Larry Page Just Wants Apple and Google to Get Along
When asked about his competition — and Apple specifically — Google CEO Larry Page now insists he wants to see more cooperation, less animosity, and happier users. That's a shocking admission considering the overt resentment between big tech companies these days, especially Google and Apple. Steve Jobs famously maligned Android, calling it a stolen product that he vowed to "destroy." To that, Page offered the following in a rare interview with Fortune's Miguel Heft: "I think it would be nice if everybody would get along better and the users didn't suffer as a result of other people's activities." Of course, Page might be taking it a bit easier after the whole Google Maps debacle. (Later in the interview, he talks up the seven or so years of hard work Google engineers put in to perfect its navigation software.) In this particular debacle, Apple compromised on its own user experience because it didn't want to work directly with a rival product in Google Maps. Perhaps if the relationship were reversed, Page wouldn't sound so conciliatory.
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Page says he talks with Apple but that he sees the iMaker only as a partner "at times." As in they don't along at other times — like Maps times. Hopefully Apple and Google can play nice for long enough to bring us that Google Maps app that has been promised to us by Christmas — by rumors, anyway.
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In any case, users have had to concede a few features of late because of tech giants not exactly wanting to get along. In addition to the Google-Apple maps thing, we've been witnessing something of a Twitter-Instagram war unfold. So it's hard not to agree with Page: maybe everyone should just get along.
