Apple vs Google: Cloud concepts that clash

Google and Apple are taking fundamentally different approaches to cloud computing. But the question is whether they can both be right, says Jason Hiner.

After Apple's recent unveiling of its iCloud online storage and synchronisation service, I got caught up in various discussions aimed at defining how its approach to the cloud differed from Google's.

I concluded that the fundamental difference was that Apple's cloud was a store-and-forward cloud as opposed to Google's all-encompassing concept. Here's how I reached that conclusion.

The Google cloud

Google's entire approach to the cloud is based on the future, and not on the internet as it is today. Google is betting that the world will have low-cost, ubiquitous internet access in the not-too-distant future, including fibre connections in offices and homes and super-fast mobile broadband in virtually every corner of the planet.

Google's Chromebook depends entirely on apps and services in the cloud. Photo credit: James Martin/Flickr

Google is building its cloud for that world. It's hoping that by the time it has its application stack refined and running like clockwork, broadband will be everywhere. That provision is absolutely necessary, since all Google's apps are connection-dependent and all the data is stored on Google's servers in the cloud.

You've got to be online to take advantage of many of the best features, such as simultaneous editing of Google Docs where you can see your co-workers' edits happening in real time.

I love Google's optimism about the future of broadband. But it's not going to happen magically on its own solely based on free-market forces. There are too many places where it's just not financially profitable to deploy high-speed access — and probably never will be.

For Google's vision to come to fruition, there will need to be more competition in the big markets and much stronger public-private partnerships in the smaller markets.

I love Google's optimism about the future of broadband. But it's not going to happen magically on its own solely based on free-market forces.

Google has started talking about making critical apps available offline, especially for Chromebooks. The company has already taken a few small steps in that direction with Google Gears.

However, Google's offline access is an afterthought and not an intrinsic component of its strategy, and that fact tells you where offline and local syncing rank on the company's priority list.

The Apple cloud

Apple's approach is not to use the cloud as the computer-in-the-sky the runs everything. It doesn't want or need it all to happen in the cloud. Instead, the company...