Apple vs. Google gets personal: 'Steve Jobs simply hates Eric Schmidt' (video)
By Thomas Ricker 
posted March 16th 2010 6:21AM
posted March 16th 2010 6:21AM
Image Credit: Daniel Adel, New York Times
Nothing sells papers (or ads) like turning a little corporate competition into something personal. Case in point, a New York Times piece from the weekend titled "Apple's Spat With Google Is Getting Personal," that opened with this rather ominous, one-sentence paragraph:
Cue the orchestra. The lengthy piece chronicling the relationship between the Silicon Valley titans was formed by two dozen interviews with industry watchers, investors, and current and former employees. It covers a timeline spread that began with Google and Apple working in harmony to prevent Microsoft's domination of online services and mobile devices, and ends with Apple's patent lawsuit against HTC that reeks of a proxy battle against Android and Google. According to the NYT then, the heart of the dispute is betrayal, or Jobs' belief that Schmidt (a former Apple board member) "picked his pocket" by developing cellphones that "physically, technologically and spiritually resembled the iPhone." Here's how one especially feisty encounter is described:"It looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
And that's just the beginning. Read the rest after the break."At one particularly heated meeting in 2008 on Google's campus, Mr. Jobs angrily told Google executives that if they deployed a version of multitouch - the popular iPhone feature that allows users to control their devices with flicks of their fingers - he would sue. Two people briefed on the meeting described it as "fierce" and "heated.""
The NYT also corroborated an earlier report from Wired detailing the verbal lashing Jobs' gave Google during an internal Apple town hall meeting. You remember, the tirade that had Jobs calling Google's 'Don't be evil' slogan "bullshit." Yeah, that one.
Adding to the battling egos is, Tim Bray, the architect behind XML, who wrote a blog post yesterday announcing his new role as evangelist to software developers for Google's Android platform. He had this to say about competing with Apple:
He then adds,"The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet's future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger. I hate it."
The Jobs v. Schmidt meme was then picked up by analysts on CNBC yesterday with Jim Goldman being told by many sources that, "Steve Jobs simply hates Eric Schmidt right now." An anger undoubtedly intensified by Android's dramatic rise in maretshare in recent months. See the frenzied hysterics discussed in the video below."Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other. I think they're wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it."
Our take? Boooring. Let TMZ cover this crap in detail, we're here for the gadgets. We just hope that the rivalry inspires the two to innovate a bit more and litigate a lot less.
I'm glad Google is prevailing because Apple needs to wake-up.
@engadget Please do an article on the basics on intellectual property and the patient system. Cover both the good and bad parts of the current system but give people examples of how some of the technology they love is only available because a patent made the investment in R&D possible.
For the number of people who visit and love technology the amount of basic knowledge about how the tech business actually works is disappointing.
@derrickONLINE
Not sure where you are picking up the "you get what you pay for attitude." On a certain level I can understand your frustration with "getting burned." But, really, most phone companies come out dozens of new phones in a year. The only difference is that most of the time you wouldn't realize WHEN this happened. For years I had piece of shit tmobile/ motorola phones which would get replaced by other piece of shit tmobile/ motorola phones.
Oh, and just keep your eyes wide open... the whole 17 billion versions of android which have different features - free or not - will bite you in the ass.
Apple indeed have a patent on capacitive multi touch methods on cell phones. But HTC and other company can claim that their methods are slightly different or saying their product are not phones. it is a PDA with phone's function.
Oh Engadget, how you love having your cake and eating it too. You say, and I quote, "Our take? Boooring. Let TMZ cover this crap in detail, we're here for the gadgets. We just hope that the rivalry inspires the two to innovate a bit more and litigate a lot less." You felt it necessary to write up a story, and include a video, yet you think it's "booooring"? You aren't fooling anyone, you know this type of story generates a ton of interest, and judging by the 355 comments, you were correct. So, at least have the common decency to not insult our intelligence by posting a story just to get us to read it, then call it a waste of time.
For the record, this battle of titans has more impact on the landscape of gadgets than you're giving it credit for. These are two very influential companies in the gadget industry, and they're about to go 12 rounds, toe to toe.
Get real, would ya? You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor - Xerox - who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin' in to steal a TV set. Only when you get there, you realize that I got there first. I got the loot, Steve! And you're yellin'? "That's not fair. I wanted to try to steal it first." You're too late.
ThIs if for Apple executives reading comments here and reporting back to Steve Jobs' Politburo.
LISTEN CAREFULLY.
Our company currently produces iPhone Apps.
We are hiring Android developers. We've had enough of the tyrannical Soviet approach Apple has towards its developers.
We made your damn iTunes. Your 100,000 App were produced by us - the developer community. Not you. They cost you nothing.
Don't you get it? No content - no iTunes.
We're actively moving to different platforms where freedom reigns. Our Android, Windows and Symbian Apps won't be shackled half as much as the Soviet of Apple.
With developers' creativity and innovation unshackled the people with follow.
Business schools will one day study how Apple killed the goose that laid the golden egg. It was all about freedom, creativity and innovation.
It's always about freedom - you idiots. Don't you get it.
why doesn't Apple creates its own search engine??
@thefofo I can see Apple doing that, but they'll do it from the other direction. They'll get all the pieces they'll need first then go, "oh wait, we can use all this with a search engine, too."
I swear it must be the Meds with this Steve Jobs.
The guy has been so sick and so full of pills he's losing it.
He thinks he's Napoleon!
No Hitler!
No Caesar!
I can't agree more...
Hey Jobs, why don't you you just sit back have a coke and calm the Fuck down!
Reminds me of the Antitrust film. Now the film Anti-Trust is old;
A new one will be created to tell about how the company steals(or burrows) technology and stops others from excelling themselves. Buying all the tech from the universities itself & stopping it from being opensource,.
"In the phone business, either you are a 1 or 0, either you have an iPhone or not."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_(film)
Everyone is complaining about who invented what first, but this suing and being sued is creating innovation. For a company to protect itself it needs to create a bigger gun (read: better patented feature). So this is essentially a gun fight to see who flintches first.
Apple should focus on creating a superior product. I've been a loyal iPhone user since version one but I just switched to the Nexus One. I did this mainly because the iPhone experience has grown stale. The incremental improvements over the last year and a half have been a joke.