The New York Times has a long, juicy look at what’s been going on behind the scenes with the ever-escalating conflict between Google and Apple . The cause for all the enmity, according to insiders? Ego. When Apple filed suit against HTC earlier this month, it was clear that Google and Apple’s romance had turned sour. But the Times’ article , which draws on “interviews with two dozen industry watchers, Silicon Valley investors and current and former employees at both companies,” offers a sense of just how personal this battle is and always has been. The writers begin by summarizing: At the heart of their dispute is a sense of betrayal: Mr. Jobs believes that Google violated the alliance between the companies by producing cellphones that physically, technologically and spiritually resembled the iPhone. In short, he feels that his former friends at Google picked his pocket. The article starts with the good old days, when the two companies were cooperative and when the individuals that ran them were close. Even before the mutually-beneficial industry chuminess between Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt, Jobs had a personal relationship with those heading Google. In the company’s early days, the article explains, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin “considered Mr. Jobs a mentor,” and they did the things that mentors and mentees do: [Sergey] Brin was also known to take long walks with Mr. Jobs near his house in Palo Alto, and in the nearby foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. According to colleagues, they discussed the future of technology and planned some joint ventures that never came to fruition - like a collaborative effort to develop a version of Apple’s Safari browser for Windows. Google’s development of Android, however, was the thin end of the wedge, and even in its early stages was a source of tension. The article recounts one Android-related meeting between Jobs and Google that sounds mighty uncomfortable: At one particularly heated meeting in 2008 on Google’s campus, Mr. Jobs angrily told Google executives that if they deployed a version of multitouch - the popular iPhone feature that allows users to control their devices with flicks of their fingers - he would sue. Two people briefed on the meeting described it as “fierce” and “heated.” Eventually, we on the outside caught wind of the conflict. As early as January 2008, Jobs was slighting Android , and a year after that we heard that Apple had stopped multitouch on Android altogether. We watched things get publicly uncomfortable when Apple rejected Google Voice from the app store. And soon we saw their acquisitions become undeniably competitive, Apple allegedly feeling that Google “stole” AdMob from them and preemptively gobbling up Lala in return. On the AdMob acquisition, the article reveals that Apple had a 45-day window in which it could have purchased the company for $600 million, but they stalled and Google swept in to outbid them. After this move, a source says, “Mr. Jobs speculated that AdMob might have violated its legal obligations, with help from Google.” At the time, the AdMob saga suggested that the stakes were being raised in the face-off, and Apple’s recent patent infringement suit against HTC was just further confirmation that the bad blood was turning into a blood bath . In January we heard that Apple was in talks with Microsoft to replace Google with Bing as the default search engine on iPhones and iPads, and the Times article ends by mentioning that “One Apple employee says that Qi Lu, the president of Microsoft’s online services division, was recently seen visiting Apple’s campus in Cupertino to discuss such a deal.” The Apple-Google war is waged by massive, relentless corporations, but it is fueled by the bruised egos of a few men. Given a better picture of how personal the conflict has been all along, it’s hard to imagine the giants reconciling anytime soon. [ NY Times ]

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Inside the Apple-Google War: It’s Personal [Applegooglewar]

Zoom User Reviews FEATURED APP Pool Pro 3 Online from Namco is a realistic billiards game for the iPhone and iPod touch featuring crisp, colorful 3D models of 8 Ball, 9 Ball, and Snooker pool games that you can play either against the device as single player, or against online opponents in Multi Player mode. The game also features a Pro Shop where you can buy and manage a wide variety of pool tables, pool cues, and pool halls. If you’ve every played pool games on your PC or MAC you know how they behave with having to point and aim your cue stick and pull/release movements, and PPO 3 is no different, only more fun to play since it sits in the palm of your hands. You can choose form 4 difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard, and pro) and get started quickly in the Single Player mode. The graphics in Pool Pro 3 Online are nearly perfect, and the mood is set with a nice selection of smooth poolhall jazz filler music in the background. The balls are extremely shiny and polished, the table is a perfect felt green with a deep dark wood table and sitting in a large hard wood floor room, complete with a bar and lounge. To aim you just drag the stick using your fingers up/down/left/right and to get the perfect pinpoint accuracy you can then fine tune your positioning using a horizontal slider on the bottom of the screen. You can also change camera angles to either a top down view or a 3D view by tapping the eye button. You can also change the contact position to put some “english” on your shots. There is a semi transparent white guide that helps show you where your shot will end up using an arrow. Shoot using a pinball like pull/release lever on the right side of the screen. Colliding balls make the perfect sound effects that make the game feel even more realistic. When your opponent is shooting you can change camera angles to one of 5 different options in real time to see the action from every possible position. Breaking gives you the ball to place behind the shooting line. Scratching gives the ball back to your opponent, with “ball in hand” that you can place and strike. You call the pocket on the 8 ball by tapping one of six pockets to indicate your intended target. You can fast forward the other player’s moves by tapping a forward button. Yes the game can get a little too slow sometimes, but that’s the inner zen and calm of billiards. Multi-player support is wonderful and gives you an opportunity to show your skills to your friends in pass and play or peer to peer mode, or the world in Online mode. Place a wager and pick a player from the lobby to start an online game. There weren’t too many people in the lobby at the time we tested the game, maybe 4 or so, but we were able to start a game easily. During the online game you can chat with your opponent and you get voice notifications of when your turn is up. There is a timer that limits your time to make a move. Preferences let you lower the semi-too loud background music, change the sound effects volume, enable ball popup feature, and accept wagering. Online board supports achievements, leaderboards, and a friends list. The only issues we had were, 1: the pace of the game can feel a little slow at times, and 2: not a whole lot of users in online mode to play against, which probably has to do with the 5 dollar price tag of the game. A lite/freemium version would definitely help improve this issue. Pool Pro 3 Online is probably the most comprehensive well designed iPhone pool game we’ve played and is worth grabbing if you’re into playing pool and are interested in the online challenge aspect, which implemented well. It’s not a quick pickup and play game, but it has killer graphics, a load of options and is a great way to relax and kill some time, and it might even help improve your real billiard skills. Appsafari Rating: 4.5/5 Here is a video demo of the Pool Pro 3 Online app on the iPhone This 3rd Party App is available at the Apple iTunes AppStore. Browse the full list of all AppStore apps filed under the AppStore category. View the developer website here Download Pool Pro 3 Online at iTunes App Store Price: $4.99 Share This iPhone App Tweet about this iPhone app Email this app to a friend! del.icio.us Facebook MySpace StumbleUpon Reddit Google Yahoo! Buzz added 0 minutes ago and filed under Sports , Multiplayer , featured , appstore , fun , games (Viewed 2 times, 2 so far today). Need help on using these apps? Please read the Help Page . Источник: feedproxy.google.com , получено с помощью rss-farm.ru

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Pool Pro 3 Online