Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson says Jobs' anger over Android was real and not "for show" as alleged by Google's Larry Page in an interview this week. Macworld UK attended a lecture Isaacson gave at the Royal Institution and the biographer said that Jobs felt Android's similarity to iOS was "history repeating itself", and compared it to Jobs' feeling that Microsoft's Windows was a rip-off of the Macintosh.
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He did the integrated system again, iPod, iPad, and it worked, “but what happens? Google rips it off”.
Isaacson continued: “It's almost copied verbatim by Android. And then they licence it around promiscuously. And then Android starts surpassing Apple in market share, and this totally infuriated him. It wasn't a matter of money. He said: 'You can't pay me off, I'm here to destroy you'.”
Isaacson went on to say that he believes that Tim Cook will handle things differently and "will settle that lawsuit." Apple is currently involved in a number of lawsuits over Android with manufacturers around the world.
Top Rated Comments
That would be a dick move by anyone's standards, not just Jobs' or Schmidt's. Jobs is perfectly justified in being enraged by it, especially since it is "a history repeating itself".
Hey Larry, why wait until Steve is dead to talk about this?
Tim did the right thing over there, accepting Android and making money from it. Steve was a genius, but his mentality was simply too closed sometimes.
As much as I would like Cook to go on with the thermonuclear war on Android, with his role as wealth keeper he will likely settle and make compromises.
But part of me continues to think that it would be fun to see Jobs truly try to destroy the Android platform with Apple's cash.