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A brief analysis of their Polar Opposite Business Models
Apple and Google - these are the names of two of the most successful tech companies in the world. Even though their product lineups are literally the same and are considered competition to each other, their approach to business is completely different.
Lineup includes -
Phones: Pixels and iPhone,
Computer: Pixelbook and Macbook
Operating System: Android and iOS,
Voice assistant: Google Assistant and Siri
Browsers: Chrome and Safari.
Cloud Storage: Google Drive and iCloud.
Earphones: Pixel buds and Airpods
Their Product Lineup
In order to understand this, we must understand their beginnings. Google started as a search engine and focused on internet services around the world, where as Apple was into the hardware business since day 1 and expanded from there. Google's formula for success has always been making a bunch of products; beta testing it; gathering feedback on whether it works; take the products that actually work; optimise it through the usage data collected and then kill the bad products. This works on the internet business as it is always about being the first one to do it rather than being perfect. For example, there are tons of messaging services, yet WhatsApp remains common, as it was the first to do it, even though apps like Telegram are feature packed.
How they want to be perceived
Apple on the other hand is considered a premium hardware manufacturer with a price tag to match. So they are completely opposite of Google, as hardware is expensive and consumers pay for it. Unlike the internet services like Google and Facebook, they have much bigger expectations from a hardware company to support it in the long run, as hardware can't really be re-called on the large scale without incurring loss. Hence, even though Apple can afford to not be the first company to adopt a technology, they would rather wait until it's optimised enough for their standards.
Since Apple launched a few products compared to other companies, they could continue giving support for less successful products. But this is slowly changing as Google, a software company, is trying to get into the hardware business and Apple, a hardware manufacturer is trying the software side of things like Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple TV.
In terms of customer service experience, Apple and Google have polar opposite approaches. Google interacts with their customers on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Whereas Apple accounts on social media exist for announcements and publishing Ads. Apple likes to have end-to-end control on their ecosystem as well as their customer service experience. Got a problem with your apple devices? Call up their customer service or take it directly to their dedicated service centre.
However, this hasn't stopped apple from using their own winning formula from the hardware side to software. When both were competing for AR platform dominance, Google treated it's hardware aspect of it like software, as the first AR phone which was released by Lenovo was based on bulky hardware under the code name of Tango. However, Apple released their AR which was more successful and supported different products without extra hardware.
To summarise, Google launches products earlier with uncertainty of future support and corrects them later; whereas Apple waits for technology to be mature enough so they can provide long term support on their boutique products.
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