“It would be fair to say that Steve Jobs did not like Samsung’s smartphone team,” Ewan Spence writes for Forbes. “He promised all of Apple’s resources would be deployed in a ‘thermonuclear war’ against the South Korean company. Tim Cook’s Apple never followed up on Jobs’ threat… at least not directly. Cook defused the nukes, instead relying on a long strategic play to neuter not just Samsung, but the impact of Android.”
“Just as America negated the Cold War through patience, propaganda, and technical prowess, Tim Cook has neutered Android’s economic threat to Apple through guile, suppression, and finesse,” Spence writes. “I’ve already spoken about one of the plays made by Apple and Tim Cook to damage Android. This was the push to 64-bit computing in the iPhone 5S. As that smartphone was announced, the roadmaps for Android devices did not have 64-bit computing planned in the near future… Apple weakened the chipsets in Android by forcing the manufacturers to follow them on the 64-bit roadmap. Resources, time, and developmental energies were directed away from competing directly with Apple and into something that has taken far longer than planned.”
“The latest component to be ring-fenced by Apple is the fingerprint sensor, denying the Nexus 6 this signature feature,” Spence writes. “It’s not just this sensor that Apple has control of. Cupertino has made a significant investment in buying up supplies of synthetic sapphire, it hedges DRAM as efficiently as Southwest hedges aviation fuel, it is first in line for touch panels, and even air freight for just-in-time shipping is booked out in advance, forcing competitors shipments onto slower land and sea routes.”
“If you’re competing against Apple, you’re not going to be allowed to fight with the best components, because Tim Cook reserved them years ago when he was in charge of Apple’s operations,” Spence writes. “Apple has the best components, a lead in many areas of technology that can create almost magical devices, and most importantly, all of these background actions are achieved in concert with creating the best smartphone it can possibly make and then putting it on sale in vast numbers.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Most everything about this article is correct (read the full article, it’s recommended), except for the headline (“Tim Cook Defused Steve Jobs’ Thermonuclear War, Then He Took Down Android”) and its premise that Tim Cook is doing anything differently than exactly what Jobs wanted.
Steve Jobs said: 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.
Nothing Cook has done goes against Jobs’ vow. In fact, Jobs and Cook could have easily planned this strategy – and likely did. Therefore, we’ve written our headline accordingly.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
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