Google's Larry Page thinks Steve Jobs's hatred of Android was 'for show' - Page 4

You clearly haven't been here long. If you say anything positive about Apple's competitors (real or imagined), you're highly likely to be called a fanboy or paid shill of said competitor.

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As to the rest of the comments...thanks for not disappointing me and writing so many asshole comments. Attacking the way he looks. That's certainly mature and rational. I'm guessing everyone posting those comments has appeared on the cover of GQ or Vanity Fair. Truth is Jobs was just as much a liar and conman as any other corporate exec. The difference being people here chose to believe the BS he spewed.

You got a class Larry calling a man liar after he is dead. Have some respect.

Obviously. Do you think he was dumb enough to have made that comment while Jobs was alive?


That's nonsense.

Lots of people make positive comments about Android or other Apple competitors (even doing so regularly) without being called a fanboy or paid shill.

However, there are a number of people who do nothing but attack Apple and constantly make pro-Google or pro-Samsung comments while constantly attacking Apple with mindless remarks that are completely devoid of reality. THOSE are the ones who are accused of being shills or fanboys.

Excellent point!


That is a possibility, yes. Then again, I don't consider Larry to be very smart. A wunderkind at math, yes, but leader, in the sense to come up with what you wrote, I don't think so.


"Google didn't invent search, they just did a very good implementation of it". I think search is crap, on any and all systems. Filter by date, i.e. last month and Google still gives me a whole list of hits with 5 year old links/articles. No, search is crap, and many people agree with me. It isn't that easy to find an answer quickly. For that, I use Wiki (I know)


He certainly doesn't seem passionate about what he does/what Google 'creates'. But I couldn't tell, never seen him do a 2 hour product introduction like Steve did.


I'll paste some relevant passages below, but you are better of buying the book. It really is worth reading, gives a lot of insight.


Why do you think he is cool? To me, he's a math wunderkind, and creating their search engine did not have any form of insight, hardly any thought went into their algorithm, they just moved pages to the top based on the number of hits a website got. Why they think that is what people want; most visited and linked-to website is beyond me. I think their search engine is total crap.

Snippets from the biography:
Jobs had another visit that month from someone who wanted to repair fences. Googles cofounder Larry Page, who lived less than three blocks away, had just announced plans to retake the reins of the company from Eric Schmidt. He knew how to flatter Jobs: He asked if he could come by and get tips on how to be a good CEO. Jobs was still furious at Google. My first thought was, Fuck you, he recounted. But then I thought about it and realized that everybody helped me when I was young, from Bill Hewlett to the guy down the block who worked for HP. So I called him back and said sure. Page came over, sat in Jobss living room, and listened to his ideas on building great products and durable companies. Jobs recalled:
We talked a lot about focus. And choosing people. How to know who to trust, and how to build a team of lieutenants he can count on. I described the blocking and tackling he would have to do to keep the company from getting flabby or being larded with B players. The main thing I stressed was focus. Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. Its now all over the map. What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because theyre dragging you down. Theyre turning you into Microsoft. Theyre causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great. I tried to be as helpful as I could. I will continue to do that with people like Mark Zuckerberg too. Thats how Im going to spend part of the time I have left. I can help the next generation remember the lineage of great companies here and how to continue the tradition. The Valley has been very supportive of me. I should do my best to repay.
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NEW BATTLES


And Echoes of Old Ones

Google: Open versus Closed
A few days after he unveiled the iPad in January 2010, Jobs held a town hall meeting with employees at Apples campus. Instead of exulting about their transformative new product, however, he went into a rant against Google for producing the rival Android operating system. Jobs was furious that Google had decided to compete with Apple in the phone business. We did not enter the search business, he said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake. They want to kill the iPhone. We wont let them. A few minutes later, after the meeting moved on to another topic, Jobs returned to his tirade to attack Googles famous values slogan. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing. This Dont be evil mantra, its bullshit.
Jobs felt personally betrayed. Googles CEO Eric Schmidt had been on the Apple board during the development of the iPhone and iPad, and Googles founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had treated him as a mentor. He felt ripped off. Androids touchscreen interface was adopting more and more of the featuresmulti-touch, swiping, a grid of app iconsthat Apple had created.
Jobs had tried to dissuade Google from developing Android. He had gone to Googles headquarters near Palo Alto in 2008 and gotten into a shouting match with Page, Brin, and the head of the Android development team, Andy Rubin. (Because Schmidt was then on the Apple board, he recused himself from discussions involving the iPhone.) I said we would, if we had good relations, guarantee Google access to the iPhone and guarantee it one or two icons on the home screen, he recalled. But he also threatened that if Google continued to develop Android and used any iPhone features, such as multi-touch, he would sue. At first Google avoided copying certain features, but in January 2010 HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted multi-touch and many other aspects of the iPhones look and feel. That was the context for Jobss pronouncement that Googles Dont be evil slogan was bullshit.
So Apple filed suit against HTC (and, by extension, Android), alleging infringement of twenty of its patents. Among them were patents covering various multi-touch gestures, swipe to open, double-tap to zoom, pinch and expand, and the sensors that determined how a device was being held. As he sat in his house in Palo Alto the week the lawsuit was filed, he became angrier than I had ever seen him:
Our lawsuit is saying, Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off. Grand theft. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apples $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. Im going to destroy Android, because its a stolen product. Im willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Googles productsAndroid, Google Docsare shit.

A few days after this rant, Jobs got a call from Schmidt, who had resigned from the Apple board the previous summer. He suggested they get together for coffee, and they met at a café in a Palo Alto shopping center. We spent half the time talking about personal matters, then half the time on his perception that Google had stolen Apples user interface designs, recalled Schmidt. When it came to the latter subject, Jobs did most of the talking. Google had ripped him off, he said in colorful language. Weve got you red-handed, he told Schmidt. Im not interested in settling. I dont want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I wont want it. Ive got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, thats all I want. They resolved nothing.
Underlying the dispute was an even more fundamental issue, one that had unnerving historical resonance. Google presented Android as an open platform; its open-source code was freely available for multiple hardware makers to use on whatever phones or tablets they built. Jobs, of course, had a dogmatic belief that Apple should closely integrate its operating systems with its hardware. In the 1980s Apple had not licensed out its Macintosh operating system, and Microsoft eventually gained dominant market share by licensing its system to multiple hardware makers and, in Jobss mind, ripping off Apples interface.
The comparison between what Microsoft wrought in the 1980s and what Google was trying to do in 2010 was not exact, but it was close enough to be unsettlingand infuriating. It exemplified the great debate of the digital age: closed versus open, or as Jobs framed it, integrated versus fragmented. Was it better, as Apple believed and as Jobss own controlling perfectionism almost compelled, to tie the hardware and software and content handling into one tidy system that assured a simple user experience? Or was it better to give users and manufacturers more choice and free up avenues for more innovation, by creating software systems that could be modified and used on different devices? Steve has a particular way that he wants to run Apple, and its the same as it was twenty years ago, which is that Apple is a brilliant innovator of closed systems, Schmidt later told me. They dont want people to be on their platform without permission. The benefits of a closed platform is control. But Google has a specific belief that open is the better approach, because it leads to more options and competition and consumer choice.
So what did Bill Gates think as he watched Jobs, with his closed strategy, go into battle against Google, as he had done against Microsoft twenty-five years earlier? There are some benefits to being more closed, in terms of how much you control the experience, and certainly at times hes had the benefit of that, Gates told me. But refusing to license the Apple iOS, he added, gave competitors like Android the chance to gain greater volume. In addition, he argued, competition among a variety of devices and manufacturers leads to greater consumer choice and more innovation. These companies are not all building pyramids next to Central Park, he said, poking fun at Apples Fifth Avenue store, but they are coming up with innovations based on competing for consumers. Most of the improvements in PCs, Gates pointed out, came because consumers had a lot of choices, and that would someday be the case in the world of mobile devices. Eventually, I think, open will succeed, but thats where I come from. In the long run, the coherence thing, you cant stay with that.
Jobs believed in the coherence thing. His faith in a controlled and closed environment remained unwavering, even as Android gained market share. Google says we exert more control than they do, that we are closed and they are open, he railed when I told him what Schmidt had said. Well, look at the resultsAndroids a mess. It has different screen sizes and versions, over a hundred permutations. Even if Googles approach might eventually win in the marketplace, Jobs found it repellent. I like being responsible for the whole user experience. We do it not to make money. We do it because we want to make great products, not crap like Android.

Bullshit. Could you name one? You can't say a positive thing about any of Apple's competitors without being branded a fanboy or paid shill within the first few comments. Heaven forbid someone actually like Apple and Google (or simply not have the seething hatred for anything non-Apple that seems to be a prerequisite on this forum now).

Hmm maybe you should take better care of your products.

You notice how Larry Page's nose has grown precipitously? I think it happens every time he opens his mouth.

Is this really what AI has become? A bunch of butt-hurt Apple fanboys poking fun at Larry Page's gums?

TROLL much?...

Agreed. You are actually pointing out a common logical fallacy: appealing to something to prove something. He is appealing to having owned apple products in an attempt to show that he is not biased against apple. When in reality, having a said device does not necessarily prove one way or another. Statements like these provide no logical input to an argument and should be taken worth a grain of salt.

In the US, Google has around 70 percent of the Search market. In other parts of the world, Google has over 90 percent. Further, Google supplies applications for iOS that many iOS users use. If Apple removed Google services that were popular, that might very well effect Apple sales. Google could also shoot itself in the foot by blocking iOS devices from its services, including its website.

Apple's attack is more smart. First, Jobs got his best friend Larry Ellison's Oracle to attack Google directly over its allegedly theft of Java. Second, Apple is attacking Hardware manufacturers ultimately making the cost of Android cost dollars. Microsoft is helping out by getting a license for Android. The first opportunity hardware manufactures can jump ship and not risk sales, they will. I almost guarantee if Window 7 would have been around three years ago and hardware manufacturers knew than what they know now, hardware manufacturers would have embraced that. Unlike Google, Microsoft indemnifies its partners against lawsuits.


You might have got switched to Yahoo, but Apple isn't removing the option to switch back to Google. I am sure Apple would love to know it could safely remove that option. That is probably a baby step to get some people weaned off of Google.

With all due respect, the reasoning is not defective and the situation is different. Samsung only supplies Apple parts. Samsung, however, has little direct relationship with Apple customers. For instance, Samsung doesn't provide any meaningful apps through the Apple App Store.

However, quite a few Apple customers also enjoy the many Google services Google provides through the Apple App Store. So if Samsung and Apple get into a fight, Apple isn't worried about how that effects Apple customers. If Samsung pulls its TV app, this would not effect Apple in any significant fashion. If Google pulled all its apps, that would probably be a different story. People will miss access to gmail, google voice, the google search app, places, etc.

Further, Apple isn't worried about Samsung's retaliation because the two parties 1) have long term contracts, 2) Apple has invested in Samsung's manufacturing unit, and 3) Samsung needs Apple's business because some of the units that sell Apple parts are losing money (e.g the LCD unit).


Finally, keep in mind, Apple knows exactly how many people download Google applications on iOS devices and perhaps even how much services like Google maps are used.

They took the intern who worked on the OS at apple and have tried to use what knowledge he had to replicate the OS . Now Look at the Glasses idea didn't apple acquire a company that had a guy who wore glasses like these in his own lab. It makes me wonder why apple lets these guys bring in the technology while they hold on to it and then complain when they can't get these products out quick enough of course they are going to be copied. Any ideas that apple have that are leaked are copied and then launched way before apple launches it. Like a Japanese car each release is minor change and minor change and then a big one over 3 - 4 years . Larry would have seen the glasses idea and went ! Wow lets do that !

I suppose saying I own apple products is irrelevant to the conversation, however I've definitely seen on this board if you say anything remotely anti-apple, you are considered a fandroid etc. It's just pathetic the attempts people go to to make their phone look like it's the only one and only phone.

I also found it amusing that people attacked this statement, while ignoring the actual content of my message. I was actually very positive about ios, and I do like it a lot (obviously I do, or I wouldn't keep buying apple products). However, I do think it's fair to say that apple isn't the only innovator in the smart phone space.

Lets looks at things this way... sure, apple did a lot of work in making the smart phone accessible, and maybe it was a bit more than I showed it to be... However, should this give apple exclusive control of the smart phone market, and no one else can use any elements that they used in future designs? What if RIM did this early on in the smart phone market. They were the first phone to really bring the web to a phone, and started the "smartphone revolution". What if they claimed that EVERY other smartphone should not exist simply because new phones borrow from their design (and don't try to claim apple didn't, the whole concept of using the internet on a phone, and checking email on a phone came about because of RIM). Everyone on this forum would be up in arms calling RIM money grubbing obsolete, backward etc.

People, you can't have it both ways, the rules need to be fair to apple and other companies. I hear countless people talking about how all these other companies are patent trolls toward apple, and many claiming that software patents shouldn't exist (I agree with that sentiment). Under those rules, apple cannot patent a way of presenting data, or an algorithm etc. I'm sorry, but slide to unlock is so intuitive, that I don't think apple should be allowed to hold a patent on it. It's no more valid than the patent to wirelessly play music.

If you want to claim this takes money out of apple, I'd like to see any proof there. In fact, I doubt the iphone would be more successful if android phones never existed. Android has helped push the iphone as much as the iphone has helped android. Both have improved dramatically, and caused more people to buy smartphones. Additionally, there are some people who will refuse to buy apple products... It doesn't matter why, it's just like those people who refuse to consider the fact that non-apple products can be decent. They exist, and they would not be buying iphones. Looking at apple's share of the smart phone profit, it's hard to believe that they'd be doing better had google not borrowed some of the design elements from iOS.

And, the biggest laugh I saw on here was the person who claimed that android needs to be wiped away because he's been relying on apple stock for his retirement plan for the past 12 years... If you were investing in apple stock 12 years ago, you've already made 10x profits from that stock... FAR FAR FAR more than the market in general. You have made very wise investing decisions, and got incredibly lucky. However, if you cannot afford to retire if apple doesn't do better, you grossly undersaved for retirement. You bought one of the hottest stocks ever, and need it to go up more than it has .... Had it been like any other stock, you'd be completely screwed come retirement, because you obviously didn't have enough saved up. Of course, its far more likely that the person just wanted to state that they own apple stock, and that they are hoping it goes up more (cant' say I blame them for that). Just the relying on it for retirement part that seems like a joke.

Phil

I bought my first Apple product before a lot of people on this site were born.





I don't like iOS much at all.

NeXT was created by Steve Jobs during his time outside Apple

Apple is not suing due to the handsets (at least patent wise) but the implementation of the software

Because it is pretty confusing. So Steve Jobs takes a product which has been invented and existed for quite some time, and makes an improvement to it. This is earth shattering genius! Android takes it a step further and improves further upon it. This is 'stolen product' What if I viewed some of Androids larger screens as the bold inovation instead of the multitouch feature. If Apple copied them years later and made their phones have bigger screens, isn't Apple *stealing* androids product?

Steve Jobs did not invent a single thing. He did not invent the computer, personal computer, communication, wireless communication, glass, electricity, the phone, plastic, mass manufacturing, the lower case 'i', nor did he invent apples.

He took a bunch of things that other people invented and he very innovatively put them together into a freaking awesome product called the iPhone. I bought one and absolutely loved it. I've moved on to android because it suits my taste better. I can comfortably read a book on my large screen, something I could never do without 'pinching and sliding' on my tiny iPhone screen. If Apple were to copy that and make a big screen phone, or put notifications on their phone, aren't they now 'stealing' innovations? What about Siri, I used Google Voice on my iPhone for years before Siri. Some claim apple improved on Voice with Siri but Voice still works better for me. Even more delusional people claim Siri is the invention and google is trying to copy it. So that part gets really confusing. If you have a product and someone improves on it, and then you improve on your own product to compete, you are stealing their idea?

If Ben Franklin were to see an iPhone and meet Steve Jobs, do you think he'd go 'thermonuclear' that Steve stole his electricity invention and copied it? Would Charles Babbage go 'thermonuclear' at what Steve did with his 'stolen' computer invention? I think either of them would be more likely to be stunned at the awesomeness of the iPhone and say 'well done Steve'

I think Steve bought into his own hype and made the mistake of thinking he actually invented the iPhone. It is an innovative improvement on IBM's Simon smartphone, and several other pre-existing technologies, but you don't see IBM crying that someone copied their idea and made it better and competed better with it.