People who fault Google for “backstabbing” Apple when they decided to build their own mobile OS platform should only look at what transpired out of the relationship between Zynga and Facebook. Zynga, since inception, was completely reliant on Facebook for cheap user acquisition and growth. When Facebook, with their own ambitions for world domination, brought down the hammer on spam notifications and started demanding a 30% cut on the revenues made on their platform, it was then too late for Zynga to convince users to go to Zynga.com instead. Also, by being completely reliant on Facebook platform for their growth and revenues, they also completely missed the boat on mobile.

Google instead was smart. From the beginning, they knew well that they can’t let their growth and fate dictated entirely by Apple. They wanted to control their own destiny. Hence, though they had a great working relationship with Apple, it made perfect sense for Google to decide to build their own mobile OS that they could distribute freely along with their services. Also, by releasing their new services (Google Now) and showing off their cool wares first on Android, they are generating demand for those services from the iOS user base that Apple cannot dare to suppress. Android was created mainly as an insurance against Apple. We can see Google following this same strategy in building their own browser (Chrome) and laptop OS (ChromeOS).

In the end, one can’t fault a company for trying to control its own destiny. If it doesn’t, it would only end up as a sad cautionary example on how one shouldn’t be entirely dependent on others for their growth and success.