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Windows Phone fans may be lamenting the absence of Google apps on their favorite device, but iOS lovers have no such problem — and those apps are viewed as a key advantage for the Android maker.
The New York Times has published a look at how Google’s embrace of the iPhone has become a new strategy for the search giant. Instead of just focusing on their own Android platform, Google has invaded the App Store with its own product to the point where many users can comfortably replace Apple’s built-in apps with the competition.
Publicly, the two companies continue to drift further apart in the battle for smartphone domination, but during this time, Google has been ramping up efforts to infiltrate Apple’s mobile platform with its own apps — the latest being Google Maps, which comes in the wake of Cupertino’s failure to build a better solution with iOS 6.
Even the ejection of YouTube from iOS 6 hasn’t dampened Google’s spirits — they simply made their own version, which many users view as vastly superior to the one Apple had introduced with the original iPhone in 2007.
While iPhone users clearly prefer Apple’s mobile OS over Android, Google ultimately benefits from valuable data they collect from iOS users who choose their apps over Cupertino’s own.
“It’s a little ironic,” real estate agent and new iPhone user Stephen Stetelman told The Times after installing Google’s key apps in favor of Apple’s own. “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.”
It hasn’t always been this easy for Google: The company’s Google Voice app was notoriously rejected by Apple several years back, a detente that took the two companies quite some time to sort out. But for now, Google is having its cake and eating it, too.
“Our goal is to make a simple, easy-to-use Google experience available to as many people as possible,” said Google spokesman Christopher Katsaros. “We’ve developed apps for iOS for some time now, and we’re delighted to see the recent enthusiasm for them.”
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