Steve Jobs talks lost prototype iPhone, Adobe Flash at All Things D
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs took the stage at D8 Tuesday evening to discuss his company's opposition to Adobe Flash on the iPhone OS, as well as the prototype fourth-generation iPhone that turned up in a high profile exposé by Gizmodo.
Jobs was interviewed Tuesday evening by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of of The Wall Street Journal. The talk served as the opening event for the annual
All Things Digital Conference.
Jobs' segment was preceded by an introduction given by News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch, who went overtime speaking about the future of content creation and the iPad while, somewhat ironically, speaking from notes written on letter sized paper.
Jobs on competition and Flash
Swisher noted that Apple's public valuation had passed Microsoft's this week, calling the event "surreal," to which Jobs replied, "It doesn't matter very much. It's not what's important. It's not what makes you come to work in the morning. It is a little surreal."
Mossberg noted that Apple was in bad shape upon Jobs' return to Apple in 1997. Jobs said, "We were 90 days from going bankrupt," noting that things were worse than he had originally thought. "I thought all the good people had left," Jobs said, "but I found [these] amazing people. I said, why are you still here?" After breaking for laughs from the audience, Jobs added, "They said, because I believe in Apple. I love what this place stands for. That just made us want to work that much harder."
Mossberg introduced the "controversy" of Apple's failure to support Adobe Flash on its iPhone OS devices, asking,"is it really fair or the best thing for consumers to just be abrupt?"
Jobs answered, "Apple is a company that doesn't have the resources that everyone else has. We choose what tech horses to ride, we look for tech that has a future and is headed up. Different pieces of tech go in cycles; they have spring, summer, autumn and then they go to the grave. If you choose wisely, you save yourself an enormous amount of work, versus trying to do everything" noting that Apple popularized, then terminated the 3.5 inch floppy drive.
"We were one of the first to get rid of optical drives, with the MacBook Air," Jobs said. "And when we do this, sometimes people call us crazy. Sometimes you have to pick the right horses. Flash looks like it had its day but it's waning, and HTML5 looks like it's coming up."
There's no smartphone shipping with Flash," Jobs said, to which Mossberg responded "but know that there will be." Jobs quipped, "well there 'will be' for the last two or three years. But HTML5 is starting to emerge," the same point Jobs made in his open letter "Thoughts on Flash."
Addressing the "holes" in the web sites where Flash content is not visible on iPhone OS devices, Jobs said, "Those holes are getting plugged... those holes are mostly ads." He also noted that Apple's own HyperCard was even more popular in its day, until the open web began to emerge.
"Our goal is really easy," Jobs said. "We just made a tech decision. We aren't going to make an effort to put this on our platform. We told Adobe to show us something better, and they never did. It wasn't until we shipped the iPad that Adobe started to raise a stink about it. We werent trying to have a fight, we just decided to not use one of their products. They made a big deal of it. That's why I wrote that letter. I said enough is enough, we're tired of these guys trashing us."
Asked if Apple would ever consider putting Flash on the iPad if the market were to demand it and "people say the iPad is crippled," Jobs replied, "Well things are packages. Some things are good in a product, some things are bad. If the market tells us we're making bad choices, we'll make changes. We're just trying to make great products. We don't think this is great and we're going to leave it out. We're going to take the heat because we want to make the best product in the world for customers!" Jobs also noted that Apple was now selling an iPad every three seconds.
Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs talks at the D8 Conference. Photo credit Engadget
Addressing the Gizmodo prototype situation
Mossberg brought up the issue of Apple's missing prototype iPhone and asked Jobs about the police seizure of computers and other equipment belonging to the Gizmodo editor who broke the story, saying the police "go and don't issue a search warrant and [?] they grab this journalist's assets," at which point Jobs interrupted to say, "well a guy, who can say if [Jason Chen of Gawker Media] is a journalist." The audience gasped.
"There's an ongoing investigation," Jobs continued. "I can tell you what I do know, though. To make a product you need to test it. You have to carry them outside. One of our employees was carrying one. There's a debate about whether he left it in a bar, or it was stolen out of his bag.
"The person who found it tried to sell it, they called Engadget, they called Gizmodo. The person who took the phone plugged it into his roommates computer. And this guy was trying to destroy evidence, and his roommate called the police. So this is a story that's amazing: it's got theft, it's got buying stolen property, it's got extortion, I'm sure there's some sex in there," Jobs quipped to laughter from the audience.
"The whole thing is very colorful," Jobs said. "The DA is looking into it, and to my knowledge they have someone making sure they only see stuff that relates to this case. I don't know how it will end up."
"Foxconn is not a sweatshop"
When Swisher asked about the recent controversy over a number of suicides at the Shenzhen, China, plant of Apple's overseas manufacturing partner, Foxconn, Jobs responded, "We are on top of this. We look at everything at these companies. I can tell you a few things that we know. And we are all over this. Foxconn is not a sweatshop."
Jobs added, "It's a factory, but my gosh, they have restaurants and movie theaters, but it's a factory. But they've had some suicides and attempted suicides, and they have 400,000 people there. The rate is under what the US rate is, but it's still troubling."
The suicide rate at the Foxconn plant was 13 out of 400,000 employees in the first half of the year, less than the U.S. rate of 11 per 100,000. "We had this in my hometown of Palo Alto," Jobs said, "copy cat suicides. We're over there trying to understand this. It's a difficult situation."
Jobs on competing with Google
Mossberg changed the subject to competitors, noting that Jobs had long fought a platform war with Microsoft, but was now making a comeback in smartphones, asking Jobs if he thought there was a platform war going on.
Jobs answered, "No, and I never have. We never saw ourselves in a platform war with Microsoft, and maybe that's why we lost!" Jobs reiterated his stance that Google chose to compete with Apple by entering the smartphone market. "We didn't go into the search business," he said.
Asked if he "was going to remove them from the iPhone," Jobs said no. "We want to make better products then them," he said. "What I love about the marketplace is that we do our products, we tell people about them, and if they like them, we get to come to work tomorrow. It's not like that in enterprise... the people who make those decisions are sometimes confused. Just because we're competing with someone doesn't mean we have to be rude."
Asked about Google as a competitor on the desktop with the Chrome browser, Jobs answered, "Well Chrome is not... you know. And it's based on WebKit, work we did at Apple. Almost every modern browser is based on WebKit: Nokia, Palm, Android, RIM has one, and of course ours. We've created a real competitor to Internet Explorer. In the mobile space it's number one."
Jobs was interviewed Tuesday evening by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of of The Wall Street Journal. The talk served as the opening event for the annual
All Things Digital Conference.Jobs' segment was preceded by an introduction given by News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch, who went overtime speaking about the future of content creation and the iPad while, somewhat ironically, speaking from notes written on letter sized paper.
Jobs on competition and Flash
Swisher noted that Apple's public valuation had passed Microsoft's this week, calling the event "surreal," to which Jobs replied, "It doesn't matter very much. It's not what's important. It's not what makes you come to work in the morning. It is a little surreal."
Mossberg noted that Apple was in bad shape upon Jobs' return to Apple in 1997. Jobs said, "We were 90 days from going bankrupt," noting that things were worse than he had originally thought. "I thought all the good people had left," Jobs said, "but I found [these] amazing people. I said, why are you still here?" After breaking for laughs from the audience, Jobs added, "They said, because I believe in Apple. I love what this place stands for. That just made us want to work that much harder."
Mossberg introduced the "controversy" of Apple's failure to support Adobe Flash on its iPhone OS devices, asking,"is it really fair or the best thing for consumers to just be abrupt?"
Jobs answered, "Apple is a company that doesn't have the resources that everyone else has. We choose what tech horses to ride, we look for tech that has a future and is headed up. Different pieces of tech go in cycles; they have spring, summer, autumn and then they go to the grave. If you choose wisely, you save yourself an enormous amount of work, versus trying to do everything" noting that Apple popularized, then terminated the 3.5 inch floppy drive.
"We were one of the first to get rid of optical drives, with the MacBook Air," Jobs said. "And when we do this, sometimes people call us crazy. Sometimes you have to pick the right horses. Flash looks like it had its day but it's waning, and HTML5 looks like it's coming up."
There's no smartphone shipping with Flash," Jobs said, to which Mossberg responded "but know that there will be." Jobs quipped, "well there 'will be' for the last two or three years. But HTML5 is starting to emerge," the same point Jobs made in his open letter "Thoughts on Flash."
Addressing the "holes" in the web sites where Flash content is not visible on iPhone OS devices, Jobs said, "Those holes are getting plugged... those holes are mostly ads." He also noted that Apple's own HyperCard was even more popular in its day, until the open web began to emerge.
"Our goal is really easy," Jobs said. "We just made a tech decision. We aren't going to make an effort to put this on our platform. We told Adobe to show us something better, and they never did. It wasn't until we shipped the iPad that Adobe started to raise a stink about it. We werent trying to have a fight, we just decided to not use one of their products. They made a big deal of it. That's why I wrote that letter. I said enough is enough, we're tired of these guys trashing us."
Asked if Apple would ever consider putting Flash on the iPad if the market were to demand it and "people say the iPad is crippled," Jobs replied, "Well things are packages. Some things are good in a product, some things are bad. If the market tells us we're making bad choices, we'll make changes. We're just trying to make great products. We don't think this is great and we're going to leave it out. We're going to take the heat because we want to make the best product in the world for customers!" Jobs also noted that Apple was now selling an iPad every three seconds.
Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs talks at the D8 Conference. Photo credit Engadget
Addressing the Gizmodo prototype situation
Mossberg brought up the issue of Apple's missing prototype iPhone and asked Jobs about the police seizure of computers and other equipment belonging to the Gizmodo editor who broke the story, saying the police "go and don't issue a search warrant and [?] they grab this journalist's assets," at which point Jobs interrupted to say, "well a guy, who can say if [Jason Chen of Gawker Media] is a journalist." The audience gasped.
"There's an ongoing investigation," Jobs continued. "I can tell you what I do know, though. To make a product you need to test it. You have to carry them outside. One of our employees was carrying one. There's a debate about whether he left it in a bar, or it was stolen out of his bag.
"The person who found it tried to sell it, they called Engadget, they called Gizmodo. The person who took the phone plugged it into his roommates computer. And this guy was trying to destroy evidence, and his roommate called the police. So this is a story that's amazing: it's got theft, it's got buying stolen property, it's got extortion, I'm sure there's some sex in there," Jobs quipped to laughter from the audience.
"The whole thing is very colorful," Jobs said. "The DA is looking into it, and to my knowledge they have someone making sure they only see stuff that relates to this case. I don't know how it will end up."
"Foxconn is not a sweatshop"
When Swisher asked about the recent controversy over a number of suicides at the Shenzhen, China, plant of Apple's overseas manufacturing partner, Foxconn, Jobs responded, "We are on top of this. We look at everything at these companies. I can tell you a few things that we know. And we are all over this. Foxconn is not a sweatshop."
Jobs added, "It's a factory, but my gosh, they have restaurants and movie theaters, but it's a factory. But they've had some suicides and attempted suicides, and they have 400,000 people there. The rate is under what the US rate is, but it's still troubling."
The suicide rate at the Foxconn plant was 13 out of 400,000 employees in the first half of the year, less than the U.S. rate of 11 per 100,000. "We had this in my hometown of Palo Alto," Jobs said, "copy cat suicides. We're over there trying to understand this. It's a difficult situation."
Jobs on competing with Google
Mossberg changed the subject to competitors, noting that Jobs had long fought a platform war with Microsoft, but was now making a comeback in smartphones, asking Jobs if he thought there was a platform war going on.
Jobs answered, "No, and I never have. We never saw ourselves in a platform war with Microsoft, and maybe that's why we lost!" Jobs reiterated his stance that Google chose to compete with Apple by entering the smartphone market. "We didn't go into the search business," he said.
Asked if he "was going to remove them from the iPhone," Jobs said no. "We want to make better products then them," he said. "What I love about the marketplace is that we do our products, we tell people about them, and if they like them, we get to come to work tomorrow. It's not like that in enterprise... the people who make those decisions are sometimes confused. Just because we're competing with someone doesn't mean we have to be rude."
Asked about Google as a competitor on the desktop with the Chrome browser, Jobs answered, "Well Chrome is not... you know. And it's based on WebKit, work we did at Apple. Almost every modern browser is based on WebKit: Nokia, Palm, Android, RIM has one, and of course ours. We've created a real competitor to Internet Explorer. In the mobile space it's number one."
Comments
What else can he say. You speak the truth as you see it. Change your story from one time to the next and eventually can't keep track of your lies. If it was anyone else other than Apple and Steve Jobs they would be claiming that they would sell 30 million phones in 4 quarters ..... Oh wait ...... that was Microsoft.
What are you talking about?
Jobs was also asked about the fact that Apple recently surpassed Microsoft in terms of market cap, making it the largest tech company in the world. He called the milestone "surreal" and revealed that Apple was about 90 days from going bankrupt back in the 90s.
90 days from bankruptcy to the largest tech company in the world?! Name me anybody else who would have been able to do that for this company. I know Jobs isn't a world leader or anything close to it, but in the world of business, I would argue anybody that he is the most influential and important person in any of our lifetimes.
This year, it's about freedom of the press and saving our society from becoming a nation of bloggers.
The man is simply a genius, and one with absolutely no shame.
You've gotta love Steve Jobs. Last year, it was all about how nobody reads anymore.
This year, it's about freedom of the press and saving our society from becoming a nation of bloggers.
The man is simply a genius, and one with absolutely no shame.
Shame? For what? Everyone knows what his opinion is... you don't have to agree with it.
...
Mossberg asked Jobs about the fact that the police seized the computers of the Gizmodo editor who broke the story. Jobs responded by saying it's not clear whether or not Jason Chen of Gawker Media is considered a journalist.
...
I think his most revealing statement (and forewarning to Gizmodo about his conviction) is:
You know, when this whole thing with Gizmodo happened, I got advice from people who said 'you gotta just let it slide, you shouldn't go after a journalist just because they bought stolen property and tried to extort you.' And I thought deeply about this, and I concluded the worst thing that could happen is if we change our core values and let it slide. I can't do that. I'd rather quit.
Not sure how they missed this one but it sure seems like an important tidbit...
Steve @ All Things D. 2010
"If we succeed, people will buy them and if we don?t they won?t ? and, so far, I have to say, people seem to be liking the iPad. We sell like 3 iPads a second.?
3 iPads a SECOND... now that can't be right if he is working on a 24 hour clock and in the past when he's given such sales records with a stat of X per SECOND it has been in a 24 hr setting..
86400 seconds in a day * 3 = 259,200 per day or 15.8m units calculated thru tomorrow... (from 4/3/10)
So that CAN'T be right...
How about an 8 hour day? (what are normal Apple store hours for non 24 hour stores)
60*60*8=28,800 seconds * 3 = 86,400 per day or 5.2m cal'd thru tomorrow.
Hmmm maybe he misspoke or was misquoted?
1 iPad every 3 seconds?
86400 sec / 3 is 28.800 per day or 1.75m calc'd thru tomorrow.
Now THAT seems to jive an awful lot closer to the 2m that they just reported. Tho... it sure is nice to think they're selling 3 per second now isn't it?
What are you talking about?
MS has set a goal of 30 million WP7 Handsets by the end of 2011.
http://www.mobileshop.com/blog/mobil...e-end-of-2011/
Jobs also reiterated his stance that Google chose to compete with Apple by entering the smartphone market. "We didn't go into the search business," he said.
It is true that Apple didn't go into the search business, Google's real business is the ad business. And Apple has entered in the ad business recently.
Regarding the timeline of events, Google acquired Android (July 2005) before Eric Schmidt joined Apple's board (August 2006), and well before the iPhone announcement (Jan 2007).
The real concern is whether Schmidt misappropriated any knowledge gained from being on the board. Given that it still took them a couple years after the release of the first iPhone to come up with something competitive, it might not have mattered, the phone was out and not a secret for a long time, anyone could have bought one.
Hmmm
3 iPads a SECOND... now that can't be right if he is working on a 24 hour clock and in the past when he's given such sales records with a stat of X per SECOND it has been in a 24 hr setting..
[Snip...]
Now THAT seems to jive an awful lot closer to the 2m that they just reported. Tho... it sure is nice to think they're selling 3 per second now isn't it?
yeah. I guess they already changed the article... It now says one sold every three seconds.
I like the way the man thinks... I can't complain too much about his decisions, or criticize too harshly.
So far, my overall "user experience" since switching exclusively to Mac 10 years ago has been superb. Especially since OSX came online.
I own an iPad, I don't miss Flash. I haven't missed it on the iPhone either, which I bought into a week after they first came out.
To hear him speak on these various topics, I see glimmers of why he's so successful. He's focused, measured, passionate, and doing what he does for all the right reasons; first and foremost, the love of creating things you yourself would want to have.
And Toy Story 3 is coming. Life is good...
So the real question is will Adobe make a version of Flash for the iPhone that Apple can approve/disapprove? At least there is a huge number of jailbroken iPhone that Flash could run on without Apple's approval. Maybe Adobe can appeal to the jailbroken masses to download and run Flash. So far nada from Adobe.
How do you know that there is a huge number of jail broken iPhones?
I'd venture a guess that it's no more than a few percentage points. Can you disprove that?
Swisher noted that Apple's public valuation had passed Microsoft's this week
Then this:
Jobs answered, "Apple is a company that doesn't have the resources that everyone else has."
Yes, they have way more resources than anybody now. How can Jobs still claim to be poor?
First this:
Then this:
Yes, they have way more resources than anybody now. How can Jobs still claim to be poor?
Having a higher market cap, which is what Swisher mentioned, doesn't necessarily mean having more resources. Resources go beyond money. Microsoft is still a much larger company, from cash in the bank, the number of employees, etc. Apple is a large company, but a large number of their employees are actually part of their retail operations. Their engineering and design teams are smaller then Microsoft's. That is what Steve Jobs was talking about.
What comes through to me from these interviews is how he still does not think of himself as heading up a quarter-trillion dollar company. He seems to see Apple as still a scrappy little competitor trying to gain legitimacy (e.g., his views on Adobe, Gizmodo, Google....).
At one level, that is refreshing; at another, perhaps a bit naive.
And Toy Story 3 is coming. Life is good...
My brother has a fascination with that movie. I don't understand it. They aren't bad movies at all, just not my thing.
Having a higher market cap, which is what Swisher mentioned, doesn't necessarily mean having more resources. Resources go beyond money. Microsoft is still a much larger company, from cash in the bank, the number of employees, etc. Apple is a large company, but a large number of their employees are actually part of their retail operations. Their engineering and design teams are smaller then Microsoft's. That is what Steve Jobs was talking about.
Apple has way more cash than Microsoft, and revenues are about the same. And the number of employees is irrelevant. Moreover, if engineering and design were so important, they could easily be built/bought with the resources (and capacity to attract top-notch human capital) that Apple has.
Again, goes to my point above about how how he does not think of himself as heading up the largest tech company in the world (and the second most valuable company in the US).
My brother has a fascination with that movie. I don't understand it. They aren't bad movies at all, just not my thing.
They are brilliantly made movies. TS2 was just as good as the first one, and I expect '3' to be of the highest quality as well.