No Mac Chrome Is Good News, Apple
News Analysis. Oh my, Chrome for Mac could come sometime in the next six months. If that sounds bad to you, it's not so for Mac fans or Apple. Google has done Apple a huge favor. |
The Mac Chrome development timetable also reveals Google's intentions with respect to direct Microsoft competition and how little is the perceived threat of Safari. Conceptually, Chrome should pick up usage share more easily from Firefox, Opera and Safari than Internet Explorer. Mac Chrome should be an obvious priority, but it's not.
Please, let's dispense with any comments about how much harder porting Chrome to Mac OS X must be. The Mac isn't a Google priority. Lookeee! Google only just released Picasa for the Mac last week. Google already is ramping up Chrome 2.0 development, when on the Mac there isn't yet a .X release. Yeah, the Mac is some priority over there at Google. Geez, can someone give me a Kleenex before I cry?
Many Mac users are smug about Safari and surely don't see Chrome as much of a threat. Yeah? Plssssh! That's a big raspberry for you, baby. Windows converts and Net Geners are the air pressure swelling Mac market share. Google is the other brand Net Geners love, not just Apple. Some other stuff to knock around inside your noggin:
- Chrome is WebKit-based, just like Safari. One is as good as the other.
- On Windows, Chrome is a much better browser than Safari.
- Safari is just a browser to Apple. Chrome is core to Google and hawking search and its other Web services. Google will compete hard.
Chrome absolutely would be a threat to Safari on the Mac, and it already is starting to be on Windows. My prediction: Chrome will start to steal users away from Safari on Windows over the next three months.
I guess Google has Microsoft ambitions after all. Not all the tactics are about getting Microsoft to chase around every newfangled Google idea. Chrome is a platform play, as the developer 2.0 release indicates. Chrome is to Google what Windows was to Microsoft in 1998. What's interesting: How much Google's Chrome strategy feels lifted from the Windows 1998 playbook.
Microsoft has integrated outside technologies into Windows since its early versions. But the bundling tactic got aggressive during the so-called browser wars with Netscape, when Microsoft integrated Internet Explorer into Windows. Strangely, Microsoft is doing less bundling, just as Google does more.
Google has gotten too big for its britches, raising questions about whether the company really can make money without doing evil. My Google Watch colleague Clint Boulton posted not once, not twice, but thrice on the topic of Google evil related to product and services bundling around Chrome. He writes:
Google's creation of Chrome means the company has jumped the shark of innocence. Rail about the Google.org philanthropic unit all you want, but I think Chrome exposed Google for the power-hungry machine many of us knew it was. Chrome effectively put Google in Microsoft's league, just on the Web instead of the desktop.
Chrome's usage share is little more than 1 percent, according to Net Applications. That sure doesn't seem like much of a threat to Internet Explorer, whose usage share is at least 70 times greater. But Chrome's share was nothing in August. Growth is rapid, and it will only accelerate. Like Microsoft used Windows to drive Internet Explorer adoption, Google will use search, e-mail and other services bundling to drive Chrome adoption. Later, vice versa.
That's more good news for Apple, so long as Google focuses its services-to-browser bundling on Windows. Chrome may hurt Safari usage on Windows, but the Mac is safe for now.
Some commenter is sure to counter that Google's primary interest in Windows is because of volume. There are plenty more Windows users. Be careful of your arguments. That market share argument is old and oft used to justify why there are more Windows viruses or to dismiss the Mac as viable platform for gaming development—and more.
But of course big market share makes Windows a more appealing platform than the Mac. What? You think all those billions of dollars in Google advertising revenue are coming from the Mac? It's Windows, baby. Plssssh! That's another big raspberry for you because I'm in that kind of mood.
Whatever Google's intentions, Chrome is best being shiny somewhere other than the Mac. Safari does matter to Apple for iPhone and MobileMe. Chrome usage gains that take away from Safari potentially hurt the Mac. Heck, those Googlers are smart. Maybe they understand the potential risk—that Chrome success could hurt the Mac. From a Microsoft-competition perspective, Google should do nothing that diminishes either Linux or the Macintosh.
So, if you're one of the Mac faithful lamenting over Chrome's continued Macintosh delay, be happy. It's a great day!
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com].
Comments (12)
"Mac Chrome should be an obvious priority, but it's not."
then
"Safari is just a browser to Apple. Chrome is core to Google and hawking search and its other Web services. Google will compete hard."
???
Posted by robot | January 12, 2009 9:29 PM
"Mac Chrome should be an obvious priority, but it's not."
then
"Safari is just a browser to Apple. Chrome is core to Google and hawking search and its other Web services. Google will compete hard."
???
Posted by robot | January 12, 2009 9:29 PM
I don't think Apple really give two shits about Chrome. I don't think they give two shits about Firefox either. In some ways, Chrome is good for Apple as they will benefit from Google's development with Webkit.
Plus, I don't think Google give two craps about Chrome for the Mac because both Safari & Firefox are default set up to use Google Search, whereas IE uses Microsoft Live Search.
Posted by Alex | January 12, 2009 10:15 PM
Maybe Apple only gives one shit then, and Google one crap.
Cripes... what's with all the shitty language?
Posted by Xela | January 12, 2009 10:43 PM
Anybody can write a browser application, get over it...
Posted by gary | January 12, 2009 11:54 PM
Google needs to release Chrome on Mac and Linux for one reason only.
Ubiquity.
Just the idea that it's in the same league as Firefox makes it appealing.
Posted by McBanjo | January 13, 2009 4:23 AM
I can't really make head or tail of what Joe's incredible insight is here. Chrome for OS X is not Google's top priority? Yes, we know. Chrome is a platform play? Gee, wasn't this pointed out when Google announced it?
OK, I think maybe I found it: the insight is that Chrome-as-platform is supposedly a threat to Apple's hardware business. I'm not sure how Joe got here from there. Joe, do you think you could flesh out your scenario so I can understand why I'm supposed to be frightened of Chrome, instead of looking forward to it?
Posted by Marcos El Malo | January 13, 2009 6:08 AM
Yea, I agree with Marcos. This is kinda rambling and incoherent. Joe, is that cold still bothering you? Hope you get well soon.
Posted by Philip | January 13, 2009 9:04 AM
Chrome is about making the user experience better through integration of services. Google may be ambitious and innovative with its browser, but Steve Jobs was focusing on integration of of services when Eric Schmidt was pooping in diapers.
The experience of using a Mac that integrates services locally will never and can never be supplanted by a browser; it is a simple law of physics. You will always be able to run more services, quicker and more usefully on a local machine than on a remote server.
Posted by Jacob | January 13, 2009 9:48 AM
There is a lot of Microsoft fanboy (pretty ironic for an "Apple Watch" blog) posing in this post. Google has announced that Mac Chrome will be available in six months, and this is interpreted as "the Mac isn't a Google priority"?
How long did it take Microsoft to come out with Internet Explorer 7 after losing share to other browsers, which it continues to lose? How long will it be until IE8 is out of "beta"? Microsoft is doing a huge disservice to non-sophisticated users by bugging them to download IE8 Beta 2 with its IE home page hijacking. Like not mentioning what "beta" software means. (There is a little popup window which must be activated by clicking on a link.)
Apple STILL hasn't gotten Safari for Windows right from a security perspective, which is one of the reasons why it will lose share to Chrome, as is predicted in the blog.
Rule of Project Management:
-You can have it high quality.
-You can have it fast.
-You can have it cheap.
Choose any two of the above.
Posted by Stratocaster | January 14, 2009 4:24 PM
I don't get the Chrome thing. I tried it but so it's a browser among lots of other browsers. My desktop is already littered with browsers. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. They each have pluses and minuses. Google is taking over the world with this POS. I don't think so. I look at my kids PC and see what kids are doing. They are collaborating with each other on their My Space, twitter and you tube. When they are not doing that they are playing various games against each other. They are chatting on Meebo. I don't see the kids getting excited about chrome or much of anything that Google is doing. Lets look at the perverted Google search, it's turned to crap much of the content drugged up are hits to fake pages that lead to malware. Google has done nothing to clean up the malware returns on their searches. It's like the whole world has figured out how to get Google to hit on it and they fill their malware web pages with Google key words. At least Microsoft has an OS that will work on most any off the shelf X86 hardware, Linux does the same. and if Mac were real smart it would give up selling overpriced POS X86 hardware and sell their OS. If Mac did that then they would own Microsoft. Hell Linux would be relegated to the server rooms of the world.
Posted by Paul Bahre | January 14, 2009 7:22 PM
I gotta say, I'm bummed that Chrome isn't on the Mac yet. I've used it a bit on windows, and would love to be able to switch to it on the Mac. I don't think Google bundling stuff with it is any indication of 'evilness' either -- it's open source for 1, and nothing I've seen suggests that google is trying to tie you to anything they do, just make things so much superior that you'll want to use their stuff (golden handcuffs, so to speak).
Posted by Kem Mason | February 4, 2009 12:06 PM