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Google Co-Founder Accuses Jobs of 'Rewriting History' of iPhone and Android

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Reuters reports on comments from Google executives at this week's Allen & Co. media industry gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho, noting that Google co-founder Larry Page has accused Apple CEO Steve Jobs of "rewriting history" in comments over the past few months suggesting that Google followed Apple into the smartphone business with its Android platform.
Apple's Jobs recently told a conference that Google was responsible for the change in the relationship between the two companies because Google elected to compete with Apple's iPhone by developing the Android smartphone software.

On Thursday, Google's Page suggested that Jobs' assessment was "a little bit of rewriting history."

"We had been working on Android a very long time, with the notion of producing phones that are Internet enabled and have good browsers and all that because that did not exist in the marketplace," Page said. "I think that characterization of us entering after is not really reasonable."
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Google CEO Eric Schmidt noted, however, that Apple and Google continue to maintain a number of partnerships and that there is room in the mobile space for both companies to thrive.

Fortune has put together a timeline of the Android/iPhone relationship, showing that Google purchased the Android platform in August 2005, a full year before Schmidt joined Apple's Board of Directors and nearly a year and a half before Apple officially announced the iPhone. According to the report, an Apple insider claims that the relationship between Apple and Google did not begin to deteriorate until Google and T-Mobile finally introduced the G1, the first Android-based handset, in September 2008.
According to a former Apple employee, the day that the Apple-Google relationship started to crumble was the introduction of the T-Mobile G1. According to him, Steve Jobs and Apple Mobile Software VP Scott Forstall had only seen Android prototypes that looked like Blackberries. The new form factor was 'way too similar to the iPhone for Jobs' tastes'.
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Schmidt resigned from Apple's board in August 2009, and tensions between the two companies have continued to increase as they have begun to compete head-to-head in a growing number of markets.

Article Link: Google Co-Founder Accuses Jobs of 'Rewriting History' of iPhone and Android
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/09/google-co-founder-accuses-jobs-of-rewriting-history-of-iphone-and-android/
Hey dorks: take your millions and millions, make stuff, and shut up.

We REALLY don't care. Life must be tough for these super-multi-millionaires.
 
Jobs is right, as usual.

"Well we were working on one..."

Well, when Apple came out with one - you know ACTUALLY PRODUCED IT and made it available to the world - then the game changed. Apple had created a phone unlike any other. That was Google's time to say "hey we'll play too", and try to keep up with Apple, or to stay out. "How long they've been working on it" is not pertinent anymore.
 
It doesn't matter how many years Google was planning their phone. What matters is Schmidt was on Apple's board of directors while developing his own phone for Google. Gigantic conflict of interest.
 
"He said, she said" . . . and who really cares who is first?!? All most people care about is "what have you done for me lately?"
 
This really isn't big news, in fact it is sort of boring. Android is a great platform and a good bit of fun to use. I hope both platforms (android and iphone) not only survive, but continue to innovate at great speeds. The phones are headed in a great direction and I hope to see more advancements soon.
bdkennedy1 said:
It doesn't matter how many years Google was planning their phone. What matters is Schmidt was on Apple's board of directors while developing his own phone for Google. Gigantic conflict of interest.
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As much as people are telling google to stop complaining, apple people need to do the same. get over it already.
 
Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's board because the SEC was starting to look sideways at Apple and Google's cozy relationship. Remember? It was in the news.
 
Microsoft and its partners have been working on tablets for more than ten years, yet the iPad was the first viable model. There have even been several real tablets on the market. Google might have been working on a cell phone for 5 years or 20 years. They didn't release it until the iPhone was successful in changing the market.

I wonder how long Microsoft worked on the Zune before it came out. At least with Android, it has been successful.

/And I agree, competition is good for the consumer. Otherwise industry grows stagnant.
 
i'd be curious to see where in the timeline android changed from those blackberry style devices to the touchscreen iphone like interface. something tells me it was about the same time the iphone was introduced to the apple board of directors, hence steve's attitude.
 
Android as we now think of it existed in NAME ONLY—it was a mobile OS, yes, but for a NON-touch-based blackberry-like phone with a small screen. You know.... the kind of device everyone assumed was where the future lay, until Apple showed a different future. (Yes, I know they had the Newton AGES ago, but putting it all together into something that really worked WELL for people began with the iPhone.)

Where Google copied Apple—and Jobs is right—is in making an iPhone-style touch OS for touch-centric hardware.

Copying the iPhone transformed the Android project. Just Google for the pre-iPhone Android prototype photos. Look at the hardware AND the OS from back then. Then look at Android AFTER the iPhone came along.

I’m glad people are copying Apple and bringing competition—this will make my iPhone better! But Jobs isn’t the one re-writing history.


EDIT - Here is Android (mimicking RIM, not Apple) before the iPhone:

 
What a bunch of little kids. No matter the competition these companies will continue to make millions and millions of dollars so who gives a ****. Get off your high horse richy
 
bdkennedy1 said:
It doesn't matter how many years Google was planning their phone. What matters is Schmidt was on Apple's board of directors while developing his own phone for Google. Gigantic conflict of interest.
Click to expand...

Exactly, and since Apple beat Google to market by years Jobs was right. Who started R&D first doesn't mean I can say I had the first phone.
 
Google starting to whine

I think Google is starting to whine ... and it's sounding more and more like a rich and spoiled teenager who doesn't get to use the Bentley hardtop for their Friday night date, and instructed instead to use the less expensive Rolls convertible.

We all could do with a bit less whining and a bit more incredible hardware and software that makes our lives easier and easier.
 
You guys realize that the only ones making these stories into big deals is the tech media and those of us that buy right into it right?

Seriously, its not like he went to a major newspaper and ran the story, he was at a convention and just dropped some info which a reporter realized could be made into a big nonstory.
 
google is technically correct, android was purchased long before the introduction of the iphone. they're being disingenuous however when one looks at what android was gearing up to be before the iphone and what it became after the iphone; android was far closer to blackberry, palm and windows mobile than it was to the iphone.

an image of android's os circa december 2007, 6 months after the iphone arrived
http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/12/androidlive.JPG

and that's why i find android so boring. it's little more than a me-too product. the really interesting work happening outside of apple is with palm/hp and microsoft's wps7. it's a shame that neither will grab significant market share and android will likely be the largest single market share holder considering how uninspired it is.
 
The fact is opera has been making great mobile browsers for years, good browsers were available on smartphones.

Android was purchased by Google in 2005 - so, verification that Google has been working on mobile platform for a good number of years.

The iPhone reminds me of the SE P900 - Big touch screen, no physical keyboard ( as an option - it could be removed )... SE doesn't complain about Apple copying them. It is also fact that Steve jobs rather liked the design of the P800/900.

The fact is, all companies copy each other, including Apple. Steve Jobs should be a little less whinny.
 
Apple changed the game with iphone point blank. And everybody else after then decided to try and run with it to make money and compete. Nothing wrong with it, it is what it is. Like we agree, makes great competition and we win.
But doesn't matter how long you thought about something or work on something, you have to put it out because any number of us could think of millions of things but won't count unless we introduce it to the world.
 
The first iPhone was basically an iPod that made phone calls. The iPod was around since 2001. Who's to say Apple didn't start developing the iPhone along with the iPod.
 
Really? They both want to take credit for the first to have a phone with a good internet browser?

Which company had a good phone out first. Score settled.

EDIT: nagromme makes some good points
 
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