“With absolutely no proof or verifiable sources, I believe Steve Jobs colluded with then Google CEO Eric Schmidt to ensure browser-based web apps would be the standard for the iPhone,” Tera Thomas O’Brien writes for Tera Talks. “Why? Google feared the iPhone and the potential of native applications. Why, with smartphone customers using native apps, the search giant would lose control over search and user data.”
“When Jobs caved in to internal pressure and allowed Apple to create a software development kit for iPhone, Google knew they’d been betrayed by Jobs and responded by making Android OS free for cell phone manufacturers,” O’Brien writes. “Google had no choice but to compete with Apple on the OS level, because Apple made iPhone application development a business that took direct aim against their business model. And, as we all know, native apps prevent Google from collecting information from users to sell to advertisers, and diminish the company’s famed advertising machine’s ability to display ads.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Software Development Kit for iPhone OS was announced at the iPhone Software Roadmap event on March 6, 2008. Google began retooling Android from a BlackBerry clone into an iPhone knockoff immediately following Apple’s iPhone unveiling in January 2007, or some 14 months before Apple released an iPhone OS SDK allowing for third-party native apps.
Talk about rewriting history. Yup it was all Apple’s fault for stabbing Google in the back. You couldn’t make it up… except he did.
Exactly!
I think Tera is a female.
Tera was a female. She passed away. There is a female by the name of Alexis who carries on her blog.
My sentiments exactly! What a bunch of revisionist fantasy malarkey from this Tera Obrien. Even a casual Apple fan knows that the timeline of her fantasy is ALL wrong. Furthermore, if what she says is true, then Eric the Mole Schmidt would have been the one hot under the collar complaining of an Apple betrayal. But in fact we know that the opposite is true! Steve Jobs was the CEO who was furious and spoke to all the Apple employees at that well-documented Town Hall Meeting about the infamous Google betrayal.
But he should have!
Somebody please take his keyboard away. I hope he doesn’t earn his living this way.
Uh, Tera is a girl…
Uh, Tera is no longer alive . . .
Thomas wrote the article.
It is a very Mac friendly site. It is simply an interesting speculation. Relax.
Since we are going with speculation, and know Apple does not do anything w/o a lot of forethought, it may just be possible talk of doing an SDK did occur at about the same time as the announcement for the iPhone.
That guy is a moron. Before issuing conspiration theories “With absolutely no proof or verifiable sources”, that lazy bum could have at least spent 5 minutes checking verifiable sources, timelines and proofs to the contrary.
SHE is a moron. I stand corrected.
With absolutely no proof or verifiable sources, I believe that Thomas O’Brian fabricated this story because he was paid to do so by either Google or Samsung, in a pathetic attempt to rewrite history.
Oops – didn’t spot the Tera part of the writer’s name, which presumably changes the gender of the author. However, it doesn’t alter the fact that the story is clearly untrue.
“With absolutely no proof or verifiable sources” should be the prefix for 99% of tech articles.
if iPhone native apps are against Google’s business model, how is it that android apps are not? what’s the difference? Wouldn’t it be like stabbing themselves in the back according to the “logic” of this article?
Cause tracking is built in to android at its core. It’s the whole reason android exists.
Did you see her follow-up articles? Steve Jobs is actually an alien and friends with Elvis, who is still, of course, alive.
With no proof or verifiable proof – what we have is bullshit or should I say Hefferetteshit.
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It’s already public record that Jobs was opposed to 3rd party apps on the iPhone and it took massive pressure from both the developer industry and other executives to get him to change his mind.
Meanwhile, Apple helped to protect Google’s business model (search engine advertising) until Apple announced the SDK and the App Store. Only after Apple announced the App Store did Google’s Android begin to look exactly like an iPhone.
One could easily argue that Apple (Jobs) threw Google under the bus by creating an application platform for the iPhone, instead of helping to protect Google’s interests (Apple needed Google at the time for Maps data). Even CEO Eric Schmidt didn’t join Apple’s board until a few months before the iPhone was announced, so it’s not likely Google had any idea how or what the iPhone would be until after it was announced.
When Apple announced the SDK and App Store, Google was caught flatfooted (again) and had no choice but to put Android on the fast track and make it free for cell phone makers.
This is a very plausible argument with history on its side.
I don’t know that Apple ever ‘protected Google’s business model’. They worked together, yes, but that is not entirely the same thing. They ‘threw Google under the bus’ when, and only when, Google mercilessly ripped off what they were doing. Any sane company would have done the same. There is no way to positively spin the course of action Google took and has continued to take without blatantly lying or conjecturing wildly, as the article in question does.
LOL That’s a good one. 😉 She’s redefined the term ‘reaching’. And nice ass-covering disclaimer at the beginning (at least these gasbags are finally starting to admit up front in their pieces that they are just making sh*t up)! Completely and utterly pathetic, and shame on Google if they funded her ‘efforts’. What a joke.
In 10 years people like Tera will look at their lives, see how they spent their most creative years coming up with stupid, dumb, stories about Apple.. and cry.
Why all the noise from Apple apologists about Jobs throwing Google under a bus? He did. And Tim Cook continues to throw Google under a bus.
Hey, Google deserves it.
The company is run by a den of thieves who steal innovation from every source they can find, including so-called partner Apple. I’d like to see Apple do more to expose Google for their thievery, and for how much data they collect from users. The NSA could save themselves lots of effort by simply hacking into Google’s servers to get everything they need to know about anybody.
The real issue was the betrayal by Schimdt, while sitting on the Apple Board, deciding to get into,the mobile phone business.
As someone who used to trade emails with the original Tera I am extremely disappointed that her site has fallen so far.
The loss of Tera Patricks to cancer several years ago was a tragedy, plain and simple. It was a loss not only to her family and friends but also to the Mac community in general. I have no idea who is writing in her name today, but if she were alive today, she would be outraged! At least in her conversations with me she was all about telling it like it really is. This is not the way she was and nor is it the way she conducted herself.
Bambi, if you’re reading this (and you know who you are), in Tera’s memory, please step in and stop this crap.
You are a nasty, vindictive man.
Tera was my friend. I knew Tera personally, not just through email. Did you? I read the article today and re-read it again. It’s spot on. It’s not a criticism of Steve Jobs or of Apple. Google is an evil company and Apple should throw them under the bus as often as it takes. Jobs did it a few times. Time cook pokes at Google, but I’m of the opinion that the company should be ashamed for stealing from Apple (among others) and calling it innovation when it’s merely thievery. Good for Steve Jobs for throwing Google under a bus. Do it again. Somebody.
Apple’s App Store opened in July 2008.
The first example of Google copying iOS came in the Android G1 which was launched by HTC in September 2008.
Are we to believe that Google did a 180 degree about face and completely redesigned their operating system and partnered with a hardware manufacturer to design, build and sell a touchscreen smartphone, in approximately 60 days?
Did any of you blowhards RTFA?
Of course Jobs threw Google under the bus. It was revenge for Google stealing iPhone’s design and putting into Android. The implication here as that Jobs and Schmidt conspired to divvy up the mobile arena and cut Microsoft out. That worked until Google updated Android to look like an iPhone.
The article presents a sound argument that is certainly plausible.
Steve declared “thermonuclear war”. Everybody knows this. So any declarations of “throwing under the bus” are utterly trivial — of no consequence, whatsoever.
The points are WHEN it happened and WHY. And on that, something that is admitted to be only a belief “With absolutely no proof or verifiable sources” is just stupid. Let’s all sit down right now, take some topic and just make up some “plausible” scenario about Apple, the NSA, alien visitation, a great new phone from Samsung, the grassy knoll and whatever you like. The fact that all our stories will be plausible means NOTHING, and it does not make our drivel worth reading or contemplating for even one second.
I’m really, really sorry your Tourette’s is acting up SO badly. But there’s good news. With the right medication, it can be controlled really well these days. Speak to your doctor to find out what medication is right for you.
MDN – PLEASE delete this shit. As has been said before, “software filter”.