Google & Apple: The First Rumors

If there are two things I like to keep on top of, it’s rumors about Google and rumors about Apple. Now that they’ve cozied up with each other, it looks like keeping track will get a bit easier as today there are two rumors involving them. It sure didn’t take long for the two to start working together though I expected the hyper Apple rumor community to have had a good dozen Google/Apple rumors spreading within days of the Google CEO joining the Apple board.

The first involves the possible appearance of Google Video on Apple’s upcoming iTV. Now I don’t understand this one at all because I assumed, maybe wrongly so, that any content you had on your computer would be streamable to the iTV. I’m not sure where Google Video ranks in the ever-increasing ranks of sites pushing video in one way or another, but combining two of the bigger players surely can’t hurt either of them. As far as rumors go this one isn’t all that interesting though.

Now, Apple placing Google AdWords on Apple sites — most noticeably the iTunes store — on the other hand is a little more interesting. Personally I don’t think I’d care too much, Google has some of the least annoying ads online and I’ve come to accept them nearly everywhere else so why not the iTunes store. I don’t think having them show up in all my Apple iApps would be that great, but thinking about it I guess Google would be able to pretty narrowilly target them. Ads related to iPods and band merchandise wouldn’t be that bad in iTunes and iPhoto couldn’t be hurt with ads for camera gear (particularly if they could precisely show products for the camera you own, the info is there) and other things like frames.

Not the greatest set of rumors, there are no exciting gadgets or technologies mentioned, but it’s nice to see that something is happening between the two companies. I can’t think of two companies that would be able to create so much interest working together. People eat up anything about either of these two, imagine what it will be like if they end up doing a lot together.