Walter Isaacson Says Jobs' Rage Over Android Was Real

[tschull]

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.

I have no idea how you reached the conclusion that Jobs felt that Apple should or would have 100% of the smartphone market or that no one else would come up with a touch screen phone.

Maybe you know something I don't, but that's not the inference I had. Schmidt was on Apple's board, and the slant I got was that Jobs felt Schmidt, and by extension Google, was ripping off Apple's creative lead. There is no doubt that Jobs felt the future direction of the consumer IT market was in mobile computing, and the iPhone and iPad were Jobs' conception of how the technology should be implemented. Anyone can manufacture a mobile phone, just like anyone can deliver pizza.

To be a market leader, one must have a consumer experience that is better than everyone else's. THAT is what Jobs so vehemently defended and, I believe, the root of all the patent litigation that is plaguing the industry. Essentially, it's "get your own goddamn ideas on how a small computing device that makes phone calls should look and feel."

 

[ppc_michael]

I don't understand why this fabricated "controversy" matters when Steve Jobs is no longer around to make any decisions.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I don't understand why this fabricated "controversy" matters when Steve Jobs is no longer around to make any decisions.

Bingo. You win the cookie.

 

[paul4339]

... Apple certainly improved upon the ideas they saw at Xerox PARC. Xerox took an idea from academic theory to proof of concept. Apple took it from proof of concept to commercially viable product. These are both big leaps. Apple's response to the Xerox technology wasn't "we can do that." It was, "we can do that a hell of lot better." And they did.
...

One difference may be that Xerox's implementation was a failure.

Companies like to copy success.
Most companies don't copy failed ideas and make them wildly successful; but if they do, they will receive most of the credit for innovation.

So if Xerox's implementation would have been wildly successful giving them fame and making them billions of dollars, and Apple came out with the Mac later, although improved, Apple would have been accused of 'just copying' Xerox.

If the iPhone touch interface & look would have been a horrible flop and discontinued, and Google made a few adjustments to release a successful Android years later, I'm sure they (Google) would be receiving alot more credit.

So the party that makes an idea successful (regardless if the idea was copied or not; or evolved or not) will be the one to get most of the credit.

.

 

[Rogifan]

Your point is very real. The 5 year point will be the test. Forget about the second set of 5 years. If Apple appears too happy to coexist with others, and not push the envelope toward breakthroughs you could see Scott move in.

Jony and Scott are the most Steve Like in the Co. Scott was recruited by Steve while a Junior at Stanford. Scott also pisses people off just like Steve. He is a "Function" guy. Tim is a supply chain guy. Yes, Tim is a great guy. However, most people forget Apple is still on Steve's ideas.

Scott has not been out front much lately. He is giving Tim plenty of space to run the show for a few years.

Don't even dare to think Art and the rest of the board do not have a Plan B at the 5 year mark.

I could see Eddy Cue running the show before Scott Forstsll. In Adam Lashinsky's book he mentioned that Cook, Eddy Cue and Jony Ive were the only Apple execs at Steve's burial. I get the feeling they were the closest to Steve.

 

[Drunken Master]

This site could be called "AmigaRumors" and about six people would be registered.

I think it's nice to have such an, I dunno, egalitarian attitude like Woz's but it's hard when there are so many sharks circling around.

 

[NumberNine]

Android isn't going anywhere...so get over it.

Ooohhh...I got voted down!

 

[Yamcha]

I'm not entirely convinced that Android has copied Apple's User Interface, sure I see that Samsung did with the early Galaxy S..

But as a Web Designer, the best example I can give you is the web, have a look at several websites and you'll find the logo is placed on the top left, below it a navigation, and below that often a large image or what I call a hero shot..

Now does that mean we are copying each other? Obviously not.. In the end It's all about providing a good easy to use experience, and there aren't unlimited ways to reach that goal, and I believe thats why we see similarities in both web & interface design.

 

[FakeWozniak]

Windows is on more desktops than Linux, but internet backbone is built off of Linux and its cousins.

Wrong about Internet. Routers don't run Linux, they run IOS.

 

[MH01]

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.

Maybe cause it not a realistic plan? And a total waste of money.

Kudos to Tim Cook.

Want to kill android, innovate past them!

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Just could not get pass all the FUD The guy had and a lot of complete made up stuff.

The more I know about android, the more I hate it. It is a stolen idea, a copy cat that is not done right. Some of the core functions are just ridiculously stupid and immature. Why? Because it's a copy and they don't have time to do it right. They have to get it to market quick.

E.g.

- UI: why do android UI have to be so similar to iOS? Why do android UI have to be so similar to BB UI before that? Can android do something different? You mean to tell me there're just a certain number of ways to design a UI? iOS is just one way. This is the area I have more respect for even Window phone 7. At least they made a very different UI than iOS. Come up with your own design!

- Why do I need a third party app to open a documents? Why not built into to OS itself? This is a crucial feature. e.g. I have to have Quick Office installed to open docs, pdf, etc. On iOS, I can open those document in-app.

- Virus? ---- on a mobile device? --- ewwwww!

- Sandbox? What, no sandbox on android? You mean other apps can access my app data? Ridiculous

- Different resolutions and screen size is a joke. As a developer, making games, you have a system of math to calculate where objects are on the screen, animations, etc. I have to manually do this for all the screen size I want to have my game run on? How much money I have to spend to buy all the different devices? Ridiculous. In iOS, I just know the size is 320x480 or 1024x768, and i'm good to go. I'll know my game will run just fine on all iPod touch, all iPhones, all iPads.

You know all that shows that you really have zero clue how to developed and if you are I feel sorry for your employer because that shows that are you a crappy one. You SHOULD NEVER use hard code points for UI layout. It should always be handled by reference and relative. It is not that hard to address difference size and resolutions. Big time if you do it right to first time. Now if you are using crappy designs and coding standards then this is the least of your problems. You are doing it wrong to begin with.

As pointed out before Desktop have been handling this issue with zero problem for nearly 2 decades now with no issue. It is not that hard to do if you use proper standards.

- Emulator instead of a simulator? That's another ridiculous thing. It just painfully slow to test our your app in an Emulator.

Really? REALLY that is your argument? Each ones has it plus and minuses and besides you are doing it wrong if you are relaying on either one for the major testing. Simulators have other worlds of problems like they are using different hooks and compliled for a different CPU architecture. This can lead to what works great on the simulator crashing and burning on the phone. Plus it does cause the simulator to often times be more powerful than the phone really is. You should always be testing on the phone any how.

Emulators while slow CPU end they do not have the issue of different CPU architecture issues or massively over estimating the phones hardware power.

- IDE: what's your choices? Eclipse or others --- lol. Xcode and AppCode and even Visual Studio run around the stupid and unstable Eclipse.

[/QUOTE]
again goes back to clearly you do not develope. I have worked with Eclipse, netbeans, JCreator, Visual Studio, and played with Xcode.

Of those I dislike JCreator and Xcode the most. Eclipse has a very steep learning curve and its real power comes from plug ins. The more I use Eclipse the more I like it. I also really like Visual Studio. The fact that you seem to think Visual Studio is worse than Xcode also speaks quite a bit. Apple dev tools tend to lag.

Also Dev tools are not meant to be user friendly. They are designed to be highly customizable and give you tons of options in setting things up to how you want them. The average person does not need easy access. Eclipse you have to get over the learning curve to understand why it is so great.

Yes I thought about that but that's just an excuse. Microsoft use the touch screen but their OS look completely different from both iOS and android. They have some very different concepts in navigation and display information. For better or for worse is to each his own. But for that I respect Microsoft more. There are ways to do things. Sometime it's hard but that's why it's called innovation.

And iOS touch screen UI is orginal. That is hoot and a half. Sorry but it really is not. It is a basic grid layout that as been in use for over 10 years. I owned a palm pilot running Palm OS. Guess what it had a grid of icons, with 4 primary ones on the bottom. The fact that you think that iOS lay out is orginal is funny.

Andriod OS is farther removed from that basic touch screen lay out.

Multi touch has been around in since the 80's. kdarling has been working with it for a long time. The big thing that changed in 2007 is the cost of captive multi touch screens had finally gotten cheap enough and robust enough to be put in cell phones.

 

[axonic labs]

Maybe Steve Jobs mentoring Larry Page was "just for show".

 

[IJ Reilly]

One difference may be that Xerox's implementation was a failure.

Companies like to copy success.
Most companies don't copy failed ideas and make them wildly successful; but if they do, they will receive most of the credit for innovation.

So if Xerox's implementation would have been wildly successful giving them fame and making them billions of dollars, and Apple came out with the Mac later, although improved, Apple would have been accused of 'just copying' Xerox.

If the iPhone touch interface & look would have been a horrible flop and discontinued, and Google made a few adjustments to release a successful Android years later, I'm sure they (Google) would be receiving alot more credit.

So the party that makes an idea successful (regardless if the idea was copied or not; or evolved or not) will be the one to get most of the credit.

.

True, but ironically Apple is regularly accused of copying Xerox, though hardly anyone on the planet has ever seen a Xerox Alto, let alone used one. The data point that it merely existed, and a team from Apple set eyes on it, is evidence enough for some to support this theory.

Xerox's ideas weren't so much failed as failed to be acted upon. Steve acknowledged that Xerox could have owned the computer market had they understood the implications of what they'd produced. As always, ideas are not enough.

 

[rjohnstone]

Wrong about Internet. Routers don't run Linux, they run IOS.

Only Cisco routers run IOS.

 

[Cordless_Drill]

Did you forget Xerox PARC already? Come on now.

Great point. I admired Jobs and consider him perhaps the most brilliant marketer to ever live, but his duplicity (ie lifting GUI from Xerox and then hating Google for lifting ideas for Android) was a blemish on the record.

 

[warfed]

One difference may be that Xerox's implementation was a failure.

Companies like to copy success.
Most companies don't copy failed ideas and make them wildly successful; but if they do, they will receive most of the credit for innovation.

When apple copied Xerox it wasn't a failure, it was a prototype.

When Google copied Apple it was a prototype as well.

So by that logic Google is no worse than Apple.

 

[KnightWRX]

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

Hum, are you mistaking UIs, devices and input methods ? Because it seems you are. Android is not hardware, those "hardware" prototypes are not indicative of Android's "UI". They're simply hardware devices, of which Android supports many different types. In fact, there are still "BlackBerry" style Android devices shipping brand new today.

The UI is the actual User Interface. Android has opted for many different choices than iOS' springboard which is simply a grid of icons with horizontal scrolling "home screens". Android has a grid pattern home screen, and it displays widgets, of which some can be application launchers that are basically icons.

The UI paradigms are different. Android's is built to be customizable to the user, iOS' is built for minimalisms and recognizability.

I obviously don't know how android works.

Yep, that's pretty much established.

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

Same for Android :

http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html

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

They use the same graphics framework, namely OpenGL ES. Android and iOS as far as graphics/games programming are pretty much alike.

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.

Simulator and emulator have the same limitations in that they present a cursor based mouse input paradigm. However, Apple's implementation also creates problems where if you call a method of OS X's NSString implementation that is not available on iOS, it will work on the simulator, but not on the device.

The simulator is far from perfect.

 

[KingJosh]

At least he was able to form constructive arguments to form his opinion and not post flame-bait post like you are.

flame bait? He isn't even here anymore. Unless you are his mother there is no baiting going on.

My reply was simply aimed for humor among those who experienced his trolling. Is humor a bad thing these days?

 

[Tarzanman]

Wrong about Internet. Routers don't run Linux, they run IOS.

Cicso routers, yes. Not all routers are Cisco routers.

 

[Renzatic]

True, but ironically Apple is regularly accused of copying Xerox, though hardly anyone on the planet has ever seen a Xerox Alto, let alone used one. The data point that it merely existed, and a team from Apple set eyes on it, is evidence enough for some to support this theory.

Xerox's ideas weren't so much failed as failed to be acted upon. Steve acknowledged that Xerox could have owned the computer market had they understood the implications of what they'd produced. As always, ideas are not enough.

I wouldn't say they copied Xerox. It was a great product, and Apple built upon the ideas it presented. My issue involves Steve Job's jealously guarding anything that came out of the company as his personal intellectual property, and the mouthbreathing masses that hung on his every word, screaming "COPY COPY COPY" alongside him anytime anyone else tries to do the same.

We'll take the Macbook Air for instance. Apple made an solidly built, stylish, powerful little machine. They weren't the first to make a computer that thin, though. Hell, the entire computer industry has been moving towards thinner, more powerful devices for a good while. But now, if anyone else comes out with a machine that's similarly small, suddenly whole tons of people here are calling it an Air ripoff (why can't they be innovative), for the simple fact that, well, Apple came out with a small, powerful computer.

It's a one sided, group think mass hysteria thing going on. I'm loathe to say it, but I'd almost call it cultish. And it's pathetic.

 

[ChrisTX]

You simply can't destroy Android. Google is a bigger reality than Apple, and is backed by every OEM except Apple itself. It has the patents of Motorola, which kind of invented the mobile phone, and makes money off every smartphone, including, and especially, the iPhone.

Tim did the right thing over there, accepting Android and making money from it. Steve was a genius, but his mentality was simply too closed sometimes.

While I agree, wasn't it recently said that Google makes more money off of iOS, then Android itself? It seems like while Android has the market share, that it's no real cash cow by any means.

 

[scoobydoo99]

You simply can't destroy Android. Google is a bigger reality than Apple, and is backed by every OEM except Apple itself. It has the patents of Motorola, which kind of invented the mobile phone, and makes money off every smartphone, including, and especially, the iPhone.

Tim did the right thing over there, accepting Android and making money from it. Steve was a genius, but his mentality was simply too closed sometimes.

This is another example of not getting it. Steve's mentality was "simply too closed" only if you think money is the bottom line in life. Steve (by all accounts) was very much driven by principles, not so much money. I can totally see the rationale behind spending "every cent" of the company's money to make a point. And it would be money well spent. Destroying Android to teach a lesson would be totally worth it. Too bad Steve's not around to see it through.

 

[dba7dba]

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.

Respectfully, but Jobs should've continued the train of thought and remembered the lawsuits ended not too well for Apple.

----------

This is another example of not getting it. Steve's mentality was "simply too closed" only if you think money is the bottom line in life. Steve (by all accounts) was very much driven by principles, not so much money. I can totally see the rationale behind spending "every cent" of the company's money to make a point. And it would be money well spent. Destroying Android to teach a lesson would be totally worth it. Too bad Steve's not around to see it through.

I disagree. Jobs was very much driven by money. His actions prove it.

*He didn't give the other Steve the $ that Jobs promised, at the beginning of their partnership.

Source: http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=263
Either way, they gave Jobs the $500 plus the bonus - which turned out to be a total of $5,000! Jobs turned around paid an unknowing Wozniak the original $350 they had agreed upon.

*Not much charity work to speak of.

Now was Jobs into conspicuous consumption? Prob not. But he was driven by money imo.

 

[MAC007*]

Siri will end Google's reign

 

[akhbhaat]

I really do not understand why anybody (save the paid-for technological evangelists who stand to win or lose with one platform or another) would vehemently support one platform over the other. I develop for both**. If you want to see Android "destroyed," and you're not a major AAPL shareholder or employee, you're an idiot.

As I'm neither, I have absolutely no desire to see one gain a significant leg up over the other. Competition drives innovation at a reasonable cost and benefits the consumer. Market domination only benefits the company selling the technology.

**I have to assume (and hope) Jobs' fury was largely or entirely directed at the similarities between the Android and iOS UI...because internally, they're very different.