It's important to remember that Apple is a hardware company with a software habit. Google is a software company.
While I understand why Apple hates Google so much, I think breaking with Google is a mistake. Nobody can beat Google at software; Apple hardware + Google software is a wonderful combination, and if the two companies worked together we'd really see the apex of user experience.
The hardware/software split is too simplistic a view. The companies have their various strengths and weaknesses. For example, the graphics stack on iOS embarrasses Android's. It took how many years and how many hardware advances before flagship Android got scrolling as smooth as the first iPhone?
It's interesting how Samsung is basically stuck to Google at this point. I'm sure they'd love to switch to their own Bada or Android fork and capture more of the profit, but Samsung is absolutely abysmal at software.
False. Apple is a software company. If you've ever had to develop any non-trivial smartphone application, you would see how the iOS SDK is lightyears ahead of Android's.
Apple is a software company (who also fuses design and software really well). Google is a computer science company.
If only Google hadn't stuck it to them with Android ALL users would be better off. We'd have Google apps on iPhone hardware and UIs. It hurts to think about how much better it could be.
We'd be better off in a world with no Android, where RIM still hasn't shipped a modern smartphone OS, and with a Windows Mobile/Phone environment that has broken application compatibility twice in the past two years?
I'm 90% sure this is an example of Poe's Law (that it is impossible to tell the difference between sincere extremism and a parody of extremism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law).
But it is worth remembering the various ideas that iOS "borrowed" from Android (or the improvements Android forced iOS to make) - including decent notifications, wireless syncing, multitasking, etc. Google for more.
Apple (and everyone) improves more rapidly with a viable competitor.
It's important to remember that Apple is a hardware company with a software habit. Google is a software company.
While I understand why Apple hates Google so much, I think breaking with Google is a mistake. Nobody can beat Google at software; Apple hardware + Google software is a wonderful combination, and if the two companies worked together we'd really see the apex of user experience.