Google lauds iPhone
By Will Park on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 8:22 PM PST In Android, Apple, Partnerships, iPhone
What does Google (NSDQ: GOOG) think about the iPhone? Well, even with the competing mobile platform, Android, that Google is currently pushing to develop, it seems that the higher-ups at Google really like the iPhone.
Jonathan Rosenberg, Google’s senior vice president for product management, said that, “[Google is] particularly interested in looking at the iPhone because the Web browsing experience is so good, and because of the optimization work we did.
Sergey Brin, one of Google’s presidents, flat-out loves his own personal iPhone - especially the Google Maps My Location feature. The feature actually helped Brin find his way to a hotel recently, without the aid of GPS position data.
Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, is not only leading Google towards an Android-world, he is on the board of directors at Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). This might seem like a contradiction of interests (not necessarily a conflict of interests) but Google seems to be interested in developing for the iPhone as a sort of practice-run for its own Android applications. And, with most mobile traffic coming from iPhones, Google thinks that any iPhone development will only lead to generating more ad-revenue for the search-giant.
Schmidt stated that, “The iPhone is the first of a whole generation of products that will be much more search intensive…With those search opportunities comes ad monetization.”
It sounds like Google and Apple will be getting even cozier on iPhone development. This can only mean we’ll be getting better functionality with every firmware update, and it will probably mean that Android handsets will ship with amazing applications. Experience is key in the mobile space, and Google’s work with the iPhone may just help them push out some great Android features.
Bring on Androi…er, the next iPhone firmware!
[Via: NYT]
