It’s a world of conflict we live in. If it’s not Google taking potshots at rival Apple, then it’s Palm employees leaving for Google or NBC and Time Warner taking Adobe’s side in the Flash versus iPhone debate. Read about it all in the remainders for Thursday, May 27, 2010.
Google’s Gundotra on Apple, the fight for developers’ hearts (TechCrunch)
Google vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra told TechCrunch that he was just foolin’ about last week’s jabs at Apple. We’re sure this has nothing to do with the fact that Apple CEO Steve “Wild Man” Jobs is taking to his own stage in just over a week and isn’t exactly known for his restraint.
Steve Ballmer not showing up at WWDC keynote (Microsoft)
Speaking of WWDC, analyst Trip Chowdhry started this morning off with a bang, speculating that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would come on stage during Jobs’s keynote on June 7. By the afternoon it had gained so much play that Microsoft took to Twitter to blast it out of the water. Mark my words, people, we’ll see Eric Schmidt on stage in a dunk tank before Jobs lets Ballmer within 800 miles of his stage.
Confirmed: Palm’s Matias Duarte joins Google as User Experience Director for Android (Engadget)
Money can’t buy you everything, but perhaps it can buy you a better user interface. Matias Duarte, the design guru behind Palm’s
HP’s webOS mobile operating system has jumped ship for Google, where he’ll be the User Experience Director for Android. Hey, HP, maybe you shouldn’t have told him he’d be writing glorified
printer software.
Time Warner, NBC Universal back Adobe’s Flash vs. Apple (New York Post)
In the battle over Flash and the iPhone, media giants Time Warner and NBC Universal have reputedly decided to side with Adobe, saying they won’t convert their Web video content into an iPad-compatible format; instead they’ll stick to the ubiquitous Flash. This isn’t the first time NBC has played chicken with Apple—in 2008, its content was briefly removed from the iTunes Store during a pricing dispute. So we’d call this another example of NBC’s saying “show me the money” if it weren’t for the fact that we hesitate to inadvertently summon the ghost of Cuba Gooding Jr.‘s acting career.
FTC, FCC reveal complaints filed against Apple (InformationWeek)
InformationWeek has reprinted a slew of complaints against Apple published by the FTC and FCC under the Freedom of Information Act. Many have to do with familiar topics such as the prohibition on Flash, App Store restrictions, and, uh, iPhones catching fire (okay, maybe they should look into that one). But my money’s on the complaint that refers to Apple’s “elitist and totalitarian control”—that’s a winner in my book. My elitist totalitarian book.