Larry Page on Steve Jobs’ comments on Android being a stolen product: “I think the Android differences were actually for show. […] I think that served their interests. For a lot of companies, it’s useful for them to feel like they have an obvious competitor and to rally around that.” We’ll never know for sure, but considering Tim Cook is reportedly looking to start settling all these lawsuits, Page might be right. Let’s hope the lawsuits – settled or no – at least lead to patent reform.
I work in China and the effect of the Apple lawsuits against Samsung and HTC has given the impression that Android is a real threat to Apple, as a consequence where impression is fact, Samsung has become the #1 product being sold here now. I see that myself when I walk into the major stores that sell these products, Apple is easy to buy now where Samsung is not due to being sold out. Apple should remember that the Chinese and many other Asian cultures buy on impression and prestige, lawsuits, especially those that are perceived as frivolous turn off the public and they in turn answer by purchasing from a competitor.
I doubt it was just for show. Jobs had still in mind the time when Apple was at the top of the personal computer market, ie number #1 with roughly 25% of the market, and how a few years later, MS-DOS/Windows and the PC-clones had taken everything from him. It was a real scare. It took him 15 years to retake control of a dying Apple.
And now, Apple is at the top of the smartphone market, with roughly 25% of the market, and MS-DOS/Windows is called Android. It is history happening all over again. Jobs decided that it had to prevent that to happen at any cost.
Cook, however, he did not experience the downfall of Apple, so it is unsurprising that he is not strongly willing to go and destroy Android. Especially since it does not seem to be working. Apple did score a few victories, but only on very minor features (slide to unlock…), mainly because most of countries are not too willing in blocking entire products because of a few things that got copied. So I guess Cook is now settling because it is their best option, and they will have to find an other way to make sure that history does not happen all over again.
Apple never was #1, i don’t know where you get your numbers.
The IBM PC has been an instant success, just looking by the number of unit solds its first 2 years in existence. And the difference is absolutely huge, in the range of 10 to 1 for IBM against Apple.
Only the C64 have been able to outsell the IBM PC, and then only for a limited time, and certainly not on revenue.
Indeed. and the iOS was never top of the smart phone market either. Symbian and BlackberryOS basically owned the market originally and by the time their market share started to collapse, Android was already on a par with iOS.
While you may find it hard to believe now, the IBM PC was not around during the early years when the Apple ][ was the most influential personal computer on the market.
While the Tandy TRS-80 Model 1 sold roughly as many machines as Apple, it was a text-only model with limited expandability. Apple was generally viewed as the future of the home computer, given its color graphics and expansion slots. (It pains me to say this, by the way, since I was programming my beloved Atari 800 for NASA Langley at the time. But we all had a little Apple envy back then.)
You might find http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/total-share.ars as interesting as I did. Here’s a relevant paragraph:
“What really turned the company around, however, was the release of the first ever “killer app.” This was VisiCalc, the original spreadsheet application, which was released in 1979. The author, Dan Bricklin, wrote it for the Apple ][ simply because that machine, borrowed from his publisher Dan Fylstra, was the only one he had available. A combination of great marketing and even better luck propelled the Apple ][ from an also-ran to a serious contender. In 1981 the company sold 210,000 units, leaving the PET in the dust and nearly equaling the TRS-80’s numbers.”
When IBM introduced its PC, it was widely viewed by home computer enthusiasts as an over-priced also-ran. Apple even took out a full page ad, “welcoming” IBM to the market. But businesses saw it as a business rather than home computer, sales soared, and the world changed almost overnight.
Seems like only old geezers like me even know about the pre-IBM personal computers nowadays. *sigh*
Right.
Right. The Apple ][ was the #1 home computer in the time before the home computer. It was dethroned by the C64. The IBM PC was a business computer.
of course, that’s right! but only because BUNCH of STUPID people bought IBMs TRASH and make absolutely WORST TRASH industry standard.
((
C:\NGRTLNS !
Maybe he’s concerned about anti-trusts and that destroying Android would make Apple look like a monopoly. They’ve seen how that sort of thing got Microsoft in hot water.
“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.”
Reportedly from Jobs in his biography, that sounds like genuine disdain to me.
or like at attempt at comedy.
It’s what I’d expect some “I’m not a CEO, but I play one on TV” second rate actor to say.
Jobs most certainly was serious about hating Google for stealing ideas for Android. It’s obvious in the many patent lawsuits going on worldwide.