Why is Facebook at war with Apple?

The technology industry is one of the most important on the planet. Therefore, it is important to understand that there are companies that can define the quality of our life, since they constantly influence it. In particular, there are two that, in one way or another, constantly provoke innovations: Apple and Facebook.

Recently, the apple company openly criticized Facebook for its enormous use of data, which does not seem to be ensuring the privacy of users. That is, the information that is constantly collected when browsing some of the services of Mark Zuckerberg's company.

This led to even media such as TN defining that there is a "war by Apple against Facebook", as a result of the supposed invasive monitoring that is generated against the privacy of users. Therefore, we decided to find out what the history is between Apple and Facebook to better understand the current situation.

The war between Apple and Facebook

Apple and Facebook are two companies that, in their own way, redefined the way we communicate today. The first is the one that patented devices as important as the iPhone, while the second generated a concept as important as that of social networks. In other words, they occupy a large part of our time today.

Therefore, knowing how relevant they are today, the logical thing would be to think that they have a good relationship … but no. On the contrary, we are talking about a battle in which the same sector of the business is disputed. It is the same thing that had happened and is happening today with large rival companies, such as McDonald's and Burger King or Coca-Cola and Pepsi .

The origin of the rivalry is simple: While most of the money Facebook makes is through advertising (98.5%, according to their business reports); Apple is geared more towards the sale of devices and the purchase of applications in its App Store.

In other words, although they are in the technology sector, they do not seem, a priori, to compete in the same field. The problem is that both incomes are interrelated. In that sense, we saw controversial statements from the CEOs of both companies: Tim Cook (Apple) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook). The former, for example, accused Facebook of not caring about user privacy, while the latter mentioned that Apple's products are too expensive and that it criticizes its social network for "ulterior motives."

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Precisely, being companies that provide feedback, the actions that one can take will affect the other . For example, we saw that, earlier this year, Apple decided to introduce a new function so that users have more power to decide what data applications cannot access.

That is, they added an improvement that is applied to the iOS operating system within Apple devices, something that did not sit well on Facebook. So, since many people use Facebook or Instagram through these smartphones, the modification would spell trouble for Mark Zuckerberg's company. By modifying the data that apps access by default, Facebook's ad business could be jeopardized.

As they sell targeted ads to users, based on the data they collect based on their interests, their bussiness could be affected. In other words, the fact of not having that information would mean no longer having data that is essential for the business that Facebook itself proposes.

The really important thing is that both giants need each other. IPhone sales would drop significantly if Facebook or derived applications could not be accessed, while many users who frequent Instagram services would leave these platforms if they could not access from their Apple devices.

Philosophically, they are two companies that seem to be well differentiated, although it is also clear that, at a time when we are all so interconnected, they need each other more than ever. As users, we know that it is convenient for them to get along, since we tend to use all their services in an interrelated way. While they appear to be in a kind of cold war, any move could spell trouble for both sides. For the moment, it remains to be seen how these events continue.