Sirius XM's Greatest Fear: Apple in the Driver's Seat

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- After search giant Google(GOOG) encroached on Apple's(AAPL) territory with the creation of Android, the late Steve Jobs was quoted as saying he intended to go "thermonuclear" in efforts to retaliate.

It goes without saying that there is no love lost between the two companies as seen by their constant battle for technology supremacy. In fact, I would venture to say that whether they have realized it or not, both firms have performed exceptionally -- solely from their mutual hatred.

To continue with the competitive rivalry, investors learned on Monday during the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference that Apple has indeed started to turn up the heat on several of its rivals, including Microsoft(MSFT) and Samsung. It has started to tactically improve its mobile OS software (the IOS6) to thwart off threats from Android devices by improving the capabilities of its Siri voice command technology, as well as improvements to the address bar on its Safari browser.

Investors were also blown away when Apple announced plans to come up with its own in-house mapping program to replace the popular Google Maps app that has become a staple on both Apple and Android devices. I felt this made perfect sense. After all, why would one rival want to depend too much on another that is often trying to take away its business? Because in the back of their minds the folks at Apple have always wondered, what happens if Google suddenly stops licensing the software to the company out of spite? For its own piece of mind Apple wanted to break away from this dependency.

While this is said to be a big blow to Google -- which generates roughly 50% its mobile map traffic from iPhones and iPads -- the biggest blow, in my opinion, was to satellite radio giant Sirius XM(SIRI) whose biggest fear was to see Apple get in the driver's seat. I say this because although Apple is not officially in the automobile, it is understood that unless one is commuting somewhere there is very little use for the maps app. So, in essence, by creating its own map software Apple is now also in the driver's seat. The only question is, what is next?