Three years ago, Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, jogged onto a San Francisco stage to shake hands with Steven P. Jobs, Apple's co-founder, to help him unveil a transformational wonder gadget -- the iPhone -- before throngs of journalists and adoring fans at the annual MacWorld Expo.
Google and Apple had worked together to bring Google's search and mapping services to the iPhone, the executives told the audience, and Mr. Schmidt joked that the collaboration was so close that the two men should simply merge their companies and call them “AppleGoo."
“Steve, my congratulations to you," Mr. Schmidt told his corporate ally. “This product is going to be hot." Mr. Jobs acknowledged the compliment with an ear-to-ear smile.
Today, such warmth is in short supply. Mr. Jobs, Mr. Schmidt and their companies are now engaged in a gritty battle royale over the future and shape of mobile computing and cellphones, with implications that are reverberating across the digital landscape.
In the last six months, Apple and Google have jousted over acquisitions, patents, directors, advisers and iPhone applications. Mr. Jobs and Mr. Schmidt have taken shots at each other's companies in the media and in private exchanges with employees.
This month, Apple sued HTC, the Taiwanese maker of mobile phones that run Google's Android operating system, contending that HTC had violated iPhone patents. The move was widely seen as the beginning of a legal assault by Apple on Google itself, as well as an attempt to slow Google's plans to extend its dominion to mobile devices.
Apple believes that devices like smartphones and tablets should have tightly controlled, proprietary standards and that customers should take advantage of services on those gadgets with applications downloaded from Apple's own App Store.
Google, on the other hand, wants smartphones to have open, nonproprietary platforms so users can freely roam the Web for apps that work on many devices. Google has long feared that rivals like Microsoft or Apple or wireless carriers like Verizon could block access to its services on devices like smartphones, which could soon eclipse computers as the primary gateway to the Web. Google's promotion of Android is, essentially, an effort to control its destiny in the mobile world.
While the discord between Apple and Google is in part philosophical and involves enormous financial stakes, the battle also has deeply personal overtones and echoes the ego-fueled fisticuffs that have long characterized technology industry feuds. (Think Intel vs. A.M.D., Microsoft vs. everybody, and so on.)
Google and Apple had worked together to bring Google's search and mapping services to the iPhone, the executives told the audience, and Mr. Schmidt joked that the collaboration was so close that the two men should simply merge their companies and call them “AppleGoo."
“Steve, my congratulations to you," Mr. Schmidt told his corporate ally. “This product is going to be hot." Mr. Jobs acknowledged the compliment with an ear-to-ear smile.
Today, such warmth is in short supply. Mr. Jobs, Mr. Schmidt and their companies are now engaged in a gritty battle royale over the future and shape of mobile computing and cellphones, with implications that are reverberating across the digital landscape.
In the last six months, Apple and Google have jousted over acquisitions, patents, directors, advisers and iPhone applications. Mr. Jobs and Mr. Schmidt have taken shots at each other's companies in the media and in private exchanges with employees.
This month, Apple sued HTC, the Taiwanese maker of mobile phones that run Google's Android operating system, contending that HTC had violated iPhone patents. The move was widely seen as the beginning of a legal assault by Apple on Google itself, as well as an attempt to slow Google's plans to extend its dominion to mobile devices.
Apple believes that devices like smartphones and tablets should have tightly controlled, proprietary standards and that customers should take advantage of services on those gadgets with applications downloaded from Apple's own App Store.
Google, on the other hand, wants smartphones to have open, nonproprietary platforms so users can freely roam the Web for apps that work on many devices. Google has long feared that rivals like Microsoft or Apple or wireless carriers like Verizon could block access to its services on devices like smartphones, which could soon eclipse computers as the primary gateway to the Web. Google's promotion of Android is, essentially, an effort to control its destiny in the mobile world.
While the discord between Apple and Google is in part philosophical and involves enormous financial stakes, the battle also has deeply personal overtones and echoes the ego-fueled fisticuffs that have long characterized technology industry feuds. (Think Intel vs. A.M.D., Microsoft vs. everybody, and so on.)
