Google Gains From Creating Apps for the Opposition

originally appeared in The New York Times:

For many people, smartphone shopping comes down to a choice of Apple’s iPhone or one powered by Google’s Android software.

But now consumers can get an iPhone and fill it with Google.

Google has become one of the most prolific and popular developers of apps for the iPhone, in effect helping its competitor make more appealing products — even as relations between the companies have deteriorated.

While some of its Internet services were built into the iPhone from the start, Google has stepped up its presence in the last eight months, pumping out major new iPhone apps or improving old ones. It also has expanded efforts to hire developers to make more such apps.

A maps app Google released in December has been the most downloaded program for the iPhone for much of the last month. The company has cranked out a YouTube app, an iPhone version of its Chrome Web browser and better software for gaining access to its Gmail service. Two dozen iPhone apps from Google are available on Apple’s App Store, with variations for the iPad.

Google’s strategy may look self-defeating at first. But analysts and technology executives say it is simply acknowledging the obvious: that there is an enormous market of avid iPhone users it wants to reach, an audience that is a target for ads and that can yield a bonanza of data that will allow Google to improve the online products that produce much of its profits.

Google’s support for the iPhone also looks like a win for Apple, which, after all, makes money when it sells an iPhone that is used to gain access to Google services.

But potential risks lie in Google’s growing presence on Apple’s devices, especially when it comes to apps that replace basic functions like Web browsing, maps and e-mail.

IPhone users who spend much of their time in Google apps could deprive Apple of valuable data it needs to improve its own online services like maps. And those apps could help Google build a deeper connection with users that makes them more likely to switch entirely to Android smartphones later.

“The best way to recruit users to those devices is to get them using the services,” said Chris Silva, a mobile analyst at Altimeter Group, a tech industry research business. “Find them where they are, get them using the services and ramp them up so when they have devices equivalent to the iPhone, they are already in the market.”

Stephen Stetelman, a real estate agent in Hattiesburg, Miss., is a prime example of an iPhone user whose loyalties are divided between Apple and Google. The first thing Mr. Stetelman, 25, said he did when he got a new iPhone two weeks ago was to download all of Google’s major apps, including Gmail, Chrome and Google Maps — all of which he said he considered better than the comparable Apple apps that came with the phone.

“It’s a little ironic,” Mr. Stetelman said. “But I think honestly the grace of Apple is in their design and in their hardware. As far as online services and applications and stuff, I think Google is still top of the line.”

People like Mr. Stetelman make executives at Apple nervous. Early in the iPhone era, Steven P. Jobs, the company’s former chief executive, who died in October 2011, did not want Apple to approve any apps for the device that replaced its core functions, one former senior Apple employee said.

Apple executives have long believed that they would need to build up many of the same services that Google offers to compete long-term in the mobile market, according to this person, who did not want to be named to avoid jeopardizing relationships.

Eventually, under scrutiny from federal regulators, Apple softened its stance and began allowing apps for the iPhone, like Web browsers, that competed with important built-in apps.

Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment for this article.

Apple has moved to reduce the presence of Google services in apps that come installed on its phones. Last year it removed the YouTube app — one that Apple created for the earliest iPhones so they would have access to YouTube videos. It also stopped using Google data to power its mapping application.

Instead, Apple began using its own maps service, which has been widely criticized for mistakes, including misplaced landmarks and inaccurate addresses. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, issued a rare apology last September for its maps product and later shook up the company’s management ranks, in part because of the problems.

Apple’s decision to stop including Google’s services on its devices forced Google to quickly ramp up its own software development for Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS.

While Google had engineers devoted to iOS projects, it had to hire outsiders to help quickly design a Google Maps app for the iPhone.

That app appears to be a huge hit. Widely praised by technology reviewers, Google Maps for the iPhone was downloaded more than 10 million times in the 48 hours after its release last December, Jeff Huber, a Google senior vice president, said in an online post at the time.

Other Google apps are among the most commonly used on the iPhone. Last November there were 11.8 million unique users of a new Google-created YouTube app for the iPhone in the United States, and 6.4 million users of its Google Search app, placing them both in the top 20 list of iPhone apps with the biggest audience, according to Nielsen.

In October, Google updated its search application for the iPhone with voice capabilities that more closely resembled those of Siri, the often-maligned virtual assistant included in the iPhone.

Google also bolstered its efforts last year to hire more iOS developers, many of whom might be unlikely to consider working for the company because of its focus on promoting the Android operating system on mobile devices.

Last July, Google bought Sparrow, a Paris-based start-up that made a popular app for using Gmail on the iPhone, and moved some of its engineers to Silicon Valley.

Last December, it began posting Web ads to recruit iOS developers, providing a link to a Q.&A. on the subject with the headline, “Wait, Google has iOS mobile apps teams?”

Chris Hulbert, a freelance programmer who spent three months working for Google in Australia last year, wrote a blog post in which he compared working on iOS apps there to “working behind enemy lines.”

Google said it had not changed its strategy on Apple devices, but rather was continuing to build apps for all devices.

“Our goal is to make a simple, easy-to-use Google experience available to as many people as possible,” said Christopher Katsaros, a Google spokesman. “We’ve developed apps for iOS for some time now, and we’re delighted to see the recent enthusiasm for them.”

Unlike Apple, Google makes its money not from selling phones but from selling ads that appear on those phones. So it cares less about which phone a consumer uses and more about whether that consumer uses Google apps — and shares data with Google and sees Google ads.

When a consumer uses Chrome on the desktop at work, for instance, then opens the same tabs and continues using Chrome on phones elsewhere, Google knows much more about that consumer’s behavior, including the consumer’s location and the searches. The company’s hunger for such data has, of course, raised privacy concerns.

Chetan Sharma, an independent mobile analyst, says Google’s focus on iOS should concern Apple. “It just pushes Apple to up their game in software,” he said. “They’re kind of behind.”

Test Flights into the Google Cloud

NY Times

 

Liam McLoughlin, 17, has compiled Google's open-source code into a working version of its planned Chrome OS. His mother, Stefanie, brought him a snack.

 

JORDON WING is a devoted user of Google products like Gmail, the Chrome browser and Google Docs, the Web-based word processing program.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Wing, a high school student from Spokane, Wash., took another Google product out for a spin: the Chrome Operating System.

Google is not expected to unveil the highly anticipated Chrome OS until the end of the year, and the software is expected to run, at first, only on the class of low-cost PCs called netbooks. But Mr. Wing, along with a growing number of other Google fans, did not want to wait.

These people are downloading home-brewed versions of the operating system derived from the esoteric source code, which Google releases under the name Chromium. Google is developing the Chrome system as an open-source project and periodically releases the Chromium code online, to let other Web developers contribute to the project.

Several resourceful users have taken those undistilled vats of source code and done something Google says it never expected: they’ve compiled it into working versions of the operating system, tailoring it for use on dozens of computer brands and making it available to regular folks who want to preview one possible vision of their high-tech future.

“Maybe it’s because I’m still kind of a kid, but all this new stuff is exciting,” said Mr. Wing, who installed Chromium on his Dell Inspiron laptop and recently extolled its virtues. “The idea of an operating system that really only does one thing — gets you onto the Internet very quickly — is perfect for me.”

When officially released, Chrome OS will represent a milestone for Google. It will not only be its entry into the market for operating systems, long dominated by its archrival Microsoft, but also a new computing paradigm.

The Chrome operating system is designed to allow computers to boot up to the Web within seconds, onto a home screen that looks like that of a Web browser. Users of devices running Chrome will have to perform all their computing online or “in the cloud,” without downloading traditional software applications like iTunes and Microsoft Office, or storing files on hard drives. Devices running Chrome will receive continuous software updates, providing added security, and most user data will reside on Google’s servers.

Some analysts are skeptical that regular folks will flock to devices that place such severe limits on their computing activities. Chrome OS “is a bet on a future in which we move beyond rich applications and everything eventually gets delivered through a Web browser,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at the research firm Interpret. But that time is not here yet, he said: “Chrome this year and next year is mostly a science project.”

But for legions of Google heads, the fact that it feels like a science project adds to the allure. Working versions of Chromium have appeared across the Web and have been downloaded more than a million times. By all accounts, the most popular and functional have been on the Web site of a 17-year-old in Manchester, England, who goes by the Internet handle “Hexxeh.”

Liam McLoughlin, as Hexxeh is known to family and friends, is a college student and programmer who has taken Google’s Chromium code and compiled it so the operating system can be downloaded to a separate USB memory stick, which can then be used to boot up a computer. He has spent countless evenings and weekends configuring Chromium to work on various kinds of computers, including the Macintosh, and added features that Google has not gotten to yet, like support for the Java programming language.

He explained that his work on Chromium began partly as a way to demonstrate his computing skills and possibly open doors in the technology industry. It also sprang from an interest and belief in Google’s computing vision. “Many people don’t care about how PCs work and all the security software that comes with today’s computers. They just want to use the Internet,” he said.

Since last fall, a small but vibrant community has formed around his work, encouraging him with ideas and supporting his efforts by providing money for servers and other programming tools.

Steve Pirk, a former systems engineer at the Walt Disney Company and now based in the Seattle area, helped to support a coding marathon this year by donating $50 via PayPal, which Mr. McLoughlin spent on a supply of highly caffeinated Jolt cola.

Mr. Pirk said he tested Hexxeh’s resulting software, code-named Flow, on a half-dozen computers; all functioned properly running Chromium from a USB drive. He says he looks forward to the day when low-powered but fully functional computers running Chrome can help lead to a new wave of telecommuting. “The more work we do in the cloud, the less need there is for people to be in physically secure network environments,” he said.

All of the activity around these prenatal incarnations of Chrome is something of a double-edged sword for Google. The company wants developers and other companies to work beside its engineers, developing their own versions of the operating system. But Google says it did not anticipate that regular people would start using Chromium — and evaluating it — before it was ready for prime time.

NEVERTHELESS, the Google executive in charge of Chrome OS took pains to express support for the Google fans trying Chromium — and for their presumptive band leader, Mr. McLoughlin.

Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, said that “what people like Hexxeh are doing is amazing to see.” Though he called the Chromium releases an “unintended consequence” of the process of developing open-source software, he said, “If you decide to do open-source projects, you have to be open all the way.”

Google Chrome Gets Extensions, APIs
Information Week

With support for user-installed extensions, Google Chrome presents stronger competition to the more established Web browsers.

Only days after Mozilla introduced Firefox 3.6, Google has rolled out a new stable release of Google Chrome for Windows.

Google maintains three separate tracks for its Chrome Web browser: developer, beta, and stable.

The updated stable release bring support for Chrome Extensions, a feature that users of Chrome's developer

and beta releases have had since late last year. Extensibility has been one of the major factors in the success of Firefox.

And as with Firefox, some of the most popular extensions for Chrome block ads.

"Google Chrome extensions use the same multiprocess technology that makes the browser fast and more secure, so that extensions won't crash or slow down your browser," said Google product manager Ian Fette in a blog post.

Google has enabled extensions in the Google Chrome for Linux beta and it plans to do the same shortly for Chrome on the Mac.

The updated version of Chrome for Windows also adds support for several new HTML and JavaScript APIs. These include the Web SQL Database API, which allows local storage of structured data; the local storage portion of the Web Storage API, a simpler local storage mechanism; WebSockets, a way to send data back and forth over a persistent communication channel; and a Windows-only notification API, for passing non-disruptive updates to a panel in the user's status-bar area.

In a separate blog post, Fette also said that Google is working to implement a service called Application Cache, which allows the serving of HTML and JavaScript that references Web SQL data. Its engineers are also working on the SessionStorage part of the Web Storage API.

While Firefox use continues to grow, Google's ongoing efforts to polish Chrome appear to be prompting some Firefox fans to reconsider their browser choice. A thread on Reddit about Chrome use suggests that Google's focus on browser basics like speed, stability, and security resonates with users.

Running Mozilla's Dromaeo JavaScript test on Windows XP, Chrome 4.0.302.3 beat Firefox 3.6 in three out of four of the speed trials, with a final score of 139.19 to 83.90.

At the end of this year, Google plans to release Chrome OS, an operating system based on its Web browser and taking full advantage of the preeminence of Google SEO.