Syria: Technology Wars

If you are someone who is even slightly interested in Technology, then you must have heard the horns of war being blown between Google and Apple. Over the past year the companies grew apart from allies to fierce competitors climaxing with Google's release of Nexus One, the smart phone that is touted as the only real threat to Apple's iPhone. And the Syrian blogosphere joined in the bloggers war.

A few months ago, Ardroid was launched. Touted as the “first Arabic website” focused on reviews, tips, and tweaks related to Google's new Android OS. The website went into the war of words head on with its reviews of Android phones, and its comparisons to the iPhone and more recently the iPad. Most recently commenting on the latest remarks from Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO and mastermind, about Google:

يبدو أن الانتشار والنجاح الهائل للهواتف التي تعمل بنظام أندرويد (والحواسب اللوحية قريباً) هو من الأمور التي تُقلق ستيف جوبز Steve Jobs مؤسس شركة آبل, ففي تصريح لا يخلو من نبرة توتر عندما كان جوبز يتحدث أمس في اجتماع لموظفي آبل قال (متحدثاً عن غوغل): “نحنُ لم ندخل سوق البحث, لكنهم دخلوا سوق الهواتف. بدون أي شك يريدون القضاء على آيفون. لكننا لن نسمح لهم”.
It seems that the phenomenal success and proliferation of Android OS powered phones (and soon enough tablet computers) is one of the things that are worrying Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. In his statements, not without tension, at a staff meeting yesterday he said (about Google): “We did not enter the search business, they entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them”

The response from the Apple community came in quick, with the launch of iPhad – a technology website focused on the iPhone and the newly released iPad. And don't let the striking similarity in design fool you, they also mean business, and just like that in their Statement No. 1, they went on the offense:

1- عملنا سيكون احترافي ضمن خطط دورية مدروسة: فلم يعد هنالك مجال للصدفة والفوضى والإتكالية التي تشوب الكثير من المشاريع.
2- سنكون عن قرب من المنتجات والبرامج ولن نلقي الكلام على عواهنه دون تجربة
3- منهجنا ليس الكلام فقط دون العمل بل ستكون لنا أعمالنا ومنتجاتنا الخاصة بالايفون والاي باد ومن اجل ذلك كانت مختبرات ومعامل الآي فاد.
4- بعيدون جداً عن التعصب ولن نقارن بمنتجات أخرى منافسة وننتقصها عكس ماتفعله الكثير من المواقع.
1- Our work will be done professionally according to time plans: No more room for chance, chaos or dependency that plagues many other projects.
2- We will bring first-hand experience of the products and the software and our evaluations will be based on experience.
3- Our approach will also have a practical side to it, with our own designs and products directed at the iPhone and iPad markets, and with it our own iPhad labs.
4- We will far from intolerance and will not be bringing humiliating comparisons with other competitive products, unlike many other websites.

And so, the battle begins for the hearts and minds and phones of Syrian and Arab techies.

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