Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty

In the past two weeks, executives from both Apple and Google have taken the stage at the Moscone Center, in San Francisco, to pump up their troops, their developer corps, and the media. What struck me first in this technology lollapalooza was how similar the events were. Leading the onstage brigades were leaders from the companies’ second generations. Apple’s chief, Tim Cook, was anointed king by the Apple’s founder, the late Steve Jobs. Google’s Sundar Pichai has been crowned the crown prince by Google’s co-founder and C.E.O. Larry Page. Both keynotes were by turns interesting, fun, and cringeworthy. Apple Music was mostly an embarrassment for a company known for immaculate launches—it was unfocussed, rambling, and uncool. Google’s event had moments that were good for a quick nap. There is vaporware in there. And both events were very long and yet oddly short on technical details. These are developer conferences, after all, where details actually count.

Sure, Google’s and Apple’s ecosystems look a little different, but they are meant to do pretty much the same thing. For the two companies, innovation on mobile essentially means catching up to the other’s growing list of features. Sometimes, I wonder if Apple and Google are like Vitali and Wladimir Klitshcko, the Ukrainian brothers who have, for past decade, made the heavyweight boxing championship a very boring family affair. Even their products sound remarkably the same. Apple Pay. Android Pay. Apple Photos. Google Photos. Apple Wallet. Google Wallet. Google announced its “Internet of things” efforts, such as Weave and Brillo. Apple came back with HomeKit. Android in the car. Apple in the car. At the Google I/O conference, Google announced app-focussed search and an invisible interface that allows us to get vital information without opening an application. There was an improved Google Now (a.k.a. Now On Tap). Apple announced a new, improved Siri. It also announced Proactive Assistant. Google launched Photos, which can magically sort, categorize, and even search thousands of photos using voice commands. Apple improved its Photos app—you can search them using Siri.

These two companies are very much alike—the Glimmer Twins of our appy times. And, like any set of twins, if you look closely you start to see the differences.

Earlier this month, talking to an audience at an event organized by EPIC, a not-for-profit civil rights and privacy group, the Apple C.E.O. Tim Cook said:

I’m speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their businesses by lulling their customers into complacency about their personal information. They’re gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it. We think that’s wrong. And it’s not the kind of company that Apple wants to be. We believe the customer should be in control of their own information. You might like these so-called free services, but we don’t think they’re worth having your e-mail, your search history and now even your family photos data mined and sold off for god knows what advertising purpose. And we think some day, customers will see this for what it is.

Given the timing of the speech, just a couple of days after the launch of Google Photos, Cook was clearly criticizing his rivals in Mountain View. His statement shows an attitude that sharply contrasts with the one demonstrated by the Google vice-president Bradley Horowitz in response to a question about whether Google will mine personal photos for other things:

The information gleaned from analyzing these photos does not travel outside of this product—not today. But if I thought we could return immense value to the users based on this data I’m sure we would consider doing that. For instance, if it were possible for Google Photos to figure out that I have a Tesla, and Tesla wanted to alert me to a recall, that would be a service that we would consider offering, with appropriate controls and disclosure to the user.

These two comments from two senior executives essentially encapsulate the ideologies of the two companies and how they approach their respective businesses.

For Google, Android—the operating system it built, which now powers a majority of the world’s mobile phones—is a means to an end. It’s a way to push Google’s various services deeper into our lives, collect as much data as possible, and then build intelligent and automatic experiences. Google Now—an algorithmic personal assistant—is an outcome of this approach. In order for the service to work, the company needs to send all the information it can gather to the cloud. Or, to put it more directly, the company must put all of your information inside Google’s gigantic server farms. Google then uses all of this data to make Google Now more personal and perceptive. If you’re texting a friend about dinner, Google will give you restaurant reviews and directions automatically. In the future, it might make a reservation and call a driverless car. The more repetitive you are in your behavior, the more the algorithms learn to automate things for you. Google’s approach has its benefits—the company’s products are free, and you can be fairly confident they won’t break. The cost is in your data, privacy, and lack of control. Someday, Google will want to make money from all these experiences, either through advertising or through transactions that are hyper-tailored to you.