I think it's accurate to say that their business interests are different, and thus the applications to privacy are different. For example, Safari defaults to "Block cookies from third parties and advertisers". Chrome defaults to allow all cookies by default.

I think privacy is the wrong frame. That’s not what this is about.

Google wants to put ads into their maps. Apple wants maps to help sell more iOS devices. That’s it. Those different goals lead to conflict.

Whether or not they do, the point is that Google makes its money based on knowing as much about their customers as they can (to better serve them ads). Apple makes its money off hardware, which doesn't require that they know a lot of personal information about their customers.

Yes. I believe it is possible to use an iPhone without registering or signing into Apple services apart from to install apps (and you could do that on the PC so you don't even have to do that on the device). You can sync, backup and completely manage the device locally with a PC/Mac. iCloud is entirely optional, anonymous crash reports can be disabled. If you go down that route you won't be tracked by Apple.

In fact possibly the only service that would communicate with Apple is the maps service but you can disable the location services from that app just like those you download from the store.

Now if you do use Apple's services I sort of trust them to be less competent at exploiting the information they will receive and I prefer this information to be in the hands of someone who doesn't also receive all my search requests too.

Apple did have a weak spot until iOS 6 that apps could access your contacts (and photos providing location services were enabled for the app) without any control. That has now changed.

Google on the other hand requires you to have a Google account from first boot (actually I've never tried Android on a phone in anger but the Google TV's did).

Yes, but not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they have a completely different business model.

As someone else already succinctly put it: for Apple, users are customers, for Google they are the product (to be sold to advertisers).

But the difference goes further than that. I don't know if Apple actually cares about privacy or it's just a side-effect of their business model, but Google is blatantly politically anti-privacy, and seems to revel in provoking controversy by ignoring privacy protection laws.

Google Maps is just another example: the surreptitious way in which Google "asks permission" for exploiting location data has already come under fire as being in blatant violation with privacy laws in several countries. Google has been playing this game long enough to know exactly what they were doing.

Not sure. "Limit Ad Tracking" (Settings > General > About > Advertising) is Off by default in iOS 6. This option seems strangely left out of the "Privacy" section.

You also have to opt-out of "Interest-based ads" for iAds so they're collecting that data by default too. (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4228)