"Google is getting better at design faster than Apple is getting better at web services."

Others are noticing the same thing.

Elon Musk says Apple will likely lose out to Google because Android is getting much better much faster than Apple is innovating.

Doubtful. This is like saying, Apple will lose to Microsoft in 2001, or that Facebook will lose to Twitter...

The real comparison is Microsoft and Google. Just because Android shamelessly ripped off iOS does not mean they compete directly. Google is search, algorithms...and maybe one day driving cars, wearable tech...

Apple is hardware...imagine the day all 500m OSX/iOS devices update and Google is no longer featured in search.

Then we shall see if "Apple will likely lose out to Google."

Elon Musk also pointed out that Apple no longer has its founder and Google has not one but two, who can help set the pace, direction, innovation, and leadership.

There is no successor to Steve Jobs at Apple. They can coast with upgrades to what they have, but does anyone really think they're capable of doing something new?

Let's put aside the ambitions Google has in energy, automobiles, and healthcare.

In mobile the Android vs Apple future comes down to an open system vs a closed one.

Open systems are able to evolve more easily. They're more adaptable.

 And yet, closed system is the vision of Apple's founder. You can't have your cake and eat it too. 

Steve Jobs released iPod, MacBook Air, iPhone, and iPod in 11 years.

Tim Cook released iPod Mini in one. Let's give the man some time, before we start decrying that "Steve Jobs has no successor." 

It's easy to be a critic. It's not easy to create. What industry would you disrupt? Or should we believe that only Steve Jobs is capable of seeing an industry to disrupt?

Apple's style of innovation is sorely needed in the medical device industry.

The automobile industry could also use Apple's kind of innovation.

And televisions are still for the most part dumb screens. Why should that be?

 Apple is widely rumored to be working on a TV. Post-SJ. That would be product release #2 in as many years if they roll out next year :).

I think Apple should buy or partner with Tesla, if you think autos is the right move. Tesla is the love child of Google and Apple. And you're right, Google will license their tech to every car manufacturer; so Tesla is definitely an "Apple-style" play.

Perhaps Steve's son will carry his legacy on in that regard. He seemed to hint at such -- vis-a-vis medical devices/biology.

I think much of the *problem* is that innovation seems impossible, until it happens, and then it was inevitable. What more innovation could we possibly want in a phone or tablet? I'm not sure, but when someone releases it, we'll all know, right? I got an iPhone in 2007 and an iPad in 2010, along with millions of others. I think *many* realized how big this would be.

Without iPhone, there is no Android. Not in the way we know it. We owe apple a lot of credit.

Android now has 75% of the worldwide smartphone market.

I believe that number can only go up from here.

 Is the question about success of Apple as a company, or success of mobile OS? 

Microsoft has more PC marketshare than Apple, and yet Apple is doing fine. 

Folks are not looking at the right numbers. 

The question is about the future of Apple. Success of mobile OS is important.

Microsoft is demonstrating that even when a market starts to decline -- as the PC market is beginning to do -- that the decay happens very slowly.

What are the right numbers to look at?

Apple's nightmare is a recapitulation of its 1990's: missing the Steve Jobs vision and losing market share to inferior but commodity-priced, good-enough competition.

Apple is riding a wave of hardware innovation but the next wave is likely to be in the software designed for the new hardware. And while Apple is very strong in hardware and client-side software, cloud computing is not in their DNA. Advantage Google in the next round of this fight.

I agree with the article that the best way to gain a new competency is through acquisition. Hiring is slow and it is hard to nucleate a group if you don't already have strong internal capability.

M&A hasn't been their path to date but now they have more cash than most countries and the most valuable stock in the world. There are also lots of cloud computing companies to choose from, not just Twitter.

It will be interesting to see how they respond to this challenge.

Nonsense. Apple is "losing market share" because of decisions made while Steve was at the helm; let's not become revisionist historians so soon. 

The single reason that Android is popular in the United States is because of the five-year AT&T lock-in; if Apple's lock-in had been two or three -- or even four -- they would have decimated Android.

People started purchasing Android phones in 2010, on Verizon, because they could not yet have the iPhone. If the iPhone had been available for Verizon, it would have dominated like the iPod did. 

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re: web services. Are we so sure that Google is better at providing web services? Most of their web and social services are and have been shut down, meanwhile Apple has successfully launched iCloud -- that *works* across 100m+ devices.

If we want to mention MobileMe, we could mention Google Wave, Google + or a myriad of Google products that have not lived up to their so-called destiny.

Building web-based products is *hard*, and not just in the technical sense. 

Cloud computing is not in their DNA, and yet iCloud mercifully syncs my iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and MacBook together seamlessly -- and it'll only get better over the next five years.

Apple is good at providing services for Apple customers; Google needs to provide services -- and take data -- from everyone.

As shown by the profit margins over the last few years -- 31% for Apple -- those two are not mutually exclusive. 

The problem with writers, and with readers, is that every write-up is a Battle. iPhone v. Android. Microsoft v. Google v. Apple v. Samsung v. Twitter v. Facebook v. Amazon

Real life does not work like this; Apple and Google still have plenty of product tie-ins, search -- Google's only true money maker -- being primary amongst them.

The rich collaborate, while the poor think the rich are fighting -- and tune into their battles. I don't think Tim Cook stays up at night thinking about "thermonuclear war" with Google, neither do I think Steve spent much time on this either, to be honest.

 I read the original article, not just the BI Version. OP says this about Twitter:

"Twitter is a company struggling to make financial sense. With over $1B in funding and over 1500 employees, they need to figure out how to stay in the game for the long term. Hence, the disappointing pivot and the user backlash. Exhibit A, exhibit B. While Twitter may make a lot of money for its investors, having many of your original users abandon ship isn’t good for your long term prospects."

When you cite Dalton Caldwell and marco arment as your sources for Twitter pivoting and people's "backlash," I'm sorry, but your argument loses a lot of weight and credibility. 

I'd love to see his argument again from the empirical sense, not just re: Twitter but the whole thing.

I think that the last 75-year history of tech (starting with HP in 1937) is one in which no incumbent has the ability to stay on top indefinitely.

Every tech company needs to keep re-inventing itself (and growing!) to stay alive.

Tom Annau makes some very good points that what happened to Apple in the 1990s could certainly happen again to Apple.

As for Twitter, they're still struggling to demonstrate that they'll survive the rest of the decade -- or go the way of CB radios and MySpace. No guarantees for Twitter, especially in a world where Instagram and Tumblr seem to be siphoning their biggest engagement.

 Nothing lasts forever.