Kyle St. Romain | BUSINESS | 09.25.2012 @ 1:00 pm
iOS 6 and the upgrades to Mountain Lion are all pretty sweet. Well, they would be sweeter if my new wireless printer was an “AirPrint” printer (still need to figure out what exactly that means – though I bet it has something to do with my not having bought the printer from an Apple store). I also don’t like how Twitter and Facebook eat up a lot of my shortcut /settings menu real estate; I’d like to have more control over the “deep integration” of my apps. And I don’t like how Apple picks and chooses third party apps of importance – Facebook isn’t on the same level of utility as Google maps, but whose right is that to decide anyways? Oh, YouTube also got nixed – what the heck?!!? I digress.
AirPrint and my lack of enthusiasm for Facebook aside, I think Apple’s new round of OS upgrades has reigned in a new era of computing: continuity. Now, I’m not saying that some other great companies (Dropbox) weren’t already working on this; they just don’t have the depth and the same game changing potential as the world’s most valuable company in the world does. But yes, continuity rocks and Dropbox does a great job of syncing my mobile life.
By continuity (in regards to iOS6 and company), I’m talking about the ability to sync your activities/content across multiple devices. Not intentionally, like you have to with Google Drive or Dropbox – seamlessly. The popular example (user complaints aside) is sending a text from your laptop, picking up the conversation on your iPad, and then continuing it on your iPhone as you head out to lunch. With Apple’s latest OS upgrades, the conversations sync automagically with iMessage, and you theoretically never miss a beat. There are some other examples, such as Safari bookmarks from your laptop popping up on your iPad. I love it.
This synchronized environment is no accident, and is thanks in no small part to iCloud – part of Apple’s master plan to control the world. Was it really Apple’s plan though? Maybe not.
In a recent lawsuit brought against Apple by Google via its Motorola patents, this idea of synchronized content management appears to be old news. In its complaint, Google alleges that Apple infringed on its patents relating to the synchronization of content across multiple devices. Isn’t that the whole point of the cloud….? If found to be true, nearly every Apple device running the latest OS updates is in violation of these patents.
This latest round in the patent wars could be big time! Google also alleges intentional infringement, which could result in treble (triple) damages. OUCH! Stay tuned as I’ll be keeping you apprised of future developments surrounding Google v. Apple.
In later news, Apple also appears to have ripped off the design for it’s new clock from a Swiss train station. Are the similarities that obvious? Uh, yeah!