Apple’s in a strange position vis-a-vis many of its biggest rivals. While the company has in the past counted many of the most prominent tech companies in the world—IBM, Microsoft, Intel—as rivals, in more recent years, it’s been strategically savvy about turning those erstwhile competitors into allies.
Which isn’t to say that the company doesn’t still have powerful foes. But the nature of the technology industry today is that none of these companies exist in a vacuum; there are so few at the highest of levels that ultimately all of them exist in a liminal state between ally and enemy. And for Apple, no company is more prominent in that frenemy zone than Google.
