Walter Isaacson Says Jobs' Rage Over Android Was Real

[IJ Reilly]

No, it was about money at first. It just seems like once he had enough, it then became about what he could do with himself. But don't misunderstand Jobs-he got into the game for the dollar, and would've freely admitted that (I'm convinced he has, though I haven't found an interview).

The evidence that Steve got into anything just for the money is lacking. He saw himself as the leader of a revolution, with Apple as his army. I think this is very clear from the book and it is consistent with everything else I'd read about Steve from years back.

 

[kiljoy616]

He may have faked some anger in some things, but Jobs from the book had a strong personality so I say he was more than mad and the main reason was because what google did was exactly what MS and Bill Gates did when it come to the old OS.

Good for consumers personally but I can see where it would tick me off if someone took what I finally make work in the industry and put it out there without a real R&D and for free. Still like the courts that held yes Apple was in the right and M$ was wrong the overall benefit to society was to great.

I guess what pisses me off is Google stole the form and idea which they had non and yet gave nothing back, their Map software is crapware still.

I wish Apple would bring their own mapping system, if M$ can do it why not apple, makes no sense to me.

 

[vincenz]

I don't believe that from a man like Jobs, that that rage wasn't real. I didn't believe the claims for a second, especially coming from Google.

 

[mac964]

You do realize the iPhone is now outselling all of those Android OEMs on each US carrier that it is sold on. iPhone is a much bigger reality than anything Google can even imagine.

Google's mobile revenue is nearly all iPhone based. You think Android is something it simply isn't. It still lacks serious developer support. Most of the major mobile developers now make half assed attempts of getting ino Android, it is almost universally a losing proposition for them. There is not a reason for consumers to buy inferior Android products over the iPhone.

When the LTE iPhone comes out this year, Android is done in this market. They will not have a single differentiator versus the iPhone.

Not true, the iPhone is great phone and it sell a lot, but android wont be out of the market never it will. It may have it flaws as iOS has them too, but it is different than iOS and that is what many people like the UI of iOS hasn't change , android is way more customizable and it is open source it lets you do much more thing that iOS doesn't permit. They are different OSes it depends what are you looking for you to decide which to take. Also android phones are not inferior just look at the ONE X and wait for the SIII it blows the current iPhone away hardware wise. Choosing which OS is better it depends what you want and your needs.Their is not a better OS, just the one the fits what you want and are looking for to have.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Exaclty.
Like alot of stuff back in the late 70's early 80's. Xerox did it first.

Not really. Many of the things Xerox supposedly did first actually came from academics, some of who ended up working for Xerox PARC. They in turn managed to create the first working GUI-based computers, but any resemblance between what Xerox accomplished what what Apple accomplished ends there.

Some myths die hard. Very hard.

 

[clibinarius]

The evidence that Steve got into anything just for the money is lacking. He saw himself as the leader of a revolution, with Apple as his army. I think this is very clear from the book and it is consistent with everything else I'd read about Steve from years back.

You mean when he lied to Wozniak about how much he made off Breakout? Or the amount he said he could mark objects up in price by, marveling at the amount of difference in price? For Wozniak, it was all about the revolution, and he was rather indifferent to leaving for Apple (and left fairly early, too). What about ignoring financially supporting his illegitimate daughter and saying he was infertile to get out of payments, until he decided he had so much money it didn't matter anymore?

Make no mistake. 1970s, 1980s Steve Jobs was ALL about the money.

 

[kiljoy616]

Apple's soon to be problem appears to be Tim Cook.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Jobs gave Apple a vision to carry for 5 years.

Part of that vision was to destroy Google's Andriod OS. Cook seems to not share what Steve wanted Apple to continue with.

I wonder if a person like Forstall might have been more of the right choice for Apple, if he was more seasoned.

I hope Cook isn't the 21st centurey Sculley, with his "play nice mentality". Apple can't afford that a 2nd time around. Cause their won't be a 3rd Coming of Jobs to the rescue.

Yes you have no idea what your talking about, you have been corrected. Steve may throw tantrum but he was no child and was aware that nothing would destroy Google, its a F* advertising company in the end. Which so many forget. How do you destroy an advertising company, anyone?

 

[Dr McKay]

Not confused. Use any android phone with an iPhone 4s, heck even a 3gs or 4, and put them side by side then swipe to the side, I Can Guarantee you that the android phone is going to have some kind of lag,freeze,low fps, or something, iOS is just so refined that its a joy to use.

(Yes, I Am aware google makes android, I Personally despise google, their privacy policy is so disgraceful When I Owned an Android phone I just didn't feel safe. Now I'm on an iPhone 4.)

This problem seems to have been resolved with Android 4.0

 

[Rennir]

Lol at the comments on this thread. The iOS/android struggle is actually much closer to Windows/Linux.

Linux = open source operating system that you can operate for free
Android = open source operating system that you can operate for free

Windows = proprietary closed system owned by a wealthy company that will leverage any advantage it can to squash the competition
iOS = ditto

Well, we all know what happened with Linux vs Windows.... they both occupy different spaces in the computing universe. Windows is on more desktops than Linux, but internet backbone is built off of Linux and its cousins.


The Mac/PC saga does have some parallels, but I think what really upset Jobs was that Google was already a few generations ahead of where Apple wants to be in terms of a complete computing platform+ecosystem.

It is much easier to break into a young, fledgling mobile device market than to get users to rely upon your search/email/map/video/blog/etc suite.

IMO, this is what Jobs meant when he said that Google was 'copying' Apple. I think he was less concerned about gestures and bounce back function on an image gallery and much more concerned about where people will spend their time and money on videos, songs, and applications.

Google recognized the endgame for what it was early on and by effectively delegating the hardware end of the business out to the best electronics manufacturers in the world, have been able to push out features and functionality at 2x the pace that Apple has.

There's nothing wrong with competition, but you must be smart about picking your battles. Microsoft eventually stopped trying to destroy Linux (for the moment) and are trying to emulate some of its best features. Their battle was buying them little except ill will.

Apple seems like they might head in that direction within a year or two (they already adopted voice dictation and notifications).

Really interesting take on the whole thing. Thanks for the analysis

 

[TehFalcon]

Haha!

Coincidentally, I tried out the newest Galaxy Nexus and Droid Razr at Radioshack about two weeks ago. Yep, they still lag! These two phones are the best Android offer at the moment. This lag issue will never go away, unless Google rewrite Android. I gave them an honest chance to prove otherwise, but the lag issue still remains.

Exactly what im saying! You sir, get a voteup.

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This problem seems to have been resolved with Android 4.0

Not completely, its still there but not as bad, I Have tried 4.0 its still not fixed.

 

[lincolntran]

Android's UI actually hasn't changed much. It never changed from a "BB" type UI (what is that anyway ?) to a "iOS" type UI (what is that anyway ?). It's always been a wallpaper on which you put widgets or application launchers and for which you could have more than 1 home screen.

Android's UI concept is Android's.

Really?

So you mean swiping is android's original UI concept? How about multitouch? How about navigation bar? etc. BB uses scroll wheel and hard keys to navigate, so was android. Before iPhone, no other phone works like this, especially android. Then all of a sudden, android phones work like this.

Android prototype interface before and after iPhone

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/security/security.html

You obviously don't know how Android works.

I obviously don't know how android works.

Geez, I guess this isn't 2012, and developers have not had to face this problem on the PC and other platforms for decades now. PCs have always ran at the same fixed resolution on 1 size of monitors right ?

Even Macs, they are all... what is it, 1280x800 pixels right ?

Oh wait...

Desktop class computers have their own frameworks to handle different resolutions, which is very mature and easy for the devs.

This is a mobile platform. iOS devs don't have to deal with such headache as android devs.

And running your app in a simulator has a whole other set of problems. For one, you cannot evaluate on device performance. Not to mention you're liking against Intel compiled code, running Intel compiled code rather than ARM code.

Not to mention the iOS simulator links against the Mac version of frameworks instead of the iOS versions for the shared frameworks...

This is not a problem. Sometimes when you have ideas and new ways to do things, you just want to test it out. the simulator is best for this. the emulator is not good enough for this.

 

[nick_elt]

Android doesn't have to fail for Apple to succeed.

Even with a smaller market share they make alot more money than anyone else. Even google makes more money from ios than android. I think you could say apple is succeeding.

 

[srxtr]

Did Jobs really believe that he would own 100% of the market and no one else would come up with a touch screen phone? I mean if it hadn't been Google with Android someone else would have jumped into the market with a competing product.

Copying a phone after it's been released versus listening in on the ideas during a board meeting are two different things imo.

 

[rmwebs]

Not completely, its still there but not as bad, I Have tried 4.0 its still not fixed.

Agreed. Its certainly a hell of a lot better, but still a long way from fixed. Maybe when 5.0 comes out we'll finally get there. Realistically they need to start over.

Sidenote: I cant wait till WebOS is properly opensourced, we may actually start seeing some innovation assuming anyone is willing to pick it up.

 

[Cinch]

Here is a list of apps that have lagged on my iPhone 4 today, safari, plants vs zombies, YouTube, iTunes and angry birds space.

I don't think you know what lag is. Safari on my iphone 4 has never lagged. Slow to load is a different matter, one of connection speed which every computing machines have. Slow to load video and music is not lag. If angry birds space started to stutter and move in a slower pace like the Six Million Dollar Man special effect, than it is the limitation of the A4/GPU of your iphone 4 i.e. you are hitting the limit of the hardware.

Lag is a noticeable delay in response to touch gesture. You can readily see this moving about in a website (once it is fully loaded, zooming in and out). You can also see this in moving from one menu-screen to the next.

 

[TMar]

the biographer said that Jobs felt Android's similarity to iOS was "history repeating itself", and compared it to Jobs' feeling that Microsoft's Windows was a rip-off of the Macintosh.

SO does this mean that he stole iOS from Xerox as well?

 

[Judas1]

Really?

So you mean swiping is android's original UI concept? How about multitouch? How about navigation bar? etc. BB uses scroll wheel and hard keys to navigate, so was android. Before iPhone, no other phone works like this, especially android. Then all of a sudden, android phones work like this.

Android prototype interface before and after iPhone




I obviously don't know how android works.



Desktop class computers have their own frameworks to handle different resolutions, which is very mature and easy for the devs.

This is a mobile platform. iOS devs don't have to deal with such headache as android devs.



This is not a problem. Sometimes when you have ideas and new ways to do things, you just want to test it out. the simulator is best for this. the emulator is not good enough for this.

You ever thought the two OS converged because of the new touchscreen technology? If you have a list on a screen that you can touch. Would it be easier to touch your choice or use scroll wheel? People that were part of these tech companies were smart people. It wasn't like only Apple had the smart people, and everybody else had idiots.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You mean when he lied to Wozniak about how much he made off Breakout? Or the amount he said he could mark objects up in price by, marveling at the amount of difference in price? For Wozniak, it was all about the revolution, and he was rather indifferent to leaving for Apple (and left fairly early, too). What about ignoring financially supporting his illegitimate daughter and saying he was infertile to get out of payments, until he decided he had so much money it didn't matter anymore?

Make no mistake. 1970s, 1980s Steve Jobs was ALL about the money.

Got any kitchen sinks you want to throw in there while you're at it?

To me it's clear that Steve saw money as a means to do more of what he wanted to do. Every instance of him doing something that looked to be dishonest or irresponsible (and they often were) could be rationalized in his own mind as enabling him to do something else that seemed more important to him. Living a more lavish lifestyle obviously was never the goal. So what was it?

Like I said, Steve was a sociopath. Whatever got him to where he wanted to go was legitimate, in his mind. Trying to explain him in more conventional terms is not going to get you anywhere.

 

[kiljoy616]

Not true, the iPhone is great phone and it sell a lot, but android wont be out of the market never it will. It may have it flaws as iOS has them too, but it is different than iOS and that is what many people like the UI of iOS hasn't change , android is way more customizable and it is open source it lets you do much more thing that iOS doesn't permit. They are different OSes it depends what are you looking for you to decide which to take. Also android phones are not inferior just look at the ONE X and wait for the SIII it blows the current iPhone away hardware wise. Choosing which OS is better it depends what you want and your needs.Their is not a better OS, just the one the fits what you want and are looking for to have.

Your right but have you noticed how you don't say One X but android, that is why I will (yes I can say it) never buy an android.

Its just patched up freeware basically, design to make sure an advertising company stay revenant. At least the iPhone to me is a phone, that happens to use iOS. I know when I buy an iPhone of what I am getting.

Its the same for Windows, Windows 7 is not a terrible OS but I never associate the HP or Dell or what ever company built the laptop as meaning anything, its always I have a Windows computer. That is the difference of Apple. You feel like you got a real product when you buy anything of them, where most other companies you don't feel like you bought a product but just patched up not well behaved parts.

Yes its gotten better but just slightly if not I would not be making my nice salary in IT

But that is ok, I want Android around since that is how innovation works.

 

[shurcooL]

Good artists copy; great artists steal, right?

I don't get why everyone gets their panties in a bunch over copying. It's good for people in the end. Apple copied Xerox's GUI stuff, other people copied from Apple.

If no one copied each other, Apple wouldn't have GUI, Chrome wouldn't exist and we'd be stuck using Internet Explorer 6 today.

There's nothing wrong with copying, it helps the human race move forward. You should be happy if your stuff is being copied, it means it's good and now others are benefitting from it, which means more ppl will have access to good stuff.

Sigh.

 

[kiljoy616]

SO does this mean that he stole iOS from Xerox as well?

I would answer but this bull has been debunked so long ago. Nothing stolen at least not like MS or Android. Sound like someone is pulling a ignoratio elenchi.

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Good artists copy; great artists steal, right?

I don't get why everyone gets their panties in a bunch over copying. It's good for people in the end. Apple copied Xerox's GUI stuff, other people copied from Apple.

If no one copied each other, Apple wouldn't have GUI, Chrome wouldn't exist and we'd be stuck using Internet Explorer 6 today.

There's nothing wrong with copying, it helps the human race move forward. You should be happy if your stuff is being copied, it means it's good and now others are benefitting from it, which means more ppl will have access to good stuff.

Sigh.

I am with you copying is not a bad thing if its for the greater good, except no one is copying for the great good, but for the billions it brings. Do please explain how this is an ok thing to do? I give MS kudos for bringing something totally different. Do i like it... no but don't see MS having stoled anything.

Google could have done something different, yet they chose to make a Windows 3.1 out of iOS.

 

[nick_elt]

When the LTE iPhone comes out this year, Android is done in this market. They will not have a single differentiator versus the iPhone.

Lte is not the difference between ios and android at all. As an iphone user i find your comment very narrow minded

 

[clibinarius]

Got any kitchen sinks you want to throw in there while you're at it?

To me it's clear that Steve saw money as a means to do more of what he wanted to do. Every instance of him doing something that looked to be dishonest or irresponsible (and they often were) could be rationalized in his own mind as enabling him to do something else that seemed more important to him. Living a more lavish lifestyle obviously was never the goal. So what was it?

Like I said, Steve was a sociopath. Whatever got him to where he wanted to go was legitimate, in his mind. Trying to explain him in more conventional terms is not going to get you anywhere.

Its not the kitchen sink. Its that for some reason, he was willing to lie to people very close to him to keep his money to himself. There's little evidence of a vision in my mind of that. If he had paid Wozniak instead of lying to him for the breakout work, for instance, perhaps Wozniak would still be at Apple. I do not believe Wozniak liked Jobs, though I do believe Wozniak loved Jobs. Also Jobs didn't get the idea for a GUI based OS until seeing a GUI. I'm not sure what his revolution was about any more than Henry Ford-giving the masses computing-which was just a means to make money at first.

Also, Jobs didn't have to be at Apple to continue a revolution. He could've let it go bankrupt. Instead, he wanted to return it to profitability. If Apple went under from his absence, it might've actually emboldened such a revolution: See what happens when you fire the ideamaster? No. It was about money. And he was sociopathic. He wasn't interested in a rich lifestyle. But he sure as anything else wanted security-and that shows in his legacy. He wanted to secure Apple's place, he wanted his "ideas" (which he admitted stealing) to be secure, be it Mac OS or iOS.

You don't need a flashy lifestyle to be all about the money. And you can delude yourself with an idea of leading a revolution-something I doubt he did until the Mac, and something I'm not convinced wasn't drug induced anyway, as Steve wasn't the most sober hippie in the world, again, by his own admission.

 

[TeamMojo]

Linux = open source operating system that you can operate for free
Android = open source operating system that you can operate for free​

y

Free is evil. I don't know why people think software should be free. When someone asks me why my software isn't free, I ask them what they do for a living and if I can have that service or product for free.

Jobs was right to rage against Google. And worse yet, Google quickly caved to Verizon to let Verizon nickel-dime customers to death and to make non-standard versions of Android that make it harder for developers. That alone should be the death of Android.

 

[jclardy]

Did Jobs really believe that he would own 100% of the market and no one else would come up with a touch screen phone? I mean if it hadn't been Google with Android someone else would have jumped into the market with a competing product.

Considering how slowly Microsoft and RIM responded, I think they would be bit more well off. Apple was far from the first touchscreen phone. They were the first to make it simple and responsive. No stylus, the interface follows your fingers.

Windows mobile 6 had scroll bars. On a touchscreen device. Scroll bars.