Why Steve Jobs went Ballistic over Android

Anyone who follows the smartphone and tablet market knows Android has become the #1 mobile operating system in the world. And Steve Jobs was not very happy about Android. In fact, he made a rather bold threat when he talked about his dislike of this competing mobile OS:

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

— Steve Jobs

The background story on this is interesting and still has some very important unanswered questions surrounding it. When Apple was working on their iPhone strategy, which included what is now iOS, Google’s CEO was Eric Schmidt and served on Apple’s board of directors. He was clearly privy to all of Apple’s iPhone strategy as well as its roadmap.

During this time, Google acquired Andy Rubins’ company that had created the mobile OS which eventually became Android. Here are some of the questions I still cannot get a solid answer from anyone involved with this issue.

  • The moment Eric Schmidt realized Google had what would be a potential competing OS to iOS, why did he not resign from Apple’s board?
  • Did he declare to Steve Jobs and the board that Google had a smartphone OS in the works? If so, did he recuse himself during the time the board discussed the iPhone and its OS?
  • Once Google announced the acquisition of Andy Rubin’s company, which I and a lot of industry people knew was creating a mobile OS on the heels of his former Danger mobile OS, did Apple ask Eric Schmidt about this and, if so, did he tell them it would compete with Apple’s mobile OS?
  • Once Apple knew Google had a competing OS, why did it take Apple so long to ask Schmidt to resign from Apple’s board?

While these questions still linger in my mind and may never be answered, the bottom line is Google created Android while Eric Schmidt was on Apple’s board and from Steve Jobs’ threat it seems clear — at least to me — he felt it was stolen from them during this time period. That is why he was so angry whenever he talked about Android.

Steve Jobs died with the knowledge Android had started to own the mobile OS space and Apple could no longer keep that from happening. The best they could do was to try and slow it down or challenge its growth via lawsuits targeted at vendors like Samsung that used Android.

Apple also went after Google and Android via patents they bought through The Rockstar Consortium, a joint venture owned by 5 prominent tech companies. Apple and Microsoft are two of the main backers. Rockstar was the entity that outbid Google in the 2011 auction to acquire Nortel’s massive patent portfolio, winning with a $4.5 billion offer. Apple put up $2.6 billion with Microsoft, Cisco and others putting up the balance.

What is significant about this patent portfolio is it included important intellectual property surrounding WiFi networking and cellular connectivity, among many other areas related to mobile technology. Rockstar proceeded to sue Google and numerous Android OEMs like Samsung and HTC with these patents a little over a year ago.

Word came down recently that Google has settled this patent fight with Rockstar and, though we don’t know what the dollar amount of the settlement is, it appears Apple will get at least some compensation from Google’s “theft” of their mobile OS IP. However, I doubt the settlement would even come close to covering Apple’s portion of the $2.6 billion they put into the Rockstar consortium. I am not sure what Steve Jobs would think about this “solution” to his thermonuclear threat but Apple is under new management now and it seems Tim Cook and team is being more realistic about the Android challenge and is instead trying to thwart its growth, especially in high end smartphones, by innovating with their own smartphones and iOS.

And it seems to be working. Very few Android phones are sold into the premium market since Apple pretty much owns this space, especially in China. Word that Samsung’s Galaxy 6S has had very slow sales and not done well in Asia underscores this. They do seem to be getting strong interest in the Galaxy 6 Edge, but from what I am hearing it too will come in under Samsung’s projections with demand for Apple’s iPhone 6 dominating the high end of the market.

What is interesting is Apple has gained ground on Android even in the mid-range smartphone market too. This has challenged all of the smartphone vendors as Apple continues to ship record numbers of their iPhones around the world. Apple also has the lion share of the profits in the smartphone space, something Steve Jobs would gloat over if he were still with us.

To be clear, Android is still the #1 smartphone OS and Apple will never have that position, something that really made Jobs angry. But Tim Cook and team are more realistic. Apple has calmed down a bit with their legal challenges and is instead innovating and expanding the functions and capabilities of the iPhone and using their competitive nature to help them lead the market forward.

Published by

Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin is the President of Creative Strategies, Inc. He is recognized as one of the leading industry consultants, analysts and futurists covering the field of personal computers and consumer technology. Mr. Bajarin has been with Creative Strategies since 1981 and has served as a consultant to most of the leading hardware and software vendors in the industry including IBM, Apple, Xerox, Compaq, Dell, AT&T, Microsoft, Polaroid, Lotus, Epson, Toshiba and numerous others.

70 thoughts on “Why Steve Jobs went Ballistic over Android”

  1. When you talk of calming down their legal activities and innovating instead, it makes it sound like they were mutually exclusive. I think Apple has shown that it can walk and chew gum at the same time; pursue thieves and continue making the things they want to steal.

    From the looks of things now, I think thermonuclear war is still an apt way to describe where Google finds itself and where Apple finds itself. Apple is poised for even more extreme growth while Google’s prospects for new markets and new revenue grow narrower with every new device (Apple Watch) Apple adds to its ecosystem.

    Google has demonstrated it can not keep up with the accellerating pace of innovation Apple has set. They can’t compete with high end market expectations – expectations which will continue to trickle down as Apple sucks up more and more “mid-tier” customers. They can’t compete with the high water mark Apple Watch sets with wearable computing.

    No question Android is a stolen product, but in the end, it will be a boat anchor for Google while Apple laughs all the way to the bank. Google has made a bed it must sleep in when it comes to Android.

    Here’s my bet: Google will jettison Android within two years as it comes to grips with its failure to monitize mobile.

    1. Appreciate the comments…I agree they can do both but I think they are spending more brain power on innovating then legal maneuvering. Your bet on Android is interesting. I wonder if it has become a millstone around their neck and not worth the trouble in the future.

      1. Yes, what Apple spends on legal is pocket change next to R&D, manufacturing and marketing.

    2. They’ll just dump it like other services that people used but failed to provide expected returns. They don’t seem to understand or care what consumers actually want. The company seems to be a corporate version of a sociopath and I’m now wondering if the Algorithm was actually developed by the boys, or if someone showed it to them, and they realised its monetary potential in a different way to its inventor.

  2. In my personal view, if something is relatively easy to copy, then that’s not a strong piece of IP. Never mind that, again IMO, software should not be patentable, but the standard the patent office uses is whether it could have been envisioned by one “skilled in the art” when judging on novelty. By law a patent must be Patentable subject matter, Novel, Non-obvious, and Useful. According to the patent office all four of these requirements must be met.

    IMO opinion Apple has more of a Trade Dress case against Android than a patent case.

    If Android didn’t exist, wouldn’t iOS’s market share be at monopolistic levels, or darn close to it, in the smartphone market? What would the legal ramifications of that hypothetical event have been? Enforced openness perhaps? What would Jobs have done then?

    1. Drugs are very strong IP, but nonetheless often very easy to copy for anybody who has a standard understanding of chemical synthesis techniques. Whether copying is easy or not has no relevance to the strength of IP.

      And regarding whether or not iOS would have a monopolistic market share. If it wasn’t for Android, then Nokia and Blackberry, maybe even Palm would probably still be around and likely selling more in units than the iPhone. Remember, Apple never had dominant market share in smartphones, even before Android.

      I don’t think Jobs was ever angry about not being the dominant smartphone vendor. In fact, given Apple’s high-end only strategy, Apple has never even tried to get dominant market share. All that Jobs was explicitly angry about was Google stealing Apple’s ideas, and I’m pretty sure that that’s the only reason he was so mad.

      1. Drugs are very strong IP, often easy to copy, due to the required disclosure to get a patent, but not that easy. They are also a specific form of matter. Well defined, within very narrow ranges. Even in drugs, many companies change a few atoms in the patented molecule, and get their own patent. This is even before we get into clinical trials and biochemical understanding. I would venture to say that drug patents are inherently stronger than design patents.

        When we speak of “slide to unlock” that can be done by the right high school student. Full screen touch was bold, but how innovative was it really from a tech perspective? Again, a trivial copy for one “skilled in the art”.

        You may well be right that dominant market share was not Job’s intention. What appears to have really been his intention, as he was very insular, was that he wanted to be the only boy with that kind of toy and had a temper tantrum when other toys which he didn’t control provided an alternative. Control for him, as well as me, was a big deal. The major difference is I only want to control my device, whereas he thought my iPhone was still his.

        1. I’m sure you’re aware that changing a few atoms in a patented molecule is generally quite easy for a skilled organic chemist. Maybe not something that a normal high school student could do, but that’s not the point. It’s easy enough for somebody skilled in the art.

          Control of the device is a completely different issue. That has no connection to the patent war that Jobs was fighting.

          Edit:
          If it is not already obvious by now, controlling the device has solid benefits in being able to synchronise innovation of hardware and software, reduce fragmentation, and maintain differentiation. Just look at what being open has done to the Android ecosystem. It is by no means a tantrum.

          1. “I’m sure you’re aware that changing a few atoms in a patented molecule is generally quite easy for a skilled organic chemist.”

            Right! And the education and study required to have such skills make those patents inherently stronger over design patents. An organic chemist does not simply draw a new structure on paper, they actually have to synthesize it and then go through all the patent requirements anew. It’s also harder to get the derivative patent, due to the prior art. Within the realm of drug patents, the original is the strongest.

            Not counting towards it’s market value, just on merits, with design patents, things are much more blurry and subjective. When the parent patent or invention is relatively subjective IP, similar works are easier.

            “Control of the device is a completely different issue. That has no connection to the patent war that Jobs was fighting.”

            I do think it was his motivation but that’s opinion, not fact.

            Please also see my edit on the comment above.

      1. Interesting that you fail to mention the Prada was announced at the end of 2006 and Apple had working iPhone prototypes that looked just like the original iPhone, *before* this, in 2005, and likely even earlier.

        Of course there’s the Apple Newton which has its roots as far back as 1986. Ah, but according to you we’re not allowed to use the Newton as an example of anything, because as you say:

        “I think Asymco established that innovations only count if they’re successful, and that’s the Palm, not the Newton.”

        So the Prada counts but the Newton doesn’t. That’s convenient.

        1. LG made the Prada. LG was (still is?, def gen 1 iPhones) a supplier of screens for iPhone. LG knew what Apple was doing with capacitive screens before the iPhone was even announced. Coinkidink? I don’t think so.

          Joe

        2. Yeah, because LG released the Prada with no R&D nor prototyping, so what counts is the first glimmer in the eye of S. Jobs on the Apple side, and the release of the product on the LG side.
          Phewwww.

          1. It’s all good. With the tech industry chock full of low hanging fruit like the LG Prada and companies that are obviously so nice they don’t sue Apple when Apple copies them (like LG), the future looks bright for Apple.

  3. I never understood the fracas except as an egotistic overreaction. Both iOS and Android look, feel, and work like Palm Pilots melded with phones, with the obvious advances made possible by newer technology: conductive color touchscreens, cellular, and CPUs powerful enough for multitasting.

    The Palm Pilot and/or its refreshes had, well before iOS/Android:
    – on-screen Icons you clicked to launch apps, hardware buttons for common functions and the most used apps
    – wifi, bluetooth, a music player, a video player, an SD slot, an headphone jack
    – PC synching and companions apps on the PC
    – an appstore, actually several appstores
    – neutered mutlitasking ^^

    I know history gets written by the winners, but we were there, this isn’t quite history yet. We can, and should, stay on the sidelines while egomaniacs have their hissy fits.

      1. I think Asymco established that innovations only count if they’re successful, and that’s the Palm, not the Newton.

        1. So you decide to shift from quantitative analysis to qualitative analysis. You once accused others of shifting the focus of their position to avoid being wrong.

          Joe

          1. That was kind of a joke, hoisting the “sucessfullers'” with their own petard, obviously it whooshed.
            Does it really matter which decade-old device clearly prefigures smartphones ? The point is, they’re a natural and obvious progression.

          2. Ah. I thought you were just trying to play a game of dodge ball.

            Whether it matters to anyone else was not the point. The point was it mattered to Jobs. Since the Newton was presumably Sculley’s baby, Jobs obviously did not care about that.

            Joe

    1. Perhaps history-wise you’re not quite old enough to remember the Apple Newton. Work on that project began between 1986 and 1987 at Apple.

    2. Only Palm Pilot wasn’t a phone! haha….. Now if you’d have mentioned HP iPaq…. it actually was a WinMo Touchscreen smartphone!

  4. The core premise of the article is incorrect: Google acquired Android in 2005, Schmidt only joined the Apple board about ~3 months before the iPhone unveiling: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/08/29Google-CEO-Dr-Eric-Schmidt-Joins-Apples-Board-of-Directors.html

    Even if Schmidt was supposed to be an undercover agent, he clearly didn’t do a very good job passing on his info:

    “””Rubin was so astonished by what Jobs was unveiling that, on his way to a meeting, he had his driver pull over so that he could finish watching the webcast.

    “Holy crap,” he said to one of his colleagues in the car. “I guess we’re not going to ship that phone.” “””

    http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/

    Really the book the linked article is excerpted from answers the loose ends you bring up: they were a product of Google carrying out multiple strategies in parallel (which they still do today). The Google iOS team which was then headed up by Gundotra were working on it in earnest and despised the Android team since they thought it would undermine their relationship with Apple.

    1. I don’t think that Tim said that Eric Schmidt was an undercover agent.

      All Tim says is that Steve Jobs thought so.

      Schmidt did not take the actions that would prove his innocence to Steve, which I think as an external board member, he should have.

    2. You forget the part about Eric Schmidt traveling back in time to make the Android purchase, but not telling the Android guys about iOS so Apple would have a 1-year headstart (in conformity with the Time-Traveling SuperSpy Compact of 4016) then coming back as if he’d done nothing.
      And then he revealed himself during an Apple board metting, and was expelled.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unORPOtavqM&t=2m25s
      Thankfully Jobs was here to foil him ! Well, partly…

      1. And you forgot the part about Andy Rubin working as an engineer at Apple from 1989 to 1992, during development of the Newton. Oh, and you also forgot the part about Andy Rubin then joining an Apple spin-off company, General Magic, and working there from 1992 to 1995. You might want to do a bit of research on what General Magic was working on. And of course you know who Andy Rubin is right?

        1. Andy Ruben did not do anything of any merit while at Apple. Since he’d just come from working on BBS programing on line. He had nothing to do with any OS of any kind until he went to work on WebTV. Which if anything is where Apple got the idea of making Apple TV Set Top Boxes! ……another theft you can give Steve Jobs credit for! ;-P

          And do realize that Linux already had (which was what WebTV was designed on) a Touchscreen Interface prior to 2000. The year the first Touchscreen Tablet ever offered was born prior to Windows XP Touch Edition down port in 2001!

          So who was responsible for that original Linux based touchscreen interface going into Android just two months after Andy Ruben incorporated Android? Certainly not Apple or Steve Jobs!

          Because they didn’t even hired their first Touchscreen Engineer until November 2004 and that’s the first thing you do in developing a touchscreen OS, no matter how much garbage rumors and idiotic claims of Android copying Apple’s Touchscreen interface you make. REALITY…. is IBM had already been working on Linux Touchscreen framework for their 2001 WatchPad.

          With it’s Digital Crown Control interface…. Apple only got around to ripping off now for Apple Watch!!!! lol….. If you still don’t realize that Android was so far ahead of iOS then by knowing that, then proving Google themselves were already hard at work writing up W3C Mobile Web Initiative, isn’t going to convince you either. Which centered around both Touchscreens and keyboard phone interfaces from it’s very roots in early 2004 development.

          Fact is that Google was already working with Andy Ruben prior buying Android on their MMS mobile application, etc in 2004. Their strategy of making a totally cross platform OS for manufacturers and them to make money via Ads off Google Services (Search, Maps and YouTube etc) never changed. Though Google Phone rumors started up as early as June 2004. When developers were already using IBM’s Eclipse Java Touchscreen Development Tools to write Apps for Android. Only thing that changed was the move from Java VM to Dalvik VM.

          Keep in mind that this was all going on months before Apple’s Touchscreen Engineer Job offering from went live in November 2004 and Linux kernel support for touchscreens was already over 5yrs old. Having been originally worked on by both IBM and Samsung no less…. for Smartwatches. Samsung’s WatchPhone was the original and IBM was first to employ Linux on touchscreen WatchPad w/ first Digital Watch Crown Controls to go with Touchscreen Interface!!! ……Andy Ruben in fact had already been working with IBM on original Android initially set to be a camera OS. But….. on the hook up with Google in 2004 changed to target smartphones instead!!! ……General Magic? haha…. Get Real! lol…. Magic Cap was it’s own thing and shared nothing with anything from Apple, except employees who used to work for them! haha….. Cracks me up to think fools like you still believe Apple invented the Sun the Moon and Stars with EVERYTHING IN IT….. Well Before the DAWN OF TIME!!!! lol…. ;-P

          1. If only Apple had touch screen interfaces before 2004! Then maybe there would be no egg on their face.

            Oh, wait…

            Joe

          2. Oh wait….. you mean you are counting Newton’s OS a pre-existing Touchscreen OS? Well no wonder they’ve got so much egg on their face! ;-P Imagine this for a moment: The simple fact that Mac OS X still doesn’t have a “Pervasive Multitasking” on their over the hill hybrid Mach/BSD Kernel OS on desktops or a Touchscreen Interface! ………to go with still using a largely single threaded non-relational database file system in HFS+ that can’t be searched by Spotlight, except applications installed on HFSX Virtualized Sub File System designed by the guy (Dominic Giampaolo the premier authority on file systems), who created a far superior File System for BeOS than what he wrote for OS X. In fact he even said openly that BFS was by far superior to HFSX and HFS+ put together! lol….

            Remember? Naw…. Steve Jobs was so irate over him outing their new file system as inferior, that he hired him on full time just to shut him up!!! ;p …….if anything…. indeed the rotten Apples and Eggs are on Apple’s face, rather than Android. That’s for sure, because the amount of failed projects through the 90’s out of Cupertino out numbered the good products 5 to 1! haha….. Least you forget about MacIntosh TV (what a gem that was). Should we dare mention Pippin Game Console Failure? Nah….. that was just another failed hobby like Apple and MacIntosh TV right??? lol….

            Of course don’t forget about Copland OS. Which actually would have immediately catapulted them ahead of Microsoft, had they actually gone through with simply giving it a better GUI. But….. wait? If they’d really been smart, they’d have bought BeOS instead of being roped into buying NeXT with it’s all but worthless FAKE Multitasking on Apple’s original near dead file system in HFS. What did they do? Paid Steve Jobs enough to buy BeOS at least two times over for NeXT and it’s by then nearly 10yr old FAILING OS!!!

            The one that is still using NeXT engineer’s fake excuse for IBM’s superlative “System Wide Pervasive Multitasking”. “Preemptive Task Management? Get real…… it why both OS X and iOS still can’t do Real Time System Wide Multitasking….. today!!!

            No doubt being a fervent Cult of the Mac I Bleed 6 Colors of Apple Believer, you don’t realize they haven’t had a really successful launch of a new product, since iPad. Their iTunes Radio isn’t even liked by diehard Apple fans and iCloud is still a complete joke. Apple TV? Where’s the competition just to challenge Google Chromecast? lol….. But go ahead and in the fact that it’s your money that’s stuffing share holders pockets…. certainly not mine! 😀

  5. Apple as a company was founded on ideas and technology stolen from Xerox by Steve Job a Known Thieve.

    The only difference I see between technology stolen from Xerox by Steve Job to create Apple computer and Google somehow emulated Apple idea to create Android is the hypocrisy of many analyzes and Apple fans on this Blog

    1. “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” -Isaac Newton

      Commercial innovation is the outcome of the real innovation being done by researchers first, developers second. I would venture to say that Bob Metcalf’s contribution to society dwarfs both Gates and Jobs combined. Let’s not even get into Kilby and Noyce.

      1. It might interest you to know that both Metcalfe and Noyce were friends of Jobs and thought pretty highly of him. Couple quotes from Metcalfe talking about Jobs: “Steve Jobs, the great innovator.” and “Steve Jobs is a giant who helped get this all going. He is hard to take, but thank God for Steve Jobs.”

    2. Missed that whole part where Apple paid Xerox, did you? You realize that means it wasn’t stolen, right?

      Joe

      1. A thief is still a thief even if he had to pay after being threatened
        with a lawsuit.

        Steve Jobs was a well-known thief, Apple as a company often steals ideas from others to incorporate in their own product and rely on people like you and their army or blogger such as this one, to lie to their reader into making them believe it was their own inventions,

        Stop with your Hypocrisy

        1. The history I’ve read doesn’t include the part about a threatened law suit. Did you make that up?

        2. You do realise that Mr. Bajarin (blogger such as this one) has witnessed the birth of personal computing and knows virtually everyone involved and that Apple has has no reason to pay him to blog about Apple?
          He’s paid to crunch numbers and analyse trends for companies so that they don’t waste resources going down blind alleys, not shill for conglomerates like Samsung like some (many?).
          We’re lucky to have some of his insights available free. If you don’t like them, go away and start your own company and see who pays for your visions of the future (no one pays for predictions on the past).

  6. A number of comments here take the position that Apple steals ideas, doesn’t innovate or invent, isn’t first with any products, builds products that were already obvious evolutions of other products, and so on. I wonder if these commenters realize that the logical outcome of that line of thinking is that Apple will continue to be even more successful. Apple doesn’t have to do any of that hard, bothersome work of inventing and innovating, research and development, or taking any risks. Indeed, Apple just needs to look around at all the fantastic (and obvious) ideas, research, prototypes and products that already exist, steal those and take them to Apple fans with slick marketing. Time to buy more Apple stock 🙂

      1. True. The anti-Apple position is a study in irrational fear and cognitive dissonance. I’ve long found it fascinating.

        1. Funny how you vehemently support a company who’s closed, vertically integrated, system designed to free you from the complexity of “jobs to be done” and which imposes conformity for the best class of customers but is thus a liberator, while being a censor, er…curator, and accuse a broad class of people as exhibiting cognitive dissonance.

          The pro-Apple position is a study in irrational fear and a classic case of “cranial rectosis”. I’ve long found it fascinating.

          1. It is not “a broad class of people”, it is a vocal minority. I think I’ll just let your comment stand as a good example of what I’m talking about. Thanks.

          2. Since you like to treat this as a team sport, I’m too happy to argue with you right now. I’ll go with a real team sport.. Go Blackhawks!

          3. I’m not the one treating this as a team sport. I only ask that you respect the people making choices you don’t agree with. But you seem incapable of doing that. Fanaticism is like that though, you think you’re morally right, you feel an obligation to speak up and stand against that which is morally wrong and harmful. I get it. Lucky for you the next season of Halt and Catch Fire starts soon (I think so anyway, I’ve seen ads).

            As for the Hawks, they’re my second fave team, chock full of Canadians, and almost all their top players are Canucks, and their coach is Canadian. That’s true of the Cup champs most years. As the Stanley Cup travels with the players it spends a lot of time in Canada each summer, no matter what team wins. Although Tampa has the least number of Canadian players on a top team, I think. I’d have to check rosters to be sure. Although Tampa’s coach is Canadian.

          4. Hey, I root for Team Canada as well. It is your sport, but remember, Kane is a Yank!

          5. True, but like many of the top players he spent a few years learning from a Canadian coach, and then spent the year before he entered the NHL playing in the Ontario Hockey League. Many of the world’s top players come to Canada to learn the game. Of course that does mean everything I don’t like about the game also comes from Canadian hockey culture.

          6. I agree. Jonathan Toews is a Canadian, attended and played for the University of North Dakota, Duncan Keith, a Canadian, played for University of Michigan. See…”open works”! 😉

          7. In both cases they played for just two seasons. Canadian players don’t need to come to Canada to learn the game, they grew up playing here. I played with many guys who then went off to non-Canadian leagues and opportunities. Some to the States, some to Europe. But we all learned the fundamentals as kids and teenagers in Canada before branching out. It’s ridiculous how tightly woven hockey is into the fabric of Canada.

          8. Hey I agree. In both cases they brought the game to the States. Everyone wins. Thankfully, in hockey’s case, that Canada doesn’t keep it as a “states secret” and regulate, or litigate, where it’s played.

          9. In many ways Canada does control hockey. Culturally the sport is driven by how it is played in Canada. Many of the top coaches, leaders, and influencers are Canadian. As I said before, everything I don’t like about the game is Canada’s fault. It was only about 30 years ago that the NHL was mostly Canadian players. It’s only recently gone below 50 percent I think. Hockey is a highly regulated rules-driven game, with a strong internal culture. It’s much more an example of a closed system that can interoperate via standards.

          10. Most real world systems are exactly this, highly regulated but able to interoperate because of standards, and those standards are curated and controlled as well. This is why you can turn on a tap and get clean water (but you can make many choices about your sink, taps, plumbing system), or drive your BMW on most roads (the roads that are curated, but you’re out of luck on off road trails that are not curated), and so on. This is why you shouldn’t fear computing tech becoming more closed. This natural progression has already happened in most of your life, and you didn’t really notice. I’ll end it here, lots of work to do.

        2. Fascinating? Like a Fringe alternate universe threatening to annihilate logic? Just say no? Cognitive dissonance as a lifestyle choice? The boys who cry wolf? And cry.

          1. See..when you call Schmitt a parasite, no one gets offended. They don’t take it as if they are criticizing their brother, or feel the need to defend their family honor. That’s the way it should be.

            Call someone from the Apple side anything, however, and you suffer from cognitive dissonance. All pretend shrinks should look in the mirror first.

    1. “Apple has to be either an inventor/innovator […], OR just rips off obvious ideas. It can’t be both.”

      Why not ? It’s obviously both.

      I credit Apple with the original ideas to make tech socially desirable, and easy to use. That’s extremely important, and many competitors are still struggling with these concepts 10 years on (just look at product names and release schedules). A number of other decisions flow from that.
      On the other hand, a lot of things Apple does are clearly competition-inspired, not endogenous. The phablet is an obvious example: 1 year after publicly deriding phones designed for our eyes, but privately admitting that “customers want what we don’t have” [sic], out comes a phablet. Most recent iOS features are taken straight from Android or Android apps, some even seem to be there just to be checks on a list (flaky 3rd-party keyboards, the frantic attempt to pass off interactive notifications as widgets…)

      Real life is not black and white but shades of grey. Apple like any other company are here to make money. Their main angle to do that is “sexy+easy, then lock-in”, and they have some exclusive skills in those areas, but they also look at what’s working for others and what their customers (educated by the competition) want, and get inspired or copy.

      1. Heh, thanks for proving my point. I figured somebody might try the ‘they’re both’ angle, and you did it pretty much how I expected, by defining Apple’s innovation as “sexy+easy, then lock-in”.

    2. The Apple detractors should go and whine on sites where somebody cares, but they try to spread the joy. Or something. And why pick just one story, as if logic or results have any sway in the issues.

      1. Or we can just stay here, hold hands and sing kumbaya with you! 😉
        Someone’s cranky today!

  7. Can anyone comment with info on the relationship between Jobs and Schmidt?

    I believe Jobs lost it because he held Schmidt as a brilliant deeply trusted senior advisor and that Apple and Google’s intertwined and cooperative future was embodied and forwarded by Schmidt’s participation at the highest level on the Apple Board. Google and Apple would shape the future of computing together.

    Google would cooperatively and inherently be All Data, All AI, All Network and Apple would be All Device, All Design, All UI.

    When Schmidt’s Google had broken the (publicly) unspoken Jobs went ballistic because he saw this as a unilateral and shocking personal violation by Schmidt.

    1. We won’t get fooled again.

      It must have been sickening to realise the extent the deception. Schmidt – Dexter, but without the morals. Schmidt, the parasite that left a lasting infection. Even his handlers have little use for him now he’s been exposed.

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