When Apple and Google Converge

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us //link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/18345298.90658/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5/582c8673566a94262a8b49bdBc2e09acc [Get the newsletter]( Hi, this is Vlad in Tokyo. My career in tech journalism started around the same time Google’s Android operating system emerged from the primordial soup of smartphone software trying to keep up with Apple’s iPhone and iOS. Now, a decade later, I’ve moved from Europe to Asia and Android has moved from upstart to dominant juggernaut, with iOS the only other survivor of the smartphone wars. If a software duopoly sounds bad, let me assure you that it’s worse than that. The two leading companies are starting to converge in their hardware decisions as well as software design, so that we’re increasingly facing a paper-thin distinction between two similar flavors of the same meal. Consider [Google's Pixel 4](, which launched just this week, and the iPhone 11. They both have roughly the same size and design -- with a square camera slab in the top corner of a glass back -- and the same basic features like water resistance, wireless charging and face authentication. Neither has a problem launching without 5G networking in a year when every other smartphone maker has released at least one device with next-gen connectivity. Apple just added its own night mode for the iPhone’s camera, which mirrors the Pixel’s to the point of using the same “hold still” user notification. Google added a second zoom lens, which mirrors the one the iPhone has had for a few years. Pick up an iPhone and it will detect the motion and wake to identify and greet you. The new Pixel does the same thing, albeit with the more sci-fi inclusion of radar detection to know you’re approaching. Once inside the operating system, both iOS and Android will keep track of your screen time and app usage, adhere to any time limits you set for yourself or your loved ones and provide weekly reports so you can monitor your digital health. Switching between apps is accomplished with the same swiping gestures, and third-party app libraries are mostly identical. Here in Japan, local carrier SoftBank Corp. seems to have already caught on to the reality, offering subscribers only three main smartphone categories on its website: iPhone, Pixel and a generic bucket it calls “other smartphones.” You might scoff and say that the Pixel has never sold anywhere near enough to be accorded this much respect, but consider the position that Google is in. Like Apple, Google has control over its operating system, with the ability to privilege its own first-party apps -- as both Apple and Google have been doing for years -- and the access to low-level system operations that help it tailor the software to the needs of its devices and purposes of its designers. Other smartphone brands will struggle to keep up. Huawei has been poleaxed by Washington’s blacklisting of the company, depriving it of access to Google’s apps and app ecosystem, while Samsung’s smartphone portfolio can only ever put a pretty sheen atop the same Android that Google has total control over. China is the only wild card. Its rejection of Google’s services means the world’s biggest smartphone market could end up a walled garden as its vendors keep competing on hardware innovation instead of consolidating software-driven power as Apple and Google are doing. But for the rest of the world, the future I see is one where the two Silicon Valley archrivals pull ahead with their proven lead in AI-enhanced photography, buttress their supremacy with a tighter grip on their operating systems and eventually starve out every other smartphone vendor. This is leading to an undifferentiated choice between option A and option G. Though the technology itself is getting better, we’ll never know how much faster progress might have been with real competition. Sponsored Content by Baker Hughes [Baker Hughes.]( An energy technology company.  And here’s what you need to know in global technology news: Facebook is putting on a brave face as its Libra cryptocurrency project [suffers partner exodus](. Megvii, one of China's largest and fastest-growing AI startups, is pushing ahead with a Hong Kong [IPO](bbg://news/stories/PZGH0HT1UM12) even after its U.S. blacklisting.  With its latest Pixel smartphone, Google [showcases]( its grasp of artificial intelligence and how software can enhance a smartphone.  Like Bloomberg's Fully Charged? [Subscribe for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can't find anywhere else. [Learn more](.  You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Fully Charged newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022