Yesterday's news that Apple's iPhone is getting an amazing kicking from Android is being greeted with horror by the Jobs' Mob's friendly press.
For years Apple has worked on the basis that it was Microsoft's Bill Gates who was the Anti-Christ to Steve Jobs' Messiah. But it is fast turning out that it is Google and its Android operating system which is the religious enemy of all things Mac.
Now the Apple press is starting to look around at ways of stirring a bit of dirt against the Android operating system.
This morning it was Apple Insider which warned that despite strong growth in first half of 2010, Google's Android platform was not attractive to commercial development because of rampant app piracy and limitation in security and international sales through Google's store.
It quoted another report by Jay Yarow of Silicon Alley Insider who had been speaking to one developer of one of Android's top ten apps and said that 97 percent of players in Asia were using an illegal copy, 70 percent in Europe, and 43 percent in North America.
His game, named Radiant, sells for just $2.40 but Android users find it more attractive to pirate the game.
The problem is, Apple Insider insists, that Google does not protect users like Steve Jobs does. This will be news to Yarow who did not mention Apple at all in his story. He was writing something which said Android was suffering from piracy and how Google was aware of the problem had will allowing developers to write code so the software phones home at regular intervals to determine if they're pirated or not.
According to Apple Insider Apple apparently has a superior system because it ties purchased apps to the user's iTunes account, making piracy difficult without any phone home authorisation steps. Of course this only works with phones which are not jail broken, which is a doddle to do on the iPhone.
Then Apple Insider begins a rant against how much better Apple is over Android. Google only supports paid app sales in 13 of the 46 countries it is available from: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States.
However, Apple supports paid downloads for third party App Store developers in 90 countries around the world. Globally, Apple has an installed base that's at least four times larger than Android, thanks in part to iPod touch and iPad users. So, in other words, Apple is bigger so it much be better. But that logic does not apply when you are talking about Android overtaking Apple, which it clearly is.
Apple's App Store features the least expensive apps on average across its top 100 apps than another other platform, but also features a high average price in its top grossing applications, demonstrating both a viable market for low priced volume apps as well as speciality apps that can command a higher price, Apple Insider enthuses.
But Apple developers tell me that writing for Steve Jobs is hell on toast - not only are there controls but you have to follow his Disneyland view about what apps can do.
If you follow Apple Insider's rant, why would anyone even touch that nasty Google Android when life is so much better inside Jobs' Mob's walled Garden?
Did you notice the unsubstantiated claim that Android would not succeed in business because it was not secure?
In fact, Apple has also not been able to enter the business market for exactly that reason. It has also not been able to create software that interacts with business servers as well as Microsoft or Blackberry.
Android is a new player in that field which might be one of the reasons the more conservative business market is not moving as much towards it. Apple Insider admits that Apple needs to better secure its iOS too.
We can expect a lot of jibes to come against Android from the tame Apple press in the next few months as their favourite company continues to lose ground. The fact is that Android is the "fizzy fizzy feel good" to the Apple hangover. It offers something that the autocratic Jobs can't. Freedom to do what you like.
Back in the early 1980s, the Commodore 64 and Apple II were the installed base leaders in computing. Think of Commodore as Nokia (the leader but unable to adapt to changing market conditions).
Think of Apple as, well, Apple. When the IBM PC debuted, Apple responded with its own more closed systems -- the Macintosh, the Apple ///, and the Apple IIgs.
The rationale for the closed machines was "better experience," less piracy, etc. The rant against pirates from Apple Insider resembles the same arguments made by Apple partisans against PCs in 1985. By the end of 1985, PCs had completely marginalized Apple in the computing market -- the Apple /// was discontinued. By the end of the 1980s, the Macintosh was a costly "also ran" and the Apple IIgs was facing doom.
In smartphones, things move an order of magnitude faster than in the 1980s computer business. As Android becomes the dominant smartphone OS, Apple's ecosystem will become increasingly marginal as a development platform, and its strict controls on developers and users will make it a poor investment for the average developer, just as the Macintosh is considered a poor investment for dedicated development.
The Mac was able to limp along as software vendors like Microsoft and Adobe brought over software developed on PCs and ported it to the Mac, so it still had some relevant software. Apple's ban on porting apps to the iPhone/iPod means that that option will NOT be available for Apple users, and as developers continue to jump ship, apps simply will no longer be developed in the Apple ecosystem. 24 months from now, most people will be saying "oh yeah, I remember the iPhone, that's like the Palm Treo, right?"