Steve Jobs thoughts on Google and Android..

It doesn't hold much weight coming from a guy who at one time quoted Picasso

Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal

and even went on to say

We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.

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and considering that is what they have been doing all along. Everyone copies from someone else and so did Apple and quite a lot too. Why didn't Apple design every chip and every component in an iPhone or iPad from the ground up to make a mobile or a tablet. They copied/used what already exists as a phone/tablet and tried to put something of their own to give it their personal touch. Android developers may have taken a a few idea from iOS, but they gave it their own personal touch. If that is an issue, there there are a lot more ideas that Apple took from Android and implemented into their products over the years. Its the same in hardware as well and that is why companies like these cannot sue one another and even if they do, nothing will come out of it.
 
RVK2488 said:
And I also agree that outside search, there is not a single product (besides maps) that looks like a finished, quality product (no android does not count).

So you discount two of the most used products on the internet and say, well, they have nothing else.

Gmail

Google Translate

Google Chrome

Youtube

Picasa

Everyone stands on the shoulders of giants. Just because one company came up with good improvements of already present ideas doesn't make the others copies. Apple wasn't the first to have an App Store, so was that copied? They did not show the first full touchscreen phone, so was that copied?
 
It looks like arrogance got better of Steve. At last its heard that he just tried to 'wish away' his illness. He didn't treat it properly and took some tricky medicines. If he took some proper medicines, he would have lived longer.

There is something uninterestingly crazy about his mind other than his niche designs.
 
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^^ Not to mention that When Steve Jobs approached Bill Gates in the late 90's for help when Apple was a few steps away from dying and large corporates were soaring around like vultures to gobble down Apple, Gates was man enough to pump enough money into his competitor for them to bounce back with the iMac and iPod. If their roles had been reversed, Steve would have made double sure that MS would die faster and has no chance of bouncing back.

In any case, Jobs was arrogant and he was never an innovator as far as technology is concerned, but I think he might be the most brilliant marketing genius of our lifetime. Remembering him as an innovator would be an insult to his real strength and capability that is marketing. He is mistaken to be an innovator because he was very successful in marketing himself as one.

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whatsinaname said:
They did not show the first full touchscreen phone, so was that copied?

What do you mean by full touch screen phone? If you mean one where the phone is predominantly comprises of a touch screen and the entire phone can be operated via the screen, then my 2004 model P910i with the keypad detached fits the bill perfectly. This was not the first touchscreen phone of that type either. There were others before it. Not only that, all most all recent mobile operating systems including iOS have features inspired from Symbian. Symbain had its own inspirations too.

No company makes stuff from scratch. It is imperative that people don't reinvent the wheel. Apple is no exception. Its just that some people don't realize it or choose to ignore it.
 
Lord Nemesis said:
What do you mean by full touch screen phone? If you mean one where the phone is predominantly comprises of a touch screen and the entire phone can be operated via the screen, then my 2004 model P910i with the keypad detached fits the bill perfectly. This was not the first touchscreen phone of that type either. There were others before it. Not only that, all most all recent mobile operating systems including iOS have features inspired from Symbian. Symbain had its own inspirations too.

No company makes stuff from scratch. It is imperative that people don't reinvent the wheel. Apple is no exception. Its just that some people don't realize it or choose to ignore it.

Yep, that was what I was trying to get across. That the iPhone was not the first touchscreen phone and neither did it have the first app store. So I was asking RVK2488 if he would say Apple copied stuff as well, like he claims Android copied stuff.
 
whatsinaname said:
That the iPhone was not the first touchscreen phone and neither did it have the first app store. So I was asking RVK2488 if he would say Apple copied stuff as well, like he claims Android copied stuff.

Yeah, iPhone was not the first touchscreen phone. So if you are taking in that sense, yes Apple did copy others. What you are saying is absolutely correct. From that point of view, every company copied the inventor. But that's not the point here. Apple has taken the portable media player, phone and tablet - all existing devices, improved upon them such that it can be a mass market device which people would wanna buy. So if you look at it from this point of view, they created a product and also created demand for such a device (which wasn't present before the product launch in similar quantity).

For example, there were phones before iPhone. But the touchscreen phone market was maybe 10-15% (speculating) before launch of iPhone. They came up with a product which was so good that every company dropped whatever they were doing and started concentrating on touchscreen devices (with capacitive screens mind you). Meanwhile Google wanted to spread into mobile ad business so they decided to concentrate heavily on their own OS so that they can control the mobile market. Google was clever enough to understand that iPhone was going to be the strongest contender and so they deliberately made android look a lot like iOS so that they can create an alternative which is quite similar to iOS in appearance but also more "open". In this process, they also added few unique features such as the drop down bar with connectivity shortcuts, widgets etc...

So my main argument is that android copied things directly from existing rival product to make a competitive product whereas Apple created the product when there was no such established rival product. And in this regard Google is bigger copycat than Apple.

And couldn't agree more with Lord Nemesis on Steve being the most brilliant marketing genius of our lifetime. If any of you have read what I wrote in the other thread about Steve, I already mentioned this and also said that I personally think he is even bigger marketing guru than David Ogilvy. And Steve not being an innovator - again I agree with you Lord, Apple's products were outcome of the core team at Apple who were led by Steve. It's always a team effort but only a handful enjoy disproportionate credit - that's life! Mahatma Gandhi wasn't alone when he fought for our country, there were thousands who lost their life and their families suffered. And all we have is single face on every currency note!

Mahtma Gandhi gets the disproportionate credit because he was able to captivate and inspire millions through his speeches - this is a form of marketing oneself - a very rare quality and btw, even Hitler possessed that ;)

And sadly this is the same reason why Dennis Ritchie is not missed by people in the same numbers as Steve Jobs although Dennis had a bigger impact on software as a whole than Steve could ever imagine! Harsh realities of life!
 
@the article..

Meh! It's stupid to think or expect no one else will copy your product if it's cool. Anyone who really expects that must be b!tch-slapped, and then again.

If you have the juice, you'll maintain your monopoly regardless of anything. Competition and 'copying' only raises bars and breeds improvement. After reading the kind of things I have about Steve, this seems a little unlike him. Maybe we should just wait for the autobiography to get a clear view of what he meant, supposedly.
 
RVK2488 said:
So my main argument is that android copied things directly from existing rival product to make a competitive product whereas Apple created the product when there was no such established rival product. And in this regard Google is bigger copycat than Apple.

So Apple copied directly from other products but that is not as big a deal as other copying from Apple? There are levels of copying based on how much market share the previous products had?
 
whatsinaname said:
So Apple copied directly from other products but that is not as big a deal as other copying from Apple? There are levels of copying based on how much market share the previous products had?

See, that was my point of view, it's not like you have to agree with it 100%...so if you don't leave it at that. Why are we wasting time debating things that have no end? It's not like either one of us is stake holder in any of these companies! Both companies will sell millions of handsets and earn billions of dollars anyways :p
 
The CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, was part of the Apple board of directors.. thats how Google maps came to iPhone.

So he was closely associated with the process that apple went through for making the iOS :)
 
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