At the Google I/O conference, the search giant presented a new version of the Android operating system and a set of new programs and services. The innovations of Android M were not interested in few – for the most part, Google adopted the key features for his OS, which have long existed in iOS.
► “If you are hiding under the rug Kopes, robbers can also use it,” Tim Cook says. The head of Apple insists on maintaining encryption systems for company products.
This should not surprise anyone: it becomes more obvious that Android and the battle for OS are not for Google a strategy and itself. The strategy is the distribution of Google cloud services and technologies, and as long as you use Google Mail, Google Search, Google Maps and other solutions from the company from Mountain-Vew, the search giant does not give a damn what OS you use. The presentation of two technologies – Google Photos and Google Now on Tap was an excess of this thesis.
The gap increases
And outwardly and in the set of key functions, Google Photos is similar to the recently launched Apple Photos service, but with one huge exception. When you upload your photos to the Google server, images are scanned and analyzed without your participation, so you can conduct an extended and detailed search for your entire extensive photo base.
Say, if you write in the search line the word Grass (“grass”; the service does not yet support Russian -speaking requests), the application will instantly sort pictures and shows you only those photos that the grass appears. If you ask to find a dog, Google Photos will show you all the photos with dogs.
► Google Photos is one of the main new products shown at the conference.
Of course, the algorithm sometimes fails and confuses (or does not recognize) objects, but there is no doubt that over time it will work better and better, and in the current form it functions perfectly. How rightly noted on The Verge, Google Photos – a service that surprises and pleases. Real magic in the technology that we are used to receiving from another company – Apple.
Google Now on Tap is impressive no less. The service has the ability to understand what kind of content you look at at every moment in time, and give relevant tips and recommendations. For example, if you have a photo of the musicians of the rock band in the browser, Google Now TaP will be highly likely to understand who is depicted on it, and will be able to answer your questions like “who is a singer in this group?", Even if you do not utter the name of the team, formulating the request. Apple voice assistant – siri – does not know how to.
► "Gray Cardinal Google" Sandar Pichai became the main speaker at the presentation. The founders of the company did not climb the stage.
And an advanced search for photos in Photos, and smart Content recognition algorithms, Google On Tap, and other Google cloud services are possible thanks to the company's huge investments in data collection, machine analysis and artificial intelligence systems that the search gigant has done over the years.
Last week, it became quite obvious that in existing functional capabilities, and even more so by the potential, Google services only increase their separation from competitors, and this is a huge problem for the main competitor of the company from Mountain-Vue-Apple.
A world without devices
► Android Wear, Operational System for Watch on Android.
Why this suddenly became a big problem for Apple, which was always only happy about the appearance of high -quality applications and services from third -party developers on its devices?
The answer to this question is in the long -term vector of technology development. More recently, we talked about “Post-PC World”, that is, about the world of mobile technologies, but now the time has come to prepare for the onset of the “Post-Devices World” era-a world in which there will be no physical devices or their role will be at all Involved to a minimum.
I believe that in a rather close future we will not wear smartphones or even smart watches – all calculations will be carried out in the cloud, and the global database of information will interact with people through implants or a developed sensor system. We will communicate with a computer voice, gestures; He will understand us, give us advice and recommendations. It is unlikely that we will look at the monitor or even at the mobile screen any considerable time; A computer network will become an ephemeral “creature” surrounding us everywhere, always hearing us, seeing and knowing. We saw the film Her ("She")? Probably something like this will look like.
► In the “Her” movie, the operating system with a melodic female name “Samantha” showed such abilities for development and improvement that an affair arose between her and a lone writer.
And in such a world – a world without physical devices – for Apple, a key examination and the main source of earnings of which is the production and sale of physical devices, there is simply no place. Interestingly, Apple personally brings the onset of this era: its gadgets become thinner, less, lighter and more portable, and Apple Watch is a culmination of movement in the described direction at the current moment: a tiny (by the standards of computers) a device that you wear on your hand and with whom you interact mainly in the voice and with the help of sensors. The logically arising next step is a microcomputer that can no longer be felt.
In the last war – the war that ended at the end of May – the battle went beyond iron and software. The new battle takes place for cloud services. Many people buy Apple products, preferring the iron and software decisions of the company from Cupertino, but few people buy them for services like Apple Maps or ICloud.
► "Free" and "unlimited" became keywords at the presentation of the Google Photos service.
On the contrary, there are many people who, having bought Mac or iPhone, first delete or remove Safari, Apple Mail, Apple Maps and other services and Apple's applications to the farthest angle and install competing solutions from Google instead. And at these moments, Google celebrates success; I repeat, to the leaders in the mauntin-Vew, it does not matter what iron and OS you have, the main thing is that you use Google services. So, you participate in the Google Global Program for Collection and Analysis of Data, and you can also show targeted advertising.
Disposition in the new war
Apple services today exist only to “glue” Apple devices among themselves (typical examples – Imessage, Facetime, Safari content synchronization); Their main goal is to give additional value to the gland from Apple (and Apple does not hide this: “OUR Software and Services Are Designed to Make Devices Better. Plain and Simple ".) and so that you have as difficult as possible to leave this ecosystem.
Google services, meanwhile, exist to be leading interpoplatform offers with the best functionality so that you use them not because they are preinstalled by your laptop or smartphone, but because they are objectively better.
► Demonstration of the capabilities of the updated Android M. So far, only developers can use it live, and only on Nexus platforms.
If tomorrow the owner of the Mac or iPhone, who uses Google solutions, decides to leave the Apple ecosystem and switch to Chrome OS, Windows or Android, he will be able to do it without much difficulty – because all his data (mail, calendars, contacts, and so on) are located Google and are available on any gland and on any OS. Google services and their popularity among OS X and iOS users are a huge Trojan horse in Apple Fortress.
Thus, if Apple is interested in holding people in their ecosystem and – in a longer term – to maintain relevance in the world without devices, it absolutely needs to do not only the best iron and OS, but also the best services (about tactical and strategic problems Apple services I already wrote).
But is it a state of Apple to do it? So that Apple Photos can offer the same smart search as Google Photos, and Siri and Spotlight worked as well as Google Now and Google Search, the company will need to create a huge data collection and artificial analysis and artificial analysis from scratch.
► Google Chrome Browser will think faster and wrap its appetites in relation to RAM. Great, it's high time!
Google has saved the corresponding experience for many years and originally originated as a company for working with information; Apple never shone in this area and at the organizational and cultural level will change the list of her key competencies with a huge creak.
But Apple, it seems, is not even going to do this: as noted in the mentioned letter of Tim Cook about the privacy policy of Apple – and also as Tim Cook emotionally declared on Tuesday – Apple not only does not see the need to analyze user information, but also considers This is "wrong" and vicious. Thus, Apple personally excludes itself from the race for user experience and functionality in cloud services.
But imagine that Apple still decides to fully join this race and sets himself a completely clear task of “surviving” Google services from its products and reduce the dependence of its ecosystem on these services to a minimum. Imagine that Apple nevertheless creates a huge department for working with data and machine analysis and invests even more funds in this direction than Google and Facebook.
► Android Pay, mobile payment system. Supports technology for scanning fingerprints.
However, even such steps do not guarantee Apple championship – for the simple reason that cloud services can exist with significant restrictions in the context of a closed sandbox. Apple, I recall, throughout its history, sold her ecosystem at bonus prices – her iron, her software – which in an understandable way limits the number of users.
Cloud services work the better and satisfy the needs of each specific user, the more accurately, the more information underlies the work of their intellectual and analytical algorithms – and the amount of information is directly proportional to the number of users using these services using.
Thus, the Apple’s closed system and its services will always be an order of magnitude less users than the Google interpretable solutions – which means that theoretically Apple services will inevitably lag behind quality. If Apple decides to make its services interpolar, they will lose their strategic status of an apple iron driver as a differentiating factor. It turns out a vicious circle.
Finally, Google has a completely clear motivational advantage. The company is based on the principle of collecting and analyzing data, and exactly on the same things it earns money (monetizing this data for advertising purposes). That is, if Google does not constantly improve its analytical and machine algorithms, it will soon cease to be competitive. Apple earns on the sale of iron, and the incentive “Blood from the nose” to bring to the ideal its cloud-service algorithms (at least for now); So, I suppose, and efforts in this direction in Cupertino will be applied less.
► "Who sings it?»Google Now can tell the performer of an unfamiliar song.
The more Apple's management publicly convicts the insidiousness and immorality of companies like Google and Facebook (amid the appearance of all more advanced ones, compared to Apple solutions, services), the more it is similar to a few feverish defense and justification tactics.
Apple cannot but understand that the war for users in cloud services and, in a longer term, in the world without devices has already begun, and at the moment it loses in this war and, it seems, does not even have a clear plan and strategy for making a response shock. That the company will take as the next step? This is a question for the same 750 billion dollars that costs a cupertino technojigant today.
I note that the words of Tim Cook can be interpreted in different ways: it is not completely clear whether Cook is opposed to the collection and analysis of the user data in general, or against the use of these data for advertising purposes, as Google and Facebook https://sister-site.org/seven-casino/ do. In addition, it is not clear what data the data of Apple considers it appropriate, and which is not; The corresponding document on the security and privacy policy on the website Apple does not give a direct answer to this question.
It is obvious that the fewer information (text and voice search queries, images, and so on), Apple considers it “correct” and “moral” to collect, the less the company has the possibilities for analyzing data and improve relevant services.
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Indirect evidence of Apple's active work in this direction, especially recently, has appeared a lot. For example, a list of open vacancies is very indicative and especially a description of some positions that can be seen here.
