The Rise of Digital Eco-Systems. Apple vs Google (Part 1)

The Rise of Digital Eco-Systems

It’s not so long ago where we lived in a world that hosted and encouraged rivalry between Apple and Microsoft, which was largely driven by a deep sense of believing how things should work rather than market share. Rivalries are fairly common in the technology world, some are driven by petty arguments around who understands AI best, and some are head to head combats for market share in product segments.

The oldest rivalries dawn from the likes of Tesla (AC) vs Edison (DC) who were at the head of the race of setting the standard in general power production and consumption, to Apple taking on IBM when they were still just an infant.

Like I mentioned before these rivalries are not just about market share or out-selling your competition, they are mainly driven by a way of thinking. Everyone knows an Apple guy and everyone knows an XBOX guy somewhere, but at the heart of it, it is all driven by how we all believe products should be designed, built and, most importantly, work.

We have entered a new phase of competition and how things should work, gone are the days where we compare phones or computers and other electronics, they are all pretty much the same and aim to solve similar problems, we are now in the battle of Technology Eco-Systems. This battle is centred around who has an array of products that solve various problems yet work seamlessly together when needed to. Even the likes of Adobe have entered this race with their latest Creative Cloud offering by having the likes of photoshop and XD seamlessly sync together through the cloud.

At the heart of all of this lies The Internet of Things (iOT) and cloud. The relationship between your phone, your gaming console, home desk computer, your car, even your fridge have evolved into something else completely. Let’s look at the different ecosystems and see what each of them do and how

Apple vs Google – Mobile, Productivity, Information & Entertainment

Steve Jobs once said, “the personal computer is the bicycle of the mind”. This drove their focus and ambition to make people as creative and as expressive as possible. From simple work functions like producing a document or the ability to take the best picture and editing it on your phone to even recording and publishing music, all of this is possible on the Apple ecosystem because at its core Apple believes in people expressing themselves, and they believe they are the perfect people to give us dives to do so.

On the other hand Google was started off as a PhD project by to insanely brilliant guys that have a deep love for information and maths. Google’s abilities to search, consolidate and present information is unrivalled and because they have a deep passion for sharing information, it has led to them managing the devices people consume their information on. The move for Google to purchase and make Android the heart of its suite has been ingenious, it makes sense why old Android boss Sundar Pichai is now the CEO of Google.

Both Apple and Google have amazing devices and product offering, now let’s look at the products they have pegged against each other

iPhone vs Android
MacBooks Air vs ChromeBook
iWork vs Google Docs
iCloud vs Google Drive
iTunes vs YouTube
Apple Music vs YouTube Music
Siri vs Google Assistant
Apple Maps vs Google Maps

Even though Apple has sold over 1 Billion iPhones, Google still holds majority of the market share at 72% of the market thanks to Google open source Android operating system that phone manufacturers such as Samsung and Huawei use. Apple has an easy to use seamless flow from accessing passwords across devices to being able to get Siri to order your groceries for you, Google has an easy to use cross device connectivity and at the heart of it is everyone’s content platform YouTube which works like a breeze on the latest Android powered TV’s. Say what you want but watching these two battle it out is as exciting as watching El Classico

Writer: Sizwe Cele