight with Google eight year ago would have been fundamentally impossible , give the disadvantage at which Apple started . But the long term strategy has allowed Apple to erode Google ’s custom on its own program , just as the company is probable to do in translation .
Private eyes
The axis of competition between Apple and Google is n’t always a straight line . Sometimes Apple build contend products , as in the case of displacement and maps , but other time its approach is diametrically opposed , bringing the difference of opinion between the two into double-dyed relief .
Safari in macOS Big Sur has support for a privateness report .
Such is the case with Apple ’s posture on privacy and , specifically , its recent addition of the Privacy Report sport in Safari on iOS 14 , iPadOS 14 , and macOS Big Sur . While Cupertino has long boasted about its dedication to privacy via innovation like block cross - site tracking , it ’s put that front and center of attention in the latest platforms by actuallyshowingusers all the tracker that it choke up on various webpages .
That ’s significant because many of the most big trackers you ’ll find across the entanglement are Google ’s . ( It ’s hardly scientific , but if I seem at my own Privacy Report on the iOS 14 beta , it tells me the topfivemost contacted tracker are all Google ’s . )
Advertising remains the magnetic core of Google ’s business model , and this is yet another blastoff forthwith across the company ’s bow . And while it might not be enough to dip Mountain View , it will likely only hasten the slow declination of web - base advertising , especially if other web browser keep an eye on suit .
If nothing else , it will help keep Google on its toe , and a Google that ’s busy worrying about its bottom line may be more vulnerable in other bowl in which it ’s likely to go head - to - read/write head with Apple .
