Apple is diversified across multiple revenue streams. Google relies on advertising for it's revenue. Apple is being pretty gangster in shipping iAds and attacking Google where it would hurt their bottom line.
With respect to revenue for third-party developers, Apple's competitive advantage is the 125 million credit cards in iTunes. Google needs to roll out Checkout worldwide. I suspect that will take 18 to 24 months. Then let's be generous and say they can add 50 million credit cards each year. That's 5 years to catch up.
5 years.
It's not about open vs closed. It's not about technology. It's about dollars.
There are many advantages to the web. One disadvantage is the amount of friction between your wallet and my wallet. The App Store is about as frictionless as you can get.
If Google wants to promote development for the web then they or a third-party payments system (PayPal? Amazon?) that users trust have to step up.
It's not about market share. It's about average revenue per user. It's about lifetime value of customer. If market share mattered everyone would be building for RIM and Nokia devices.
That's not a foregone conclusion! Google has a great platform but has shown weakness in a lot of areas (UI, fragmentation, infighting with Chrome OS, market, etc.) in pushing it. Some of these are being addressed now, some not.
Google's ChromeOS-Android waffle cost them a huge lead in tablets. If they do the same in the TV domain and let Apple dominate it with their upcoming new Apple TV things would not look well.
Two more areas where Apple trumps Google: retail stores and customer service. I can talk to a human by calling Apple, and the effect of having product in a store is very powerful.
