Apple Poached Lala from Possible Google Acquisition?

fight fight!

I think Google is spreading itself too far. They should stick to Search and make their revenue from their successful GoogleAds.

Building an OS for phones and PC's is something else entirely.

I really don't like what I have read about this Lala deal. I have zero interest in a streaming iTunes they should have just let Google have it.

ipedro said:

fight fight!

I think Google is spreading itself too far. They should stick to Search and make their revenue from their successful GoogleAds.

Building an OS for phones and PC's is something else entirely.

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That's like being in 2001 and saying "Apple should really stick to computers only; mp3 players and phones are something else entirely." Give them a shot, Im excited for what Google will produce in the coming year.

ipedro said:

fight fight!

I think Google is spreading itself too far. They should stick to Search and make their revenue from their successful GoogleAds.

Building an OS for phones and PC's is something else entirely.

Click to expand...

I think Apple is spreading itself too far. They should stick to Personal Conputers and make their revenue from their Mac Sales.

Building a Portable Music Player and mobile phones is something else entirely

I think BOTH of these companies are going to wind up in the same court one of these days.

primmstereo said:

That's like being in 2001 and saying "Apple should really stick to computers only; mp3 players and phones are something else entirely." Give them a shot, Im excited for what Google will produce in the coming year.

Click to expand...

NetScheduler said:

I think Apple is spreading itself too far. They should stick to Personal Conputers and make their revenue from their Mac Sales.

Building a Portable Music Player and mobile phones is something else entirely

Click to expand...

De ja vu

ipedro said:

fight fight!

I think Google is spreading itself too far. They should stick to Search and make their revenue from their successful GoogleAds.

Click to expand...

In all fairness, the same argument could have been made when Apple was first getting into digital media, music players, and smartphones. You never know how it will turn out.

Edit: this is what I get for replying before reading everybody else's posts

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple banned in-app ads. Or at least put a large royalty on it.

They make money from 30% of all revenue from apps. If a seperate company is making the apps free, but still getting profit, then that hurts Apple.

If I were them, I would put 40% royalties on all income generated by app ads. That way they would be able to kill Google's investment before they are able to gain the money back that they spent buying it.

As Apple moves towards more web-based services and Google into the mobile phone market, the lines are continuing to blur.

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Don't forget Chrome vs. Safari.

I'm glad Apple bought Lala. Interested to see what they do with streaming.

I actually figured Apple picked up Lala just to keep it out of Google's hands to make life a little more difficult for them. It's anti-competitive, but not illegal (assuming the FCC doesn't have an issue with the sale).

ipedro said:

fight fight!

I think Google is spreading itself too far. They should stick to Search and make their revenue from their successful GoogleAds.

Building an OS for phones and PC's is something else entirely.

Click to expand...

True, however, Google seems to be somewhat more in touch with style, design, and focus on 'user experience' than other competitors who attempt to do it all.

Google's competitive endeavors appear to be genuine, with a primary focus on the development of innovative and useful apps, while placing less emphasis on copying, cloning, and trail chasing other's successful ideas.

Hopefully, they and Apple will continue to co-exist in a positive way - Maps, and Voice/Search are great apps on the iPhone.

Sensibly, one only hopes that they stop short of developing a gaming console, and a line of computers, laptops, and tablets.

Throw in a chain of retail stores, and you've got a winner.

DMann said:

True, however, Google seems to be somewhat more in touch with style, design, and focus on 'user experience' than other competitors who attempt to do it all.

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This is not evident from any of their software applications. The G1 phone (the design of which they were said to have collaborated on). Or, of course, their logo.

Couldn't find the Hot Fuzz clip

But this pretty much sums it up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqMiigy92qU

I'm really quite happy to see a non-suck company squaring up to eventually go toe to toe with Apple. All Apple ever had to do was be better than MS and make pretty machines, which wasn't hard to do. Now Google is a lean, mean powerhouse, and the more they compete, the better it's gonna be for all of us, especially if they keep a "friendly" sorta tone to the competition, ensuring that their services and products work together, something which I actually believe probably WILL happen, since they've collaborated on so much, and invested so much into common technologies like HTML5.

Neotyguy40 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple banned in-app ads. Or at least put a large royalty on it.

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Actually, I'd think the cell provider would have a problem with in-app ads, as it eats their bandwidth. To keep up, it would force faster updates to the cell systems, which is expensive.

So they'd apply "pressure" to Apple, and Apple in turn would press the developers to prevent, or at least significantly reduce the band usage.

Ultimately, cell providers are likely going to go with use-based pricing, and the users will end up screaming about the ads costing them more in data rates, and rightly so. Users don't see a profit from streaming ads.

LagunaSol said:

This is not evident from any of their software applications. The G1 phone (the design of which they were said to have collaborated on). Or, of course, their logo.

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Good points, though Maps (their specialty) is really good. Chrome browser, as generic as it is, seems loads better and more streamlined than IE8.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Chrome OS eat away a small portion of their competitor's OS.

G1 is a clunker, for sure, as is the DROID - perhaps, they'll do better with the design of the Goog-Phone.

As for their logo, no contest:




Ballmer's rendition:

Money Money MOney

Apple has more cash in bank...

It makes sense from a strategic perspective for Apple to grab Lala before Google. I'm not a user of lala, but if it's as good as some have said, Google could have built a solid streaming service for android phones that would have rivaled iTunes and was similar to Zune pass. Buy it on Lala and have it on every android device you own via a special app. I think that's one of the big things working against Android (besides it having a rather ugly GUI) is it lacks the multimedia punch Apple has with iTunes. Google has no rival to iTunes for the Android platform and Lala would have let them incorporate web streaming directly into Android and Chrome OS to rival iTunes.

Apple already does search

It is called the iTMS. People search for music, applications, movies etc all the time. Apple needs to harness this power and sell priority listings etc. Maybe they already do.

I can't wait to see what Apple does next with iTunes. I would be very happy if we have the opportunity to buy iTunes content on our hard drive as always yet have the option of all our content also available in a cloud for easy access from anywhere on our portable devices. Brilliant if you ask me.

ipedro said:

fight fight!

I think Google is spreading itself too far. They should stick to Search and make their revenue from their successful GoogleAds.

Building an OS for phones and PC's is something else entirely.

Click to expand...

True... I don't think they're all that smart or innovative...
Some dude created a search engine with no large ads that gets pretty good search results, so lots of people started using it (including me.)

Something's shonky with their books I think. Sure, their search engine's popular... but I don't think it makes THAT much money (it's not one of Apple's serious competitors... they have a lot more "real" money, infrastructure and products that definitely make money.) Google's setup HUGE headquarters' in random countries like Australia that achieve absolutely nothing (I'm from Oz + have worked for Google... quit because it felt like a shonky startup with all the pep talks...etc.) The Australian headquarters does NOTHING useful... it's just a big advertisement for Google where you give up your family life for free lunch trays, 10m from every office & a ping pong table in the board room. News: Sooooooo many startups will offer you the same, and just as much promise as Google...

I don't really care what Google does... they're not the new, creative, innovative company that so many people seem to think they are. All they've done is:
- Make an awesome search engine (I respect it)
- Made a weird advertising model that is in no way transparent, and keeps feeding less and less money to the people who make it happen. (To me this is proof it's not meeting profit targets.)
- Received a LOT and I mean LOT!!! (Billions) of VC money from people who want them to dent M$/Apple.
- Used this money to buy out a bunch of unprofitable startups... then re-named their products to "Google *****".
- Failed to produce any commercially viable "hard" products (sure Android... but c'mon... is it really selling? It's the iPhone's high-profile whipping boy... the iPhone's making REAL money... Android's either losing money or making some insignificant chump change.)

So Google is now becoming a giant too big to ignore.

The rumor about Apple making it's own maps application/getting a different one is now seeming more and more true. It's sad, really. Because they're both great companies and it was nice when they innovate together instead of going against each other. Remember the past keynotes where Eric was on stage, they seemed like they had a great relationship, but not for long.