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

[Carniphage]

It's called good business. Why aim your future product at the dying competitor? When the iPhone came out the UI was quickly seen as the new high bar so everyone took whatever they were working on and switched gears UI wise.

Yes! Correct!

I believe the Japanese have an expression. Business is War.

What Google did was good business. Like most people, they saw the iPhone and did not see a smartphone, but instead saw the basic handset from 10 years in the future. The future path of Android was instantly adjusted to address this new thinking.

This instant change-of-direction should be held in contrast to Nokia and Microsoft's almost total failure to respond to iPhone.

So Google should be applauded for this instant response. But...

This course-change was inevitably going to sour their chummy relationship with Apple. Up to this point, Google and Apple had co-existed without treading on each others toes. Google pursuing search and advertising, Apple pursuing hardware and music. A polite genteel dance was ended with a fairly heavy stomp on Apple's toes.

The retargeting of Android at the iPhone was, as far as Apple was concerned, an opening salvo in a competition war.

Perhaps Apple realised this too late, perhaps Apple wrongly assumed that Google would be happy to release yet another lame smartphone. Perhaps the purchase of Android much earlier was the opening salvo.

Whatever.

The important thing is that Apple saw the G1 as a declaration of war - and have started to a vigorous counter attack. By going after advertising on the iPhone, it punches Google right where it hurts; its revenue source.

This war is great for us consumers. We don't need to take sides, because both sides win.

It is, however, dreadful news for Nokia and Microsoft.

C.

 

[DMann]

And the gap between having an issue and thinking that there's an issue widens even faster.

What is the harm to the typical consumer if the phone that *she chooses* isn't running the latest build?

This, coming from someone who has relentlessly ranted on and on about G5 Macs being held to running a quite capable OS 10.5.

Double-Speak, anyone?

The whole "OMG fragmentation" argument is just as weak as the "OMG Verizon CDMA can't talk and surf at the same time" - it's Apple fans seizing on a minor point to knock the competition.

Another poor analogy.

Seems you'll go through great lengths to bolster your anti-Apple, AT&T quips.

I should have said "when the 20 month upgrade comes around, if you want the new features, get a new one!"

Backpedalling now isn't going to change it.

I'm waiting for the second round of WinMo 7 phones this fall/winter - then I'll upgrade to WinMo 7 or Android.

And wait you shall....

Yes because you sound completely different with your 'only tech geeks care about upgrading' argument

It has been one contradiction after another.

Actually, last I heard, Apple’s penetration with 10.6 was pretty overwhelming, in the 70-80% range at least, which is unheard of for adoption of a software update.

Yes, a ~50% adoption rate for 10.6 is quite overwhelming, especially when compared to the ~11% adoption of Windows 7.

Just like with phones, most people don't upgrade their computer operating systems. They upgrade old computers, and the new computers come with the current OS.

You must be referring to the staggering stagnation rate of Windows - clearly, this is dramatically less so, regarding 10.6 adoption.

Regardless though, please read back over your posts and at least attempt to see the double-speak coming in every post. Within one post you claim something isn’t an issue, then bash Apple for (supposedly) having that same problem. Make up your mind, unless you are (as I have supposed for a long time) just a troll.

jW

You've called it, to a tee.

Every iPhone or iPod touch had at least two official major OS updates from Apple. That's more than enough for a phone or music player.Every new iPod touch or iPhone comes with latest OS. Andoid phones come with different UI, screen size and resolution, with and without keyboards. That's fragmentation dear trolls.

This cannot be denied.

 

[marksman]

I accuse Google of being evil.

 

[marksman]

The whole AJAX thing was pretty much driven by Google, although they didn't invent it.

Can you elaborate on the where and when of this?

 

[DMann]

Perfectly stated. This is exactly what the situation is (and has been for years) with MS: Thinking in terms of 5 years ago, and when that doesn't work, their next mistake . . . trying to copy Apple, poorly, in order to remedy the first mistake.

This, then, comes as no surprise:

Microsoft opens its fourth retail store in San Diego's Fashion Valley Mall, not just a few doors down from an Apple Store, but also on June 24, the launch day of iPhone 4

Desperation²

 

[Carniphage]

I accuse Google of being evil.

I accuse Google of making money through advertising.

Apple:
Make a great phone -> Sell it to consumers -> Profit

Google:
Make a great phone OS -> Give it away - > Sell advertising -> Profit

C.

 

[DMann]

Apple:
Make a great phone -> Sell it to consumers -> Profit

C.

Not to mention a great iOS, app store, and user experience -> Profitable for All.

 

[jfanning]

Actually it makes a great deal of difference if the company you are purchasing from is profitable. It means that they will be in business years from now to offer upgrades, fixes, accessories, and other things for the product you purchased. A company that is losing money, like Nokia

Can I ask why you choose the quarter they wrote off a large part of a subsidiary (ie it wasn't their handset devision that made the loss it was NSN) for your reference?

Nokia, like Apple, still makes a large profit off their handset division. And as I said, there is a difference between being profitable, and making an obscene profit.

 

[Carniphage]

Nokia, like Apple, still makes a large profit off their handset division. And as I said, there is a difference between being profitable, and making an obscene profit.

Nokia are profit making. But you have failed to explain the difference comrade.

What is obscene profitability? Is it the difference between being merely successful and wildly successful?

In the jfanning world...

If a company is obscenely profitable because its customers recognise value and willingly reward it with their patronage. The obscene profits create wealth for shareholders. The staff are rewarded with bonuses and increased job security. And even the state itself benefits from increased taxation revenues. Which in turn benefits the wider community. This is obviously a moral outrage and should be stamped out!!

If a company is loss-making - or simply has declining profits, its staff are more prone to being made redundant, its customers are left with minimal support, or lack-lustre products - and investors get a weak return or will lose their savings altogether.

Clearly, loss-making is morally superior to profitability. Especially OBSCENE profitability!

C.

 

[KnightWRX]

I accuse Google of making money through advertising.

Apple:
Make a great phone -> Sell it to consumers -> Profit

Google:
Make a great phone OS -> Give it away - > Sell advertising -> Profit

C.

What is iAds ?

Seems Apple is copying Google after all...

 

[Carniphage]

What is iAds ?

iAds is Apple's very special way of thanking Google for pissing in their cornflakes.

C.

 

[DMann]

iAds is Apple's very special way of thanking Google for pissing in their cornflakes.

C.

+10¹⁰⁰

 

[jfanning]

Nokia are profit making. But you have failed to explain the difference comrade.

What is obscene profitability? Is it the difference between being merely successful and wildly successful?

I like the way you cut pieces out to miss the point. An obscene profit can be a hard thing to measure, or determine, in some industries a large margin on an item can be swallowed if separated from development costs, a historic example of a sector producing obscene profits are the oil companies. Who do you think is going pay for the issues that the 40% British, and 38% USA company is having at the moment?

If a company is obscenely profitable because its customers recognise value and willingly reward it with their patronage. The obscene profits create wealth for shareholders. The staff are rewarded with bonuses and increased job security. And even the state itself benefits from increased taxation revenues. Which in turn benefits the wider community. This is obviously a moral outrage and should be stamped out!!

I purchase something because I need it, or want it. I don't purchase something with the desire to "reward" the company making it. And your little speech there means you don't even know how some of these companies operate. You are British are you not? Can you tell me where the revenues of Google, Apple, Dell etc are processed for Britain? I'll give you a clue, it isn't Britain, Apple, Google etc make sure they process these in another EU country to maximise the profit for themselves.

If a company is loss-making - or simply has declining profits, its staff are more prone to being made redundant, its customers are left with minimal support, or lack-lustre products - and investors get a weak return or will lose their savings altogether.

Is this why the British company SkyTV ran some of their subsidiaries at a loss for a number of years? Was it due to them having "lack-lustre products"? Maybe it had something to do with them paying their other subsidiaries a high cost for media, so they could rip of the local governments by no paying taxes when they were in profit. But that can't be right, after all you claimed states benefit from increased taxation when companies make profits.

Companies are run at a loss for a number of reasons, some of which involve them performing badly, and some not. If we are led to believe it is in our best interest not to trade with companies that have a fall in revenue or profit for any reason, may I ask why you purchase Apple equipment since a number of years ago they were near bankruptcy?

Clearly, loss-making is morally superior to profitability. Especially OBSCENE profitability!

Now you are just being foolish. I haven't said this, nor have I implied it. Can I please get you to state your financial interests in Apple? As my mentioning of the topic of obscene profits seems to have hit a raw nerve with you.

 

[Carniphage]

An obscene profit can be a hard thing to measure, or determine

If even you don't know what it means, perhaps you should stop saying it.

Can I please get you to state your financial interests in Apple?

I have none. Apart from willingly making a generous personal contribution towards them there profits.

As a business person, I am always interested in how companies perform the alchemy of turning base currency into even more currency. In my interpretation, Apple makes more profit because they are simply better at adding value than others.

It's fascinating that you think that modest profits are okay but more profit must be a bad thing. As if business were a bit like alcohol consumption. It is okay, but only in moderation.

Is this a religious viewpoint or a political one?

C.

 

[jfanning]

If even you don't know what it means, perhaps you should stop saying it.

I gave you an example, but like the rest of the post, you choose to ignore it.

I have none. Apart from willingly making a generous personal contribution towards them there profits.

Very strange, you are very quick to defend a company you have no real interest in...

It's fascinating that you think that modest profits are okay but more profit must be a bad thing. As if business were a bit like alcohol consumption. It is okay, but only in moderation.

Is this a religious viewpoint or a political one?

A social view, we are living in a time where a lot of people are struggling financially, some very much self inflicted, some the issues was slammed upon them, yet as always we have a few that praise the ability of a few to make an extreme (maybe we could call it an obscene) profit off others.

 

[Carniphage]

A social view, we are living in a time where a lot of people are struggling financially, some very much self inflicted, some the issues was slammed upon them, yet as always we have a few that praise the ability of a few to make an extreme (maybe we could call it an obscene) profit off others.

These are tough economic times. The UK is just barely climbing out of a recession with fairly crappy growth rates.

Profitable companies create wealth - they don't destroy it. They are the engines which power economic recovery.

To mount a sustained economic recovery we need more companies like Apple not fewer. We need more people to follow its example by becoming wealth-generating entrepreneurs.

Profitability is not exploitation. But I am guessing you have never run a business?

C

 

[KnightWRX]

iAds is Apple's very special way of thanking Google for pissing in their cornflakes.

C.

And again, Apple got into Phones publicly after Google into phones publicly. This is the topic of this thread remember ?

iAds is Apple seeing Google making cash off ads and wanting some of it for themselves. Apple is after all a business with a profit motivation.

Remember who wanted Admob in the first place... It has nothing to do with Google.

 

[KnightWRX]

If even you don't know what it means, perhaps you should stop saying it.

Oh please, an obscene profit is easy to determine.

Wal-mart T-shirt : 9$. Cost to make, ship, store, rack and sell ? 5$. Profit : 4$.
Same T-shirt with a designer label : 95$. Cost to make, ship, store, rack and sell ? 5$. Profit : 90$

Apple is no better than Affliction or Projek Raw.

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-gb; Nexus One Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

I've gone from the HTC Hero to the Nexus One and also own the Dell Streak and an Archos 5 IT and none of the apps I've purchased are unusable on any of the devices. How many apps have you been forced to stop using due to fragmentation on your Android devices?

Despite the different features and functions of each device, they all work fine.

As for software updates, the G1 (mentioned earlier) went from Android 1.0 to Android 1.5 then 1.6 respectively with extra features and functions each OS had to offer. If "at least two official major OS updates" is the de-facto standard, the G1 that got panned earlier had two major official updates.

What about "comes with latest OS"? Fail one step and that's it. 1.6 in 2010? That's clearly not fragmentation.

Did you not read what I said? I'm using 3 different android devices running two different os versions on varying hardware specs and features and it hasn't had a detrimental effect on any of the apps I use.

Its fantastic that Apple are in a position to release all of their phones on the same os revision (albeit a fragmented featureset between devices) but Android by its very nature was designed to run on vastly varying hardware. Read it up on the open handset alliance homepage.

You might call a hardware keyboard a tool of fragmentation but others will see it as something that suits their needs.

I must admit I love those that use a rolleyes smiley to hit a point home too. Nothing says "I'm serious" like good old rolleyes!

 

[Carniphage]

And again, Apple got into Phones publicly after Google into phones publicly. This is the topic of this thread remember ?

Google got into the business when it launched the G1 - which was after Apple launched the iPhone. What happens in closed laboratories is pretty much irrelevant. You can guarantee there are 10s of projects going on right now in Google and Apple. They only become real when they see the light of day in the marketplace.

But regardless of the chronology. Apple has INTERPRETED this as a pissing-in-cornflakes type move. And it is the interpretation which has triggered the counter moves from Apple.

iAds is Apple seeing Google making cash off ads and wanting some of it for themselves. Apple is after all a business with a profit motivation.

Remember who wanted Admob in the first place... It has nothing to do with Google.

Google has always been an advertising based-business. That's how it chooses to monetize all its various projects. Search, YouTube, Maps, Android they are all about the advertising revenues.

Google's business model means it does not directly profit from selling phones or licensing the OS. It profits solely from selling advertising on phones. Bizarrely that means the iPhone makes more money for Google than Android because the iPhone is a more widely used platform.

Apple has decided kick Google where it hurts by starting to shut-off that particular revenue stream. Perhaps the working tile for iAds was "How do you like them Apples?"

C.

 

[KnightWRX]

But regardless of the chronology. Apple has INTERPRETED this as a pissing-in-cornflakes type move. And it is the interpretation which has triggered the counter moves from Apple.

And if that is remotely true, it just shows how disconnected Apple is. Android Inc the purchase was not done in a closed laboratory, it was public and reported outside the tech media :

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050817_0949_tc024.htm

So either you're bashing Apple and calling them shortsighted or you're just confirming that what they are saying is a piss poor excuse.

Google has always been an advertising based-business. That's how it chooses to monetize all its various projects. Search, YouTube, Maps, Android they are all about the advertising revenues.

Google's business model means it does not directly profit from selling phones or licensing the OS. It profits solely from selling advertising on phones. Bizarrely that means the iPhone makes more money for Google than Android because the iPhone is a more widely used platform.

Apple has decided kick Google where it hurts by starting to shut-off that particular revenue stream. Perhaps the working tile for iAds was "How do you like them Apples?"

C.

PS. Please stop using the smiley's. It gives the impression that we are conversing with a petulant thirteen year old.

Apple decided to get into Advertising for profits. They tried to acquire Admob only to get beaten by Google. iAds is simply their plan from the get-go. It has nothing to do with pissing in Google's cereal since the Admob purchase plans were when everything was "lovey-dovey" with Google.

 

[Carniphage]

And if that is remotely true, it just shows how disconnected Apple is. Android Inc the purchase was not done in a closed laboratory, it was public and reported outside the tech media :

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050817_0949_tc024.htm

So either you're bashing Apple and calling them shortsighted or you're just confirming that what they are saying is a piss poor excuse.

Google's purchase of Android was one of tens of acquisitions done every year by Google. They purchase companies like the rest of us buy toothpaste. All it signified at the time was that Google was wasting more money on a Blackberry clone.

Google pissed in the cornflakes, not by buying Android, but by re-engineering Android to resemble iPhone.

And Google should be praised for having done so. This was a smart move and showed that they were on the ball. Something that neither Nokia or Microsoft had the smarts to do.

But if Google expected there would be zero-consquences for their chummy relationship with Apple, then surely it is them that are disconnected?

C.

 

[KnightWRX]

Google's purchase of Android was one of tens of acquisitions done every year by Google. They purchase companies like the rest of us buy toothpaste. All it signified at the time was that Google was wasting more money on a Blackberry clone.

Google pissed in the cornflakes, not by buying Android, but by re-engineering Android to resemble iPhone.

What exactly about Android ressembles iPhone ? Surely not application Icons, because then, I'd say iPhone took a page from Sony Ericsson on that. The iPhone's UI layout looks exactly like my Sony Ericsson phone from 2002 :

Android shipped with wallpapers, UI widgets on the lock screen and a "desktop" with a folder for application icons. It looks nothing like iPhone :

The screenshot comes from the Android emulator in the SDK for Beta 0.9, which is essentially 1.0. So maybe it is the fact they ship an emulator with their SDK ? Oh wait, so did SE in 2002 did with their J2ME extensions... so that can't be it either...

Maybe it's the "screen takes the entire front of the device" thing ? Again, iPhone was not first with that either :

So what is it exactly that Google copied from Apple ? Android Market vs App Store ? Nope, carrier based App Store were there since the early '00s selling games, ringtones, wallpapers and other crap, moving them to a central location based on OS/handset made sense and had been tried for Symbian already...

I'm seriously at a loss here... Or maybe... Apple doesn't give a hoot about Android, and the "sour relationship" is only something the companies are using to get press time while internally, the relationship goes on ?

Seriously, come back to reality for a bit.

EDIT : It's also funny to say Google had to "re-engineer" Android to make it look like iPhone... What exactly was there to re-engineer in the OS ? Support for undersquare resolutions ? The fact is, Android is adaptable, heck, Acer just realised they can still use it to make a Blackberry like phone :

(Yes, this is a rumored phone that just hit the FCC for approval, Acer BeTouch E130). There was no re-engineering of Android except in the minds of "Apple invented everything" people.

 

[kdarling]

Every iPhone or iPod touch had at least two official major OS updates from Apple. That's more than enough for a phone or music player.

The number of updates a device gets is not a very good bragging point unless it adds something major that nobody else has. Not just adding things like MMS or video to catch up.

Apple and Google have needed more updates than some other more mature devices, since they started from behind as far as common features go.

In addition, both have had security issues. The iPhone alone has had dozens of security patches. In fact, a hole is what forced out its first update.

Every new iPod touch or iPhone comes with latest OS.

If the iPad had the latest OS as well, I'd be with you on this.

Andoid phones come with different UI, screen size and resolution, with and without keyboards. That's fragmentation dear trolls.

That's not fragmentation, that's resolution and input independence, something Apple needs to address better.

And good grief. Only newbies and people without valid arguments throw out "troll". Anyone who uses it sounds like a kid.

 

[Carniphage]

What exactly about Android ressembles iPhone ?

Apple took a ton of pre-existing features and elements and combined them to create a new platform. It didn't invent the ingredients - but you have to admit it was a new recipe.

Before iPhone. Google had their own recipe. It was targeted at the Blackberry form-factor. And support for low-end devices was an important part of the Android strategy.

After iPhone was launched, Google changed their recipe. They added a full-screen touch interface and we never saw Android on the tiny-screen phones that they claimed would be important.

Remember this:

But when the product emerged we got this:

When I went to look at the G1 - the sales patter was all about how this was better than the iPhone.

I am not criticising Google for this change of direction. It was inspired and totally correct. But you can't blame Apple for being a bit annoyed.

Frankly I am delighted the two companies have stopped snuggling-up and have decided to have an honest fight. It is better for consumers of Apple and Android. Both companies will accelerate development, keep on improving the products and services. Everyone wins.

Everyone, apart from Nokia and Microsoft.

C.

Edit - and while Android *is* just software. Google did directly oversee the design of the G1 as a reference design.