iPhone Looking Over Their Shoulder?

iPhone is a great product. Those that get one don’t want to give it up which indicates market success. But there might be a worm in Apple’s device and its name is Google –

In an effort to continue its lead in the mobile-web space, Google has updated its suite of Google web apps with versions specifically tailored to iPhone and iPod Touch users.

Google’s efforts to built a compelling suite for the multi-touch platform may have something to do with the disproportionate amount of time iPhone and iPod Touch users spend with mobile Safari.

According to an article published in yesterday’s New York Times, “On Christmas, traffic to Google from iPhones surged, surpassing incoming traffic from any other type of mobile device, according to internal Google data made available to The New York Times. A few days later, iPhone traffic to Google fell below that of devices powered by the Nokia-backed Symbian operating system but remained higher than traffic from any other type of cellphone.”

This is the classic case of a market swap. Where the ancillary ditties that fill out a primary product become essential. All the way to the point that the primary producer is required to negotiate with the ancillary maker to stay in business. The Google might be test bedding their applications on iPhone in preparation for release of a Android look alike with one of their OHA hardware partners.

All is well in the tech wars.

APC article here.