Google boss shows off iPhone

PARIS--Apple's much-vaunted iPhone received a ringing endorsement from Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who said the handset is a perfect platform for the search specialist's hosted applications.

Speaking at an event in Paris on Tuesday, Schmidt was asked whether, as Google's boss and an Apple board member, he had any insights into future collaboration between the two companies.

"What you are really asking is to see my iPhone," he quipped before producing a handset from his pocket. "iPhone is a powerful new device and is going to be particularly good for the apps that Google is building. You should expect other announcements from the two companies over time," he said.

On Wednesday, Apple revealed that the iPhone will have a "special YouTube player"--and online-video phenomenon YouTube, of course, is now a Google property.

The iPhone, which is set to be launched in the United States on June 29, fully incorporates Google's search and mapping services. Users can make phone calls directly from Google Maps.

Key to Google's belief in the potential of the iPhone is Apple's decision to integrate support for the Ajax Web development technique.

Effectively the native language of interactive Web technologies--known as Web 2.0--Ajax combines the best elements of software as a service, including thin-client computing, Web standards and platform independence.

Enterprises could create applications in Ajax and run them on any device they choose, including the iPhone, without any need for the time-consuming coding normally required to port applications onto different devices.

Schmidt made no attempt to hide his belief that mobile handsets will be increasingly important to Google, and he even used some ringtone sound effects in his speech to illustrate the point.

"It is a certainty that we will get more people online and more quickly. I travel a lot, and the metaphor I hear is a mobile phone. There are 2.4 billion mobiles in use today--it took 20 years to get to 1 billion and four years to get to 2 billion," he said.

In a speech and question-and-answer session that lasted more than an hour, Schmidt discussed a variety of topics, including how the search giant intends to prevent further criticisms of its approach to user privacy. "If people don't trust Google, then we've got a problem, because they are literally one click away from switching," he said.

Schmidt also discussed future developments and said cross-language translation is one of the most important technologies the company is developing. "Of all the advances we are making, the cross-language translation is the most interesting," he said.

The next big activity for the search specialist will be to add new primary-content sources to the Web, such as books and documents. For example, typing "Suez Canal" into Google will bring information that dates back to when the canal originally opened in 1869, Schmidt said.

Andrew Donoghue of ZDNet UK reported from Paris.

[nicmart]

Another nail...

in Yahoo's coffin.

[dotmike]

Yahoo! is a featured (push email) provider on the iPhone

Google and Yahoo! have different strengths. The latter is just
having trouble leveraging its for revenue.

The real loser - long term - could be Microsoft, which would really
like to retard web development to prop up its desktop bound bread
and butter.

But it's very hard to command the ocean.

[Fil0403]

Maybe a tiny one, yes.

I think Yahoo couldn't care less about Google being present on an overly-expensive, feature-lacking mobile phone that doesn't even have something so common in any good mobile phone today as 3G and that even by Apple's best predicitions will only catch 1% of the market.

[pjianwei]

Ah thats why Vista have to change its desktop search to accomodate Google.

While Tiger and Leopard are spared the rod. Maybe a new Zune-phone, Table, Xbox720 or Vista SP1 can save the trouble of a lawsuit and changing the os.

[kool_skatkat]

They made them

The government... they made them do it.

[kool_skatkat]

Google products with an iPhone

1. Google Whipes
2. Google quick drying Hand cleansing cream
3. Google Sweat Detector
4. Google Air Touch (won't have to touch the phone and still touch it)
5. Google Eyes (controlling the iPhone with Eye (tm) moment. :-)

What do you think?

[Fil0403]

Missing and much needed Google products with the iPhone

I think 5 critical Google products are missing to make the iPhone a good mobile/smart phone that it wants to be but it is clear it is not:

1. Google 3G (gives 3G capabilities to your feature-lacking mobile phone);
2. Google Memory (adds much needed memory to your mobile phone);
3. Google Contract Breaker (allows you to brake expensive 2-year contracts you were forced to accept);
4. Google Battery Provider (breakthrough technology that serves as a remote Internet battery so when your non-user-replaceable battery dies you don't have to get to the closest Apple store and pay half of the price of the mobile phone to get the battery fixed or replaced);
5. Google Discount (gives you big discounts in overly-priced devices in turn of using Google products for 2 years).

[Fil0403]

Google shows off 5 (much needed) Google services for iPhone

1. Google 3G (gives 3G capabilities to your feature-lacking mobile phone);
2. Google Memory (adds much needed memory to your mobile phone);
3. Google Contract Breaker (allows you to brake expensive 2-year contracts you were forced to accept);
4. Google Battery Provider (breakthrough technology that serves as a remote Internet battery so when your non-user-replaceable battery dies you don't have to get to the closest Apple store and pay half of the price of the mobile phone to get the battery fixed or replaced);
5. Google Discount (gives you big discounts in overly-priced devices in turn of using Google products for 2 years).

[geo11101]

Eric Schmidt is the biggest Mafia puppet in the US. He is bad news for apple users. http://endmafia.com