Tag Archives: Google

If there is one area that Google exceeds in, it is in the provision of free, efficient and effective e-mail. The Apple alternative to Gmail is of course MobileMe. How do these products match up against each other.

Firstly, I have to say that the two programs are not directly comparable. This is because of several key differences in the way they operate and the services that you are provided with access to, following registration/payment.

I’ve observed that people can have an almost obsessive relationship with Gmail. The archiving and storage of ALL e-mail is something that goes against the ingrained behaviour that was hard wired into the majority of us in the past, and sometimes still in the present, if you work for a corporation that limits the size of mailboxes. One could say that Google almost conceptualized the idea of archiving all e-mail and, if not, certainly drove it into the mainstream, forcing other e-mail providers to look at the limitations of their own services.

Apple’s MobileMe service can give you plenty of storage. Once signed up for a personal plan, you are awarded 20GB of space. This is adequate but limited. Google offers around 7.5GB free and can offer a $5 per year subscription for an extra 20GB. MobileMe charges users $99 a year. Could the 20GB limit not be expanded to obliterate the Gmail storage capacity?

MobileMe also offers other goodies. Push E-mail. Syncing of Calendars, Contacts and Bookmarks. And iDisk, the online storage area. But Google can offer Calendars, Contacts, Bookmarks and Docs that can all be synched via third party apps. So where is the advantage?

Is it iPhone or iPad Geolocation?

It may all come down to advertising. With Gmail your conversations are broken down, analyzed and delivered along with contextual placement of advertisements, albeit privately. With MobileMe, there is no advertising but you are paying for the privilege.

So is it time for Apple to launch a tiered price structure for MobileMe? Perhaps with free email to a certain extent with other services tagged on.

Asking users to pay $99 may hurt the product.

Asking users to sign up for free and pay for other services if they want them… a good way to maintain Apple loyalty?

If you are at a premium then

Certainly, the two companies have played relatively nicely over the past few years, but recently there have been a few ‘issues’ between the two companies. Referring of course, to the example of head honcho SJ berating Google at an internal Apple meeting.

Google is in the phone market. Google is in the search market (well, Google IS the fecking search market, aside from Bing of course). Google is developing its own OS. Google is in the TV market. Google, we assume, is shortly going to be releasing a home computer where your login page displays an Ad for a Lexus and chicken feed.

Apple on the other hand is entering the advertisement market with the recent launch of iAds. Why is Apple doing this? Because advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry which Apple wants a piece of. And Google won’t be happy with this.

But here’s the problem. Apple is a hardware manufacturer, first and foremost. We buy Apple because it is awesome and it works. It works well. I don’t buy Google stuff because I know SFA about it and going by most of their other products, it will be heavily laden with advertising. But I use Gmail. It’s awesome. But I get pissed off when I see advertisements targeted towards my e-mail conversations. It’s creepy. But it makes money for Google, which in turn enables them to give me Gmail, which makes me happy.

However, when it comes to Apple, I’m starting to worry. Is Apple now neglecting its hardware so that it can make money for its shareholders through Ad-based revenues? We already get assaulted with crappy Ads left and right when we’re using e-mail or surfing the web. Do we really need them in an area of our lives where we value our Ad-free sexy wonderness i.e. on our paid-for Apple devices? Is this revenue stream going to enable Apple to reduce prices while driving innovation and development? Is this what consumers’ want from a high-end tech manufacturer? And where do we go when our Apple devices are slowly overtaken by adverts?

If you are an Apple/Google Fanboy/girl then