Both IT giants Google and Apple have come under a magic spell of fascination with cloud computing. Both of them offer services with a « cloud » prefix and both of them put meaning into it. The difference in the meaning of the word « cloud » in Google and Apple will be discussed in what follows below.
Google’s perspective on cloud services seems to look out for in the future when internet access will be omnipresent and accessible by anyone be it a home desktop, a portable laptop, and a mobile (smart)phone. It also seems that, although for the time being, the cloud applications are far from being perfect, Google hopes that by the time high-speed internet connection is everywhere, the cloud apps will be tweaked for the best user experience. The present time is the time for testing and refining cloud services for Google. Thus, the best services are available online and only online, while all data is stored on Google’s servers. However, recently they started talking about providing a possibility to work with certain key apps offline, mostly in the context of Chromebooks.
To summarize, Google is clearly going for being the computer-in-the-sky that runs useful and fun applications for everyone.
With Apple, this is a completely different story. Since Apple produces and sells devices, it is much more device-oriented in everything they do. Internet for them needs to run smoothly and all the data packages need to arrive on time. What Apple offers is the reliability and security of the cloud-managed with easy control by Apple. Cloud in this case is more of a repository for applications, media content, documents, mail, settings, and others that not only backs up data from devices but also syncs it for the users` devices so that all of them contain the same information. Apple assumes that simple automatic sync of all devices will speak up to the expectations of a wide Apple community and will possibly attract new Apple adepts. Apple’s version of the cloud does not substitute native applications, rather than it is supposed to make native mobile applications better.
With that said, which version of the cloud’s concept will triumph in the future, who knows. If there is more competition in the big markets and more active partnership between business and communities in the smaller markets, Google’s dream of the future internet, might come true, says Jason Hiner from TechRepublic. If not slowed by some scandals, of course.
