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Jobs Wanted To Destroy Android

hype7 writes "It's clear Steve Jobs didn't pull any punches from the interviews for his forthcoming biography. In the latest release from the book, hosted over at AP, 'Isaacson wrote that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google's actions amounted to "grand theft." ... "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this." ... In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a Palo Alto, Calif., cafe, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn't interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says. "I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want." The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.'"

11 of 988 comments (clear)

  1. and what about xerox's stuff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Odd coming from someone who stole the GUI and the mouse from Xerox.

    1. Re:and what about xerox's stuff? by Macthorpe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Odd coming from someone who stole the GUI and the mouse from Xerox.

      This actually did amuse me. Apparently tapping icons on a phone screen isn't a natural progression from clicking icons on a computer screen, which as you point out Apple didn't come up with in the first place. It's something new and unique and magical that only they could have worked out, so now anybody else that does it has stolen their ideas.

      Of course, he didn't specify which ideas had been stolen, but I struggle to think of anything that the iPhone does which isn't just using a Mac/Windows boiled down to a phone-sized device. I'm sure someone will point one out to me.

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    2. Re:and what about xerox's stuff? by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Have you ever used Windows 95? When you install software it leaves icons on a grid on the desktop.

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  2. Kindergarten by tp1024 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's my idea. Don't you dare to use MY idea. No, I don't care if somebody just came up with it. It was MY idea.

    No, it's not your idea. It's everybody's idea.

    Standing on the shoulders of giants - where there is room for everyone - people decided to knock everybody down to the ground who dares to scale them, because they think that only they are entitled to make use of the work of earlier generations.

    The opposite of a developing country, is a stagnating country. And stagnation is what we are seeing.

  3. Re:How do we work this by itsenrique · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Mod this UP-- what was REALLY stolen? Look, I'm not out to rain on apple fan's picnics. It's just that people are acting like the iPhone was this big revolutionary tech item when really it was just another device with a big difference: it was polished as hell, marketed well, and easy to develop for.

  4. Is that right? by MrCrassic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Good artists borrow; great artists steal." -Steve Jobs

    Android might have "ripped [them] off wholesale," but the truth is that Android delivers a great smartphone OS to everyone instead of everyone that can save enough for an iPhone with its special data/voice plan. Did they really expect OEMs to do like RIM and just sit there while Apple designs and builds awesome hardware from the same factories they use?

    Plus, Apple's products are amazing until you start "thinking different." Then you run into HUGE walls. Example: In Android, I can install an application that controls battery usage by controlling all interfaces on the phone. This seems to be impossible on the iPhone, which is bad because there are days when it will use most of the battery in less than half a day and others in about two days. Another example is adding a Windows print queue on OS X, though this might have been made easier with Lion. I'm not sure.

    His frustrations are thinly warranted, though I do agree that most of Google's products are either crappy or great for two months after release. It would be great if they made APIs along with their products, but I suppose that's not the Google way.

  5. Re:How do we work this by NatasRevol · · Score: 5, Insightful

    overpriced Apple smart-phones, tablets and MP3 players

    I think the other phone, tablet & MP3 manufacturers would disagree with this. They don't seem to be able to compete on price without a subsidy.

    --
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  6. Re:A slightly unrelated topic... by Sez+Zero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I understand this is an authorized biography, so I'm sure Steve Jobs knew at least what it contained. Maybe he didn't care because he knew he was dying.

    But I definitely understand his perspective that he could beat the cancer. Imagine his ego (and I really am trying not to sound insulting), but this is a man with his own distortion field who was very successful in his chosen field. I've heard similar stories about NFL players; because of the all the work and strong sense of self importance must have to be so dedicated to compete at the highest level, to a degree you think you're invincible. "That career ending injury was terrible for that other guy; but that couldn't happen to me."

    A man that believed he could put a dent in the universe probably believed he could beat cancer on his own. I know if I get cancer I'm doing exactly what the doctor tells me, but that's also probably why I'm not the head of a multi-billion dollar company either.

  7. The Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field Killed Him by Jaqenn · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I'm more astounded by this:

    "I've asked [Jobs why he didn't get an operation then] and he said, "I didn't want my body to be opened...I didn't want to be violated in that way," Isaacson recalls. So he waited nine months, while his wife and others urged him to do it, before getting the operation, reveals Isaacson. Asked by Kroft how such an intelligent man could make such a seemingly stupid decision, Isaacson replies, "I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don't want something to exist, you can have magical thinking...we talked about this a lot," he tells Kroft. "He wanted to talk about it, how he regretted it....I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner."

    Which means that the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field ultimately claimed the life of it's creator.

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  8. Re:How do we work this by Antisyzygy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Steve Jobs is just a big narcissistic, hypocrite asshole. After having stolen everyone else's ideas to make his iPhone, he actually had the nerve to complain that people stole his ideas (if they even were his ideas, he probably believed they were)? Im sorry, but the more I learn about this guy the more I think he was just a user and a twat, and doesn't deserve his fame.

    --
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  9. People did say Steve Jobs was an asshole by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But they were usually modded down quickly by Apple fanboys. Bill Gates is often evil figure in computing but it was a blessing that EVERYONE else, including Steve Jobs, screwed up completely and we our home computers became machines based on cloned hardware and even cloned software. Or what do you think Apples response would have been to either Compaq or DrDos? Oh wait we KNOW. Clone a Mac and get sued. Luckily IBM was asleep at the wheel and Compaq cloned the IBM and we all bought IBM compatibles at a fraction of the price. And because they were clones, they weren't locked down and some drunk Fin wrote an OS and the rest is history and the future.

    None of this would have happened if Apple had won the race. Or if IBM had won the race. Or commodore or any of the others. Don't be fooled by the "nice" image of Apple or the "open" base of OSX. That happened because they were to small. Want to see what PC's would have looked like if Apple had produced them? Buy an iPhone. Expensive option is the only option and totally closed down.

    Real history doesn't have heroes. If we are lucky it is a tale of the lesser of two evils having the upperhand. In this case it was Bill Gates. Who won't be remembered as a great man but just as not as totally evil if the people he defeated had won. It is sorta like how the world is better of for America having dominated for the last half century. Oh, not because the Americans are so nice but the world would have been a lot worse under Nazi/Japanese/British/USSR rule.

    But hey, the punters who want their shinies got to believe that their guru is a hero else they might have to ask themselves why very expensive phones with a gigantic profit margin can't be produced in America or at least without near slave labor. Dennis Ritchie? Richard Stallman? Not sexy enough, to difficult with him asking troublesome questions.

    So, the fanboys turn Jobs into a man he never was and put their fingers in their ears whenever someone dares to ask why he is considered such a hero.

    Cue mod down by a fanboy.

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