Why Google Doesn't Want the iPhone to Die!

Us journalists and bloggers like to make a lot of the battle between Google's Android and Apple's iOS, but it the search engine has a vested interest in seeing the platform succeed. Why? iPhones and iPads are simply sending the site a ton of traffic.

Says Asia-Pacific president Daniel Alegre to AdNews:

"Whenever iPhone succeeds, Google succeeds. I actually don't look at it as iPhone versus Android. iPhone is a very strong driver of query growth for Google. We also monetise apps through the iPhone..we actually benefit from iPhone's growth."

Makes sense. In total the iOS ecosystem is getting increasingly larger, and if you group the iPad and iPhone together, is more than holding its own against the Android platform. Simply put, pissing off Apple is not in Google's best interest no matter how much they'd like to see their mobile OS be #1.
Google has said previously that the iPhone has been a key driver of growth in its mobile search efforts. So it shouldn't be surprising that at least publicly executives like Alegre are making such statements. Then again, if all those iPhone users pick up a Droid - the only other really dominant mobile platform - is Google really losing anyway?