Google Battles Apple For Your Connected Life

Earlier in June, Apple made its big pitch to developers, describing an integrated, seamless user experience built around its platforms, devices and services. Now it’s Google’s turn to do the same thing.

At its upcoming annual I/O developer conference, Google will tout the latest updates to Android and Chrome, and the growing variety of devices on which they run, as the foundation of a continuous user experience across devices. More so than ever, Google and Apple’s versions of the connected life are colliding.

A fight that broke out in your pockets has spilled over onto the wrist, into the living room and out to the car.

Both companies want to convince app developers that theirs is the best way to reach millions of users around the world. But the two tech giants are coming from very different places.

In the smartphone age, Apple has succeeded by providing a cohesive ecosystem built around the tight integration of hardware and software, with a curated set of applications and services that run on it. Meanwhile, Google has made Android the world’s most popular smartphone operating system by allowing any handset manufacturer to roll out its own version.