“In response to a question on criticism by the late Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs, that Android phones ripped off its flagship iPhone, Schmidt said, ‘the Android effort started before the iPhone effort,'” Hyunjoo Jin and Joonhee Yu report for Reuters. “‘I’ve decided not to comment on what’s been written on a book after his death. Steve is a fantastic human being and someone who I miss very dearly. As a general comment, I think most people would agree that Google is a great innovator and I would also point out that the Android effort started before the iPhone effort,’ Schmidt said.”
Jin and Yu report, “In his authorized biography released last month, Jobs said, ‘I will spend my last dying breath if I need to…to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go to thermonuclear war on this.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Disingenuous mole. See what Android looked like several months after Steve Jobs unveiled iPhone, but before Google could fully rev up their photocopiers here.
WTF!
This guy needs a drug test.
This is easily documentably false.
iPhone effort started in 2002 or so.
Google bought Android in 2005, and the project was started in 2003.
And, of course, yes, Android store finger-based UI core concept from iOS.
I was at the TGIF at the Googleplex (the meetings where Sergey, Larry, and Eric would speak to their employees every Friday and take questions) right after they came back from the original iPhone announcement. At the time everyone used BlackBerrys (and a LOT of people chose to work off of Macs) and everyone wanted to ask about the iPhone. What was it like, would they be offered to employees, etc. I’m sure the excitement must have troubled them somewhat since they were in the process of making what looks like an improved BlackBerry.
Personally, my opinion is they switched to copying what they saw their that day and that would have happened whether Schmidt was at Apple or not.
Did Google need Schmidt to run out the back door of Applle with blueprints on microfiche tucked in his socks? It definitely makes the story that much more interesting, but I don’t think it did anything but put him in an awkward position.
Apple threw down the gauntlet and EVERYone hoping to be in the smartphone business thereafter either understood what just happened, or were in denial. They either immediately began to use them as the new benchmark by which they must embrace and extend, or they were in denial and looked for reasons why they didn’t need to do a 180 from the direction they were already headed (Microsoft, RIM). Eventually everyone had to admit that everything changed. And that happened whether they had employees on Apples board or not.
Interesting.
I was also thinking that even if the idea of making a smart phone did predate the iPhone effort, what it actually is was heavily influenced by the iPhone announcement.
Like Nobody said, Google was in the process of ripping off some other OS but when they got wind of Apple’s iOS, they switched to copy and steal that. So, to give the dolts at Google credit, they were in fact “working” on Android before the iPhone effort 😉
Regarding MDN Take: A picture’s worth a thousand varmint’s words.
The 2007 Android looks like a Blackberry designed by Russians.
So Google was stumbling around with a pretend blackberry until they saw something much better to copy. Just like computers were lines of green code on black before Jobs brought forth the Mac.
I was thinking the same thing.
Your first sentence is the best line of the day.
I take exception to your stab at the creative capabilities of Russians.
We do have some fine creative minds. Some even kept their job after the temporary demise of communism.
True, Russia has produced some brilliant artists; however, devices developed under the Soviet regime have a reputation for clunkiness with a bureaucratic aesthetic.
Actually, most of those brilliant “Russian” artists were actually Ukrainian. No joke. (And Russia STILL won’t admit to the well-documented fact that Stalin killed as many as 10 million people in Ukraine in 1932-33 by closing the borders, taking all the food, and letting the people starve to death. Perhaps they’re proud of it.)
Android indeed is a bureaucratic beast. It was designed by a committee of bureaucrats. Android is nothing more than a copy machine. Before the iPhone came out the committee decided to incorporate whatever features the Blackberry has. Then a better phone called the iPhone appeared, the committee picked every features from the iPhone: multitouch gestures, user interface, app store, virtual keyboard and many others. In fact Android is a plagiarism of the iPhone through and through. It does not come through innovation. Eric Schmidt has a great part in the ripping of the iPhone’s innovativeness. Yes Google is very innovative in plagiarism.
Nobody is going to buy his revisionist history. We all know that Android was nothing more than a Blackberry knockoff until he stole the plans for the iPhone and took them to Google while he was sitting on Apple’s board.
Exactly. If the iPhone had never come about, RIM would probably be suing Google today.
——RM
Liar
Eric is clearly a piece of schidt.
I wish the so called journalist will chase him more about this.
Man looking at those pictures one thing becomes clear no matter how you slice it or dice it… RIM was f*cked either way. lol
Seems like the timeline started with Steve’s comment about doing a tablet after dinner with the Microsoft guy touting what they (Microsoft) was going to do with their tablet.
It gets murkier when you come to pushing the iPhone release in front of the iPad.
Schmidt should have recused himself and resigned from Apple’s board earlier to save his reputation & relationships.
Look people, every company has an R&D department. R&D of course stands for Rip Off & Duplicate. Of course Samsung does it the best, and I suspect they do it explicitly on purpose.
Apple is guilty of this too. Not all of their ideas are original. Apple does innovate more than any other company, but believe me when I tell you that they are not the first to think of some of these things.
Some of their patent lawsuits stem from technologies that were around long before the iPhone. (While of course the bulk of the suits are total BS). Heck, Apple admits to R&D of Xerox Parc…granted they had permission. So I guess it was just “D”, not “R&D”.
Anyway, the point is, Google was taking the most popular features of the most popular phones and creating an OS that could be open source. At the time, Blackberry was the #1 phone and Palm was right behind it (because of course, who in the hell would want to copy Microsoft at anything). This was before touch screen.
Once Apple released the iPhone to major success, the idea that a fully touch screen phone took off, and so Google had to of course revamp their OS since that would be the new standard.
So, Yes, Google did a lot of R&D of Apple & Blackberry and Palm and Apple (yes, I said that twice for a reason). However, just because they ripped off 90% of their OS, doesn’t mean they didn’t innovate. 10% innovation is still innovation.
10% what you say? Oh I don’t know…let’s say something called “Notification Center” that they have had since Day 1 and something that Apple just recently added (that works in much the same way mind you).
Give Google a break. Why? Because I would rather have a bad photocopy of iOS competing with iOS, than to have MS try to come up with the joke that is Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry is a POS. The fragmentation of Android will doom it eventually anyway.
Long live Apple
Agree, mostly. But…
…what is different about the Android case is the amount of copying that they fully knew was infringing — from mulitple sources at multiple levels — and chose to drive forward all the same.
AAPL’s use of Xerox Parc’s tech was properly licensed. Xerox became an investor in AAPL for that development. This is as it should be. AAPL lined up its product sourcing, vendors and suppliers and made sure they had the rights and the patents they needed in place, and then patented the new stuff they did. Most creditable companies do this. They may not catch all of the patent licensing they need (hence the patent demands and lawsuits that come out of the woodwork), but you can see most companies take this seriously and work hard to acquire rights and patents to cover their products/services.
However, documentary evidence from various suits strongly suggests GOOG was fully aware what it was doing, elected not to license anything, and proceed anyway. The lack of proper patent licensing from them (and resultant exposure for them and their customers) is quite striking. This is a bit beyond “everyone does it” type of thing. The Oracle case alone is remarkable, let alone what they took from AAPL.
Cocoa has always had Notification Center, even before the iPhone. Maybe it was added to ios after the Android, I don’t know, but it wasn’t anything that Google innovated. Os X has always had it. Eric Schmidt cannot be trusted with anything.
When each project started is irrelevant. What is clearly demonstrable is that Google was going down the path of copying the Blackberry. After they saw the iPhone they reversed course and tried to copy that instead. There is no possible way that Eric can deny that when there is clear evidence to support it.
Exactly. Android, the true Android initiative has been on track for many years. Looking to copy BB. When Mole got a hold of the iPhone prototype and dev work, he had everything stop and re-direct Android to copy the iPhone. So he truly believes that he’s not lying when he said Android started way before iPhone and he’s proud and loud to brag about that statement trying to change the history books. He’s just not saying which version of Android. That guy is so sleazy. Also the idiot so called journalist just bends over and takes it all without thinking and spouts it out to the masses.
Yes, Android effort might have started before iPhone, but the fact is till 2007 Android UI looked like Blackberry UI and keyboard was it main feature. However, as soon as iPhone was announced in 2007 Android UI completely changed within six months…
After he spouts out this blatant lie, he has now commanded his mole men to go forth and polite the internet with his BS and propaganda. Then the iHaters and Android Fandois will bend over, accept the lie up their arse and fart it all over the web. This MOLE is such a sneaky, underlying, no good thief.
Jobs’ credibility record is impeccable as is his record of integrity and reputation for being straight.
The reason Apple has such a loyal die hard user base that have stuck Woth the company through thick and thin is precisely that.
No one can say that about Eric Schmidt.
And the propaganda begins. CNET the cream of the crop for yellow journalism and clueless writers.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57320425-17/googles-schmidt-android-started-before-the-iphone-effort/?part=rss&subj=latest-news&tag=title
good eye.
the creme de la crap.
+1
Don Reisinger (the author):
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, posting at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET.
In other words, he’s a naive generalist amateur blogger, uncritically regurgitating what Schmidt feeds him.
Perfect summation of his talents errr lack of.
Apple had been working on a tablet since at least 2002 or 2003 and they realized that a phone could be done, so they did it before.
However, Google was clear that the mobile platform will be the future and they need to be there with they ads.
Indeed Goggle was in the search of a mobile platform and that is why they bought Android in 2005. But Android was much more a BB than an iPhone for that time.
What The Mole stole from Apple was the entire concept of a multitouch operating system, when he was part of the board of directors, not the idea of a mobile device.
So, Schmidt is saying a “half true” with this. And, for me, a half true is a big lie.
Shit happens®
Let me fix that for you:
Schmidt happens®
There, all better now…
Brilliant!
It could also be said that Google is ..
.. a Schmidt house! 🙂
Gurgle is tech scum, spying on people and pimping private data to any crook.
Googles Whiteberry Lol
One word for Eric “the Mole”:
Liar!
Next time, i will tell you how I feel in no uncertain terms.
😛
…and in other news, Microsoft announced they were working on a tablet a decade before the iPad. The company stated they own the patent on the design, first made popular in the movie the Ten Commandments, 1956.
You would expect ‘Eric Shit’ to make these comments!
…. He was on the the Apple board, but much of the tech in iPhone started as a larger tablet, aka ‘SafariPad’.. Did Schmidt know about that also? What a sleazebag.
I’m not sure what’s innovative about trying to do a fake Blackberry(http://techcrunch.com/2007/12/17/android-prototype-lets-hope-looks-can-be-deceiving/), then suddenly switching horses in 2007, and trying to do a fake iPhone.