Does Apple Thinks Google Is Inept?
December 25, 2024
At a pre-holiday get together, I heard Wilson say, “Don’t ever think you’re completely useless. You can always be used as a bad example.”
I read the trust outfit’s write up “Apple Seeks to Defend Google’s Billion Dollar Payments in Search Case.” I found the story cutting two ways.
Apple, a big outfit, believes that it can explain in a compelling way why Google should be paying Apple to make Google search the default search engine on Apple devices. Do you remember the Walt Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame? I love an argument with a twisted back story. Apple seems to be saying to Google: “Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil. Evil takes a break from time to time. Stupidity does not.”
The Thomson Reuters article offers:
Apple has asked to participate in Google’s upcoming U.S. antitrust trial over online search, saying it cannot rely on Google to defend revenue-sharing agreements that send the iPhone maker billions of dollars each year for making Google the default search engine on its Safari browser.
Apple wants that $20 billion a year and certainly seems to be sending a signal that Google will screw up the deal with a Googley argument. At the same holiday party, Wilson’s significant other observed, ““My people skills are just fine. It’s my tolerance to idiots that needs work.” I wonder if that person was talking about Apple?
Apple may be fearful that Google will lurch into Code Yellow, tell the jury that gluing cheese on pizza is logical, and explain that it is not a monopoly. Apple does not want to be in the court cafeteria and hear, “I heard Google ask the waiter, “How do you prepare chicken?” The waiter replied, “Nothing special. The cook just says, “You are going to die.”
The Thomson Reuters’ article offers this:
Apple wants to call witnesses to testify at an April trial. Prosecutors will seek to show Google must take several measures, including selling its Chrome web browser and potentially its Android operating system, to restore competition in online search. “Google can no longer adequately represent Apple’s interests: Google must now defend against a broad effort to break up its business units,” Apple said.
I had a professor from Oklahoma who told our class:
“If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”
Apple and Google arguing in court. Google has a lousy track record in court. Apple is confident it can convince a court that taking Google’s money is okay.
Albert Eistein allegedly observed:
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Yep, Apple and Google, quite a pair.
Stephen E Arnold, December 25, 2024
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