While the competition is a little harder to distinguish on web platforms (especially with the broad and somewhat muddled “online advertising” category), Google’s competition in the world of mobile is quite clear. While RIM and other “old age” platforms are declining, and the Windows 7 platforms excitedly enters kindergarten, Apple and Google are duking it out for supremacy. Now, the war has become more intense and direct, with Google announcing a Honeycomb press conference that directly overlaps with Android’s iPad-exclusive app press release.
According to TechCrunch, the first to make their way to the scene was Apple, who sent out a huge bundle of press invitations for their “Daily News” application, an exclusive to the iPad that sets them even further ahead of Android tablets. However, not to be outdone, Google sent out an invitation for the press to take a good hard look at Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the “operating system built for a tablet” that’s meant to change the entire battle between the mobile platform giants.
It seems that many press agencies will have to choose a priority. After all, beyond choosing who gets the top tech news slot, companies will have to select where resources are sent; the two events are on different sides of North America and in nearly identical time slots. Independent journalists and smaller press agencies may even have to choose one or the other to discuss.
This isn’t the only war-torn territory for Google and Apple, of course. The companies have been battling it out with tactically placed release dates on smartphone devices, major press announcements, feature points, and advertising campaigns for months now. It’s only likely that this battle will intensify over the remainder of 2011 as we get a chance to see how the Honeycomb tablets really fare against the reigning champion.
