Apple's Spat With Google Is Getting Personal

nytimes.com:

Mr. Jobs, Mr. Schmidt and their companies are now engaged in a gritty battle royale over the future and shape of mobile computing and cellphones, with implications that are reverberating across the digital landscape.

In the last six months, Apple and Google have jousted over acquisitions, patents, directors, advisers and iPhone applications.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[rougebaisers]

02:26 AM on 03/16/2010

Goggle has gone sleazeville.

[DRaymond]

01:50 AM on 03/15/2010

If, as the article implies, Jobs thinks he had an agreement with Google that Apple wouldn't enter the search business and Google wouldn't enter the phone business then it shows what complete disregard Jobs has for the nation's antitrust laws.

Of course with Apples closed and monopolistic business practices it is not surprizing. The way in which you have to buy everything for your ipone or ipod from them at their prices and under their censorship is just ridiculous.

[Layman23]

01:18 AM on 03/15/2010

Crybaby Apple, grow up. You copied your Mac from Xerox. So people will always take ideas from others and come up with their own product.

You lost the battle with Microsoft because you didnt have a proper agreement with them when you wanted their services. Get over it and stop crying that everyone is out there to get you. You should be mature and more friendly now that you have tasted great success. Instead of basking in the glory and being a lead innovator, you are looking like one ego maniacal bully. That didn't work out well the last time you were successful were you?

Whats next? You gonna copyright "Mac" and Cheese?

[Louisknyc]

10:31 AM on 03/15/2010

The old xerox chestnut. (Apple licensed Xerox GUI and more importantly, popularized its own GUI, making it something tangible, that users can relate to.

Apple, rather than "crying" as you want to portray them is defending their IP..and they have every right to do so. Go get 'em Apple.

[Layman23]

11:46 AM on 03/15/2010

Really? Gestures are being copyrighted now? movement of fingers? If you go that route then Apple has to pay royalty for the person that invented the QWERTY Keyboard, the LCD Monitor, The hard disk and the list goes on.

[planetjeffy]

11:58 PM on 03/14/2010

everyone wins in this fight.

we get better products as they push each other and hopefully the prices will continue to go down.

oh and apple didn't invent multi touch. Jeff Han displayed it in 06 and Microsoft in 07 (with its surface computing) - the same year the iphone came out.

[JohnSawyer]

08:55 PM on 03/14/2010

One thing that puzzles me, even though I've been familiar for years with Jobs' philosophy of relatively closed computer systems since the introduction of the Mac, is why industry analysts, and Jobs, see Google's Android as an attempt by Google to "destroy" the iPhone. It's an attempt by Google to compete with the iPhone, via a different philosophy--largely open source, though not completely, but more so than the iPhone. The more tightly Apple tries to maintain its platforms as hermetically sealed, the more upset they're going to get when another company tries a more open approach. Jobs complains that, though Apple didn't go into the search engine field, Google went into the smartphone/app business, which makes him look like an advocate of anti-trust, anti-competitive agreements between companies. I completely understand Jobs' philosophy of how relatively closed systems like the Mac, iPhone, etc. can make sense, but I don't understand his reaction when another company--even Google, with which Jobs thought he had an "understanding"--would try to compete. Apple should just continue competing, which they're good at in many ways, by improving their products, rather than complaining. I understand there are some smartphone-related patents that Apple may indeed have rights to, but Jobs too often seems to try to make the bigger case that Apple somehow has exclusive rights to the advanced smartphone concept itself, or at least to too many aspects of it.

[Dnietz]

09:31 PM on 03/14/2010

Microsoft had the same reaction against free software and open source software. No matter what their official statements are, they are afraid because it is a threat to their business.

The weird part for me is that I like both companies and their products. I have used multi platform products for 2 decades now.

I initially liked the iPhone but ended up buying an Android phone. It would have been nice to have my music iPod with me at all times. But not being able to remove the battery easily and the iPhone not working properly with my companies email system made my decision for me.

Either way, these are two companies that make high quality products that actually do what they say they are going to do. They should quit worrying about each other and attack the junk companies like MS.

Although, you could potentially think that that battle has already been won but we haven't seen the final result yet. MS could possibly already be spinning out of control and plunging to its final resting place (crashing airplane analogy). Maybe the death of MS is just in slow motion. I'm not sure MS can do anything to get their plane flying again.

[Dennis]

06:39 PM on 03/14/2010

Jobs now seems to assert that he owns the patent on the touch screen. He wasn't always so strict about borrowing the ideas of others:
"The first home computer with a GUI or graphical user interface was the Apple Lisa. The very first graphical user interface was developed by the Xerox Corporation at their Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the 1970s. Steve Jobs, visited PARC in 1979 (after buying Xerox stock) and was impressed and influenced by the Xerox Alto, the first computer ever with a graphical user interface. Jobs designed the new Apple Lisa based on the technology he saw at Xerox."
http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/Apple_Computers.htm

[Louisknyc]

10:34 AM on 03/15/2010

Here's some info from another website:

Myth:
Apple CEO Steve Jobs saw Xerox PARC product such as the GUI, either on a tour or at a trade show, then stole the PARC GUI implementation without permission, to create the Apple Lisa and the original Mac OS / Macintosh GUI.


Fact:
Apple obtained permission ahead of the Xerox PARC visit. In addition, Apple provided compensation in exchange for the various Xerox PARC ideas such as the GUI

[flashfyre]

06:39 PM on 03/14/2010

Apple has benefited greatly from open, royalty-free technologies. The core of their flagship OS depends heavily on open source software. For Apple to use the hardware maker HTC in a software patent proxy war against google is pretty shallow. A lot of software patents are kind of stupid, obvious, and cover concepts in common use since the 1950's. Real-time processing of serial data is one of the patents apple is using--oh please. Who in the broken US patent office granted apple that one? The entire issue of software patents needs to be reworked to prevent these dumb, wasteful lawsuits and IP monopolies.

[Antifascist-08]

04:16 PM on 03/14/2010

iSpat!

[BlueDog1]

03:20 PM on 03/14/2010

In the beginning Job's let Bill Gates steal his ideas, and he had to get a loan from Bill to make Apple go.

Now he is bumping into a guy (Eric) who outfoxed Bill when he was at Novell.

So Job's once again has picked a fight with a guy with deep , deep pockets I sometimes wonder why they let Job's out of his garage.

He needs to read Patton so as to understand he can go to the right or left and out flank your enemies, you don't need to drive right into the middle to win. ................................

[ewj1]

05:40 PM on 03/14/2010

Way to re-write history. I bet you believe the south won the civil war and Letterman is beating Leno in the rating.

[Dnietz]

09:37 PM on 03/14/2010

No matter what Apple or Jobs is doing now, Apple would be nothing without him.

Apple was dying in the late 90's. He came in and rebuilt the company. Today Apple is highly profitable.

Jobs has a history of making very innovative products that pushed the level of technology. That includes Next and Pixar.

No one is perfect and he could be making big mistakes. But the battle isn't done yet. I think Google is going t win, but we have no idea what Apple is going to do. They could turn out just fine.

Trashing Jobs is pre mature.

[SlurmsMcKenzie]

09:49 PM on 03/14/2010

Not trolling, you seem more informed on this topic than I. So what is your reasoning for beliving Google will win?

[mutton]

01:26 PM on 03/14/2010

Jobs brings these conflicts upon himself by insisting on "proprietary standards" and exclusive relationships.

Apple could have easily owned the smart phone market if it hadn't made AT&T its exclusive carrier. I have a Droid because I wasn't about to switch to AT&T, which happens to have bad coverage in my area. And the Droid, while amazing, is still slightly inferior to the iPhone, imo.

Jobs also wants to control what applications you can use, and where you can buy (and use) your music and movies. Digital rights management, like software copy protection schemes, causes more problems than its worth, as witnessed by Apple changing its iTunes. Trying to lock things down keeps Apple smaller and a target for companies who believe in open systems.

[LouisLouis]

02:35 PM on 03/14/2010

I also have a Droid, for the same reason you do. I think it's more then slightly inferior, as far as the hardware goes. And the camera is horrible! I thought the iphone camera was crappy, until I got the Droid.

Your complaints are certainly valid in regards to Jobs, but no one can come close to the quality of the Apple hardware itself, imo. :)

[JohnSawyer]

08:52 PM on 03/14/2010

I agree with your comments, though at the time Apple was trying to figure out which carrier to go with, their choice of ATT seemed to make sense to them at the time--among other things, ATT was willing to put themselves in the background, to let Apple provide nearly all the "branding" for the iPhone (not putting anything on the iPhone display other than "ATT" in the upper left corner--other carriers wanted something like a powerup splash screen showing their logo, etc.). I'm sure ATT also promised Jobs that ATT's coverage would improve quickly. ATT didn't make good on that, and I'm guessing that Jobs eventually began to wish he'd traded a splash screen from another carrier, for better coverage.

[totalliberal]

12:03 PM on 03/14/2010

Bring out the Appleton's. All hail the Jobs. All hail the Jobs. The Jobs is our master. He sells us stuff we don't even need. The Jobs is our leader.

Apple-Rubes.

[wilray]

05:46 PM on 03/14/2010

Given the market for smart phones and their importance for Google's future. and given Steve Jobs caprice, he should have seen this coming. He expected Google to hang on the sidelines, while Apple monopolized the smartphone market. Then when Jobs decides, well we don't want Google on our iPhones anymore, the guys at Google are left holding their johnsons wondering what happened. Unfortunately for Jobs, the Google Guys know something of Apple's history.

[hypnotoad72]

12:01 PM on 03/14/2010

Oh, grand.

Not.

It's days like this where all the drivel corporations spew about "competition is good" isn't good if all they do is bleat about patents, which they developed in advance and just waited for someone else to do the dirty work. (Didn't gates also put in a patent about a device that extracts energy from the ocean or hurricane prevention or something?)

Patents are the refuge of cr00ks. Period.