The platform battle between Apple-iOS and Google-Android is well documented and often tracked by looking at market share and overall profitability numbers. This is an oversimplified view and consumers may fail to realize what Google and Apple are actually trying to achieve through their respective platforms. Apple doesn’t really want to be the largest manufacturer of phones and Google’s primary focus isn’t the market share of Android.

Google makes money through two basic streams, search and advertising. First, they want you to perform as many searches as possible, therefore exposing you to the maximum amount of advertising possible. And second, Google wants to increase your clickthrough rate by serving you personalized and relevant ads, accomplished by collecting large amounts of data on your online behavior.

With the rapid rise of the mobile platform these two goals become even more apparent (over 1bn Android activations now!). Google’s reach is much greater on mobile, as searching happens on all different types of devices in more places and with increasing frequency. Minable data available to Google increases 10x with mobile as our handheld devices provide more focused information on our wants/needs, behavior, and usage patterns.

How does Android fit in?

Simple, Android fulfills the reach part of the equation. With increasing frequency Google Search is being embedded into the Android platform. Big G tries very hard to replicate the same integrated search experience on the iPhone but lacks the control to do so. They want to put Google services in front of you across every device you own, any screen size, and then collect the usage data.

**Sidenote: Most Android devices being used in China leave the factory without Google products installed, huge loss here.

Google Plus

Most people are confused by Google+ and what the long term strategy is for the product. People point to the lack of social sharing and it’s commonly described as a “ghosttown”. Google doesn’t care if you use or even like Google+, they are going to integrate it into everything you own whether you like it or not.

“The future of Google is about understanding and learning from how people use the web”

Google Plus is the product that will accomplish the goal of collecting, interpreting, and ultimately understanding your usage. Plus is being embedded into every Google product not because they want you to share things with your friends, but to make conclusions from your activity. It’s running in the background whether you like it or not on your Android device. You’re now surfing Youtube using your G+ profile, it’s backing up your photos automatically, it’s an authentication/login system on 3rd party sites, it’s everywhere. Plus is the database that connects your search and usage statistics with your behavior to form a complete picture of the user. Bigger reach on more devices equals more data to mine, more data equals better search results, more refined search results equals more clicks on ads. Translation: More $$$.

**Food for thought: Google Now doesn’t require search and draws conclusions without user input. I just described Google’s model and this runs against that grain. Is Google Now the future or a side project?

For a more indepth look, check out this slide deck on mobile trends: Mobile Is Eating The World. A modern follow up to a famous article written by Marc Horowitz, Software is Eating the World.