TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

John Siracusa:

Google’s present position looks weak, but it has two big trump cards. First, Google has proven to be one of the few companies capable of creating, popularizing, and supporting a platform. Despite all the skinning and branding by handset makers, Google is still the driving force behind Android. This power can only be negated by another company that’s willing and able to match Google’s Android efforts on all fronts: OS development, app store, developer tools, evangelism, the works. That’s a tall order.

And they’re getting pretty good at hardware, too. Great piece—make sure you read it.

Apple’s biggest weakness right now is web services. Is Apple getting better at it faster than Google is getting better at hardware, as they move toward a more integrated approach? I don’t think so.