• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Steve Jobs Biography describes Jobs as hell bent on destroying Android

Status
Not open for further replies.

Salsa

Member
from the associeted press and phandroid (based on the book itself, before taking with a grain of salt)

Steve-Jobs-Biography.jpg


The biography on the life of Steve Jobs is about to be released on Monday and is simply titled, “Steve Jobs.” The book is being written by Walter Isaacson and provides new insight on Jobs and not only his falling out with Google’s Eric Schmidt but the Android operating system Schmidt helped commission as an answer to Apple’s iOS.

According to the book, to say Jobs was never happy with the idea of Android would be an understatement. So much in fact that Mr. Jobs was actually hell bent on destroying Android back in January 2010 when HTC and Google unveiled the Nexus One According to Isaacson, Jobs compared Google’s new device to the equivalent of “grand theft.” The book further quotes Jobs as saying,


“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

The Associated Press who got some eyes on time with the book said,

Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google’s Internet-based word processing program. 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.

.. interesting

its not like borrowing ideas from one OS to another is something new, i agree with the site in that its all about improving and providing the best experience for what the user's looking for (very much like what Apple did many times before), so i find this rather.. annoying. The things that separate them are very clear and there's room for the two.
 

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Is this an indication that apple's behavior with patents is/was more motivated by ego than by greed?
 

nib95

Banned
Err...makes him sound like a bit of an anal anti-consumer anti-competitive rager? I won't lie, it lessened my opinion of him slightly reading that quote. Innovator and visionary? Definitely. But evidently there was a potential darker side too.
 

Dude Abides

Banned
Steve Jobs said:
“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

The only winning move is...not to play.
 
It doesn't surprise me. It would be weirder if he said, "Yeah, let millions of people buy Android devices and not Apple products. Competition is always good!"
 

Salsa

Member
_woLf said:
Implying Apple didn't use anyone elses ideas, ever.

that's what bothers me

im guessing that quote was right after the unvealing or something, like a more immediate reaction, but i still find it kinda stupid that he would go on record saying that.
 
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
Hey he was a passionate man. I exaggerate too.
 

JCX

Member
He (was) mad. Wp7 and Android offer so much more in fluidity and customization respectively. That said, his vision for the iPhone and is apparent in android and WP7.
 
I always thought this, but its interesting to see it confirmed.

Kinda sucks that something like this consumed him in his last days, but it makes sense, he was extremely competitive. although the idea of it being a "stolen product" holds no water with me.

What did he expect? Apple to have the market to itself forever?
 

black_13

Banned
To be fair, Android borrowed ALOT of things from the iOS back in the day. You can compare android and ios easily, while other phone os's are much different or at least used to be.

Not really a shock that he would be mad at another company trying to replicate his basic ideas and getting bigger than him ala microsoft.
 
“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Sounds like all talk, a lot of hot air, and no action to me. There were moves they could have done to do this but Apple decided to line their pockets instead.
 

markatisu

Member
The Big Rig said:
It doesn't surprise me. It would be weirder if he said, "Yeah, let millions of people buy Android devices and not Apple products. Competition is always good!"

Exactly, apparently the majority of GAF does not understand how business works when billions are on the line lol

This is timid compared to what I actually think he thought if we are being honest
 

Popstar

Member
Remember that Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board while the iPhone was being created. He probably felt pretty betrayed.
 
I think Apple deserves its sucess, I also think steve felt extremely betrayed by eric as this was a product Apple has been RnDing for the last two decades. Before google even exsisted, I think he saw what Microsoft did to them during windows 3.1 days that he didn't want it to happen again.

I guess during iphone reveal he brought up all the patents they applied for and will defend was because of google's betrayal
 

dream

Member
And keep in mind Eric Schmidt was on the board at the time, despite swearing it wouldn't be a conflict of interest.
 

Branduil

Member
The Big Rig said:
It doesn't surprise me. It would be weirder if he said, "Yeah, let millions of people buy Android devices and not Apple products. Competition is always good!"
Wanting to destroy your competition isn't weird. Wanting to ban them through the courts instead of beating them in the open market isn't very cool, though.
 

Salsa

Member
Technosteve said:
I also think steve felt extremely betrayed by eric

bet Woz felt pretty bad too back in the day


I just think its a much better approach to keep quiet and move on improving your stuff over the competition rather than being bent on treating them as "grand theft"

then again this is mostly what they did considering the approach they took and how these types of comments and attitude were pretty much unknown. Know i just wonder if that was someone else's decision.
 

Dr. Malik

FlatAss_
“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

hugs Android phone, you are safe now
 

jman2050

Member
I'm betting he was seeing history repeating itself in his mind, what with all the Windows shenanigans going down back in the day. In that context the sentiment is understandable, but the wording involved is still pretty amusing.
 

GorillaJu

Member
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Steve Jobs has always been known for his fiery personality, not as a sheepish quiet genius type.

Quotes like this give me more respect for him than diminish it. I love the competitive spirit of the technology industry. It's what gave us such incredible tools in the first place.
 

nib95

Banned
SalsaShark said:
bet Woz felt pretty bad too back in the day


I just think its a much better approach to keep quiet and move on improving your stuff over the competition rather than being bent on treating them as "grand theft"

Exactly. It doesn't even matter to some extents if your idea IS copied so long as it isn't done better. That's life, that's technology. The idea is to always be the one creating the new advancements that inevitably others will copy.

I think Apple felt some sort of entitlement to innovations revolved around simply moving from the stylus to full touch screen accessibility, but it was always an inevitable development, Apple probably just brought it forward sooner rather than later by popularising it.
 

gimz

Member
Misanthropy said:
What an asshole. It looks like this guy only wanted his company to be a monopoly in the handheld market.
i think it is not about to be a monopoly in the market
i guess a lot of artist/designer/create hate when people copy their ideas
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom