Apple vs. Google is the Most Important Battle in Tech

By Sam Gustin – In the 1990s, Microsoft Internet Explorer battled Netscape Navigator in the great Web browser wars. In the 2000s, Google and Yahoo locked horns over Internet search — and we know how that turned out. Today, the latest high-stakes tech conflict is between Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android mobile operating system for supremacy in the smart phone market.

Each of these clashes defined an era of Internet history. Apple vs. Android is no different. Everyone agrees that the struggle for Internet advantage is shifting to the mobile realm, and iPhone and Android have surged to the front of the pack with diametrically opposed business models. Neither of these players will be vanquished anytime soon — these battles take years to play out — but the company that gains the upper-hand will be best-positioned to take advantage of the massive structural shift from desktop PCs to smart phones and tablets. more> http://tinyurl.com/9lvcckc

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Verizon vs Apple: A royal battle

By Aaron Pressman – Last week’s tiff over the Google Wallet app at Verizon Wireless may seem like just another minor dust-up among hardcore phone geeks. But the debate is an opening skirmish in a potentially huge battle.

At stake is whether seemingly pro-consumer “open platform” rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission to promote choice and innovation on Verizon’s LTE network have any meaning at all.

The rules were supposed to let customers, not carriers, decide which devices and applications they could use on the LTE network. That would seemingly mean that customers who wanted to use the Google Wallet payment app on the Verizon network via the upcoming Galaxy Nexus phone would be allowed to do so. more> http://twurl.nl/ckpk1m

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• Verizon cites security issue for nixing Google Wallet (theneteconomy.wordpress.com)

Verizon cites security issue for nixing Google Wallet

Image by watchingfrogsboil @Flickr

By Brad Reed – On the surface, it looked like the kind of scenario that net neutrality advocates had long feared: a big incumbent carrier using its network to snuff out apps that compete with its own services. However, Verizon is insisting that this isn’t the case.

Verizon Tuesday denied that it is blocking the availability of Google Wallet on its smartphones and says that it’s ironing out some technical issues with Google to make the application secure to use on its phones. The big issue, says Verizon, is the integration of the Secure Element chip that Google designed specifically for the Wallet application to store encrypted credit card data separately from your smartphone’s memory chip. more> http://tinyurl.com/74oftyw

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• Verizon Wireless nixes Google Wallet in new phone (seattlepi.com)
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