Will Steve Jobs' final vendetta haunt Google?
SAN FRANCISCO - Google can only hope that Steve Jobs' final vendetta doesn't haunt the Internet search leader from his grave.
The depths of Jobs' antipathy toward Google leaps out of Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Apple's co-founder. The book goes on sale Monday, less than three weeks after Jobs' long battle with pancreatic cancer culminated in his Oct. 5 death. The Associated Press obtained a copy Thursday.
The biography drips with Jobs' vitriol as he discusses his belief that Google stole from Apple's iPhone to build many of the features in Google's Android software for rival phones.
It's clear that the perceived theft represented an unforgiveable act of betrayal to Jobs, who had been a mentor to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and had welcomed Google's CEO at the time, Eric Schmidt, to be on Apple's board.
Jobs retaliated with a profane manifesto during a 2010 conversation with his chosen biographer. Isaacson wrote that he never saw Jobs angrier in any of their conversations, which covered a wide variety of emotional topics during a two-year period.
After equating Android to "grand theft" of the iPhone, Jobs lobbed a series of grenades that may blow a hole in Google's image as an innovative company on a crusade to make the world a better place.
"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," Jobs told Isaacson. "I'm going to destroy Android because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death because they know they are guilty."
Jobs then used a crude word for defecation to describe Android and other products outside of search.
Android now represents one of the chief threats to the iPhone. Although iPhones had a head start and still draw huge lines when new models go on sale, Android devices sold twice as well in the second quarter. According to Gartner, Android's market share grew 2 1/2 times to 43 per cent, compared with 17 per cent a year earlier. The iPhone's grew as well, but by a smaller margin — to 18 per cent, from 14 per cent.
Both Google and Apple declined comment to The Associated Press when asked about Jobs' remarks.
Jobs' attack is troubling for Google on several levels.
It suggests that Apple, which has pledged to be true to Jobs' vision, may try to derail Android in court, even if Google obtains more patent protection through its proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of phone maker Motorola Mobility Inc. The derision comes across as a bitter pill for Page and Brin, who have hailed Jobs as one of their idols. It also appears to contradict Schmidt's repeated assertions that he remained on friendly terms with Jobs even after he resigned from Apple's board in 2009.
Most of all, Google should be worried whether the Android brand is damaged by the withering criticism of a revered figure whose public esteem seems to have risen as friends, colleagues and customers paid tribute over the past few weeks.
"The words of cultural icons have a lot of power after death," veteran technology analyst Rob Enderle said. "This almost sounds like a spiritual leader declaring a jihad on Android as his dying wish."
Apple fans tend to be fiercely loyal, making it more feasible to envision an anti-Android movement taking shape like some kind of political protest, Enderle said.
It's also possible that Jobs' criticisms of Google may be seen as hypocritical. That's because some of Apple's computing breakthroughs were based on technology developed by others. The Mac's easy-to-use interface and its mouse controller, for instance, came out of Xerox Corp.
The bitter divide between two of the most beloved and successful technology companies would have seemed inconceivable a few years ago.
In 2006, Google and Apple were on such friendly terms that Jobs welcomed Schmidt to Apple's board of directors with these words: "Like Apple, Google is very focused on innovation and we think Eric's insights and experience will be very valuable in helping to guide Apple in the years ahead," Jobs said.
But in 2008, a year after the iPhone came out, Google unveiled plans to release Android as a free software system that phone makers can use to make devices that compete with the iPhone. Jobs was so infuriated that he went to Google's Mountain View headquarters — about nine miles from Apple's Cupertino office— to try to stop the project, according to the biography.
Jobs' persuasive powers failed to sway Google's leaders.
Now, more than 550,000 devices running on Android are being activated each day. Apple, meanwhile, sold about 3 million fewer iPhones than anticipated in the July-September quarter, contributing to a sharp drop in the company's stock. The newest Android challenger to the iPhone, the Galaxy Nexus from Samsung, is scheduled to go on sale next month.
Although there's no indication in the book that he ever forgave Google, Jobs set aside his disdain for the company long enough to counsel Page nine months ago, according to the biography.
After Google's Jan. 20 announcement that Page would replace Schmidt as CEO in April, Page called Jobs for some pointers. Jobs told Isaacson that his first instinct was to reject Page with a curt expletive, but he reconsidered as he recalled his times as a young entrepreneur listening to the advice of elder Silicon Valley statesmen including Bill Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co.
Jobs didn't mince words when Page arrived at Jobs' Palo Alto home. He told Page to build a good team of lieutenants. In his first week as Google's CEO, Page reshuffled his management team to eliminate bureaucracy. Jobs also warned Page not to let Google get lazy or flabby.
"The main thing I stressed was to focus," Jobs told Isaacson about his conversation with Page. "Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It's now all over the map. What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest because they're dragging you down. They're turning you into Microsoft. They're causing you to turn out adequate products that are adequate but not great."
Page has shut more than 20 Google products and services in his first six months as Google's CEO as part of an effort to "put more wood behind fewer arrows." It was the type of discipline Jobs instilled on Apple when he returned in 1997 after a dozen years of exile. Jobs killed such products as the Newton handheld device and the PC clones that were allowed to run on Apple's operating system.
It still remains to be seen whether Jobs' words of wisdom or his grievances will leave a bigger imprint on Google.
Book Review: 'Steve Jobs' a rich portrait of a great mind
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Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson
Simon & Schuster
Steve Jobs takes off the rose-colored glasses that often follow an icon's untimely death and instead offers something far more valuable: The chronicle of a complex, brash genius who was crazy enough to think he could change the world - and did.
Through unprecedented access to Jobs with more than 40 conversations, including long sessions sitting in the Apple co-founder's living room, walks around his childhood neighbourhood and visits to his company's secretive headquarters, Isaacson takes the reader on a journey that few have had the opportunity to experience.
The book is the first, and with his Oct. 5 death at age 56, the only authorized biography of the famously private Jobs and by extension, the equally secretive Apple Inc. Through Apple, Jobs helped usher in the personal computer era when he put the Macintosh in the hands of regular people. He changed the course of the music, computer animation and mobile phone industries, and touched countless others with the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, Pixar and iTunes.
His biography, therefore, serves as a chronicle of Silicon Valley, of late 20th- and early 21st-century technology, and of American innovation at its best. For the generation that's grown up in a world where computers are the norm, smartphones feel like fifth limbs and music comes from the Internet rather than record and CD stores, “Steve Jobs” is must-read history.
Isaacson, whose other books include biographies of Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger, uses anecdotes from friends, family, colleagues and adversaries to illustrate sometimes deep contradictions in Jobs.
Given up for adoption at birth, the young Jobs would go on to deny his daughter Lisa for years. The product of 1960s counterculture who shunned materialism, he'd go on to found what would become the world's most valuable company. Deeply influenced by the tenets of Zen Buddhism, Jobs rarely achieved the internal peace associated with it and was prone to wild mood swings and mean outbursts at people who weren't living up to his expectations.
But it's these contradictions that make the out-of-this-world Apple magician human to a fault. And it's his uncanny ability to meld art and technology, design and engineering, beauty and function that allowed him to put the Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad into the hands of millions of people who didn't even know they wanted them. Jobs changed our relationship with technology because he understood humanity as well as he understood chips and interfaces.
“I'm one of the few people who understands how producing technology requires intuition and creativity, and how producing something artistic takes real discipline,” Jobs tells Isaacson in one of the extended passages in the book that are in his own words.
These longer interview excerpts pepper the book like rare gems. In them, Jobs offers eloquent, no-apologies explanations of why he did things the way he did and what was going on in his mind amid decisions at Apple and in his own life.
Apple fanboys, tech geeks and encyclopedic-minded journalists will likely comb the book for previously unknown details about Jobs and Apple. I went into it with only a little more knowledge than the average reader, and a tenuous, nostalgic connection to him through having attended high school with his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. I found myself combing the book not for secrets about Apple, but secrets about Steve Jobs the man, the father, the son.
With little patience for technical details, I found myself skimming through some of the book's passages detailing the creation of the Apple I computer, the Macintosh and the i-gadgets of Jobs' later years. It's in these passages, though, where the reader might find explanations for why the iPhone's battery is not replaceable, why Macs cost more than PCs and why the iPod's headphones are white.
The intimate chapters, where Jobs' personal side shines through, with all his faults and craziness, leave a deep impression. There's humour, too, especially early on when Isaacson chronicles Jobs' lack of personal hygiene, the barefoot hippie who runs a corporation. And deeply moving are passages about Jobs' resignation as Apple's chief executive, and an afternoon he spent with Isaacson listening to music and reminiscing.
“Steve Jobs” was originally scheduled to hit store shelves in 2012. Its publication date was moved up after Jobs died. As such, there are bits that might have benefited from another round of editing. There are anecdotes, for example, that Isaacson repeats as if introducing them to the reader for the first time.
In the end, it's a rich portrait of one of the greatest minds of our generation.
There’s been so much talk of Steve Jobs as a visionary, it’s hard to remember he was just a man.
Residents of California’s Palo Alto knew him that way.
“Sometimes when he was healthier, I would see him around rollerskating," said neighbour Gordon Reade. He would also see him at Whole Foods, and described him as friendly. “He was a very regular sort of guy."
Reade's mother, Gloria, said she remembered when Jobs moved into his house. The Apple co-founder bought the home for $2 million and then demolished an adjacent house so he could have a garden.
Meanwhile, a group of young fans soon began writing messages to Jobs on the sidewalk in front of his home with Sharpies.
Apolline Arnaud and her friend Frida Schaefer Bastian began the trend. Asked why she thought Steve Jobs was so special, the 12-year-old Arnaud said simply, "Because I like Apple products. He changed the world and he's a genius."
"With everything he did, he impacted so many people's lives, and with his thoughts and brains he changed the world,” added Bastian.
“We really [feel] sick for this special person who died,” said Danny Kuo. His daughter, Jasmine Sun, also left a message on the sidewalk.
“I feel odd. I don’t think anyone’s really grieving,” said recent college grad Alice Badger, who went to camp with Jobs' son many years ago and lives nearby. “I think we’re really proud of him.”
In a June 7, 2010 photo, Steve Jobs holds a new iPhone at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
Walter Isaacson
Simon & Schuster
Steve Jobs takes off the rose-colored glasses that often follow an icon's untimely death and instead offers something far more valuable: The chronicle of a complex, brash genius who was crazy enough to think he could change the world - and did.
Through unprecedented access to Jobs with more than 40 conversations, including long sessions sitting in the Apple co-founder's living room, walks around his childhood neighbourhood and visits to his company's secretive headquarters, Isaacson takes the reader on a journey that few have had the opportunity to experience.
The book is the first, and with his Oct. 5 death at age 56, the only authorized biography of the famously private Jobs and by extension, the equally secretive Apple Inc. Through Apple, Jobs helped usher in the personal computer era when he put the Macintosh in the hands of regular people. He changed the course of the music, computer animation and mobile phone industries, and touched countless others with the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, Pixar and iTunes.
His biography, therefore, serves as a chronicle of Silicon Valley, of late 20th- and early 21st-century technology, and of American innovation at its best. For the generation that's grown up in a world where computers are the norm, smartphones feel like fifth limbs and music comes from the Internet rather than record and CD stores, “Steve Jobs” is must-read history.
Isaacson, whose other books include biographies of Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger, uses anecdotes from friends, family, colleagues and adversaries to illustrate sometimes deep contradictions in Jobs.
Given up for adoption at birth, the young Jobs would go on to deny his daughter Lisa for years. The product of 1960s counterculture who shunned materialism, he'd go on to found what would become the world's most valuable company. Deeply influenced by the tenets of Zen Buddhism, Jobs rarely achieved the internal peace associated with it and was prone to wild mood swings and mean outbursts at people who weren't living up to his expectations.
But it's these contradictions that make the out-of-this-world Apple magician human to a fault. And it's his uncanny ability to meld art and technology, design and engineering, beauty and function that allowed him to put the Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad into the hands of millions of people who didn't even know they wanted them. Jobs changed our relationship with technology because he understood humanity as well as he understood chips and interfaces.
“I'm one of the few people who understands how producing technology requires intuition and creativity, and how producing something artistic takes real discipline,” Jobs tells Isaacson in one of the extended passages in the book that are in his own words.
These longer interview excerpts pepper the book like rare gems. In them, Jobs offers eloquent, no-apologies explanations of why he did things the way he did and what was going on in his mind amid decisions at Apple and in his own life.
Apple fanboys, tech geeks and encyclopedic-minded journalists will likely comb the book for previously unknown details about Jobs and Apple. I went into it with only a little more knowledge than the average reader, and a tenuous, nostalgic connection to him through having attended high school with his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. I found myself combing the book not for secrets about Apple, but secrets about Steve Jobs the man, the father, the son.
With little patience for technical details, I found myself skimming through some of the book's passages detailing the creation of the Apple I computer, the Macintosh and the i-gadgets of Jobs' later years. It's in these passages, though, where the reader might find explanations for why the iPhone's battery is not replaceable, why Macs cost more than PCs and why the iPod's headphones are white.
The intimate chapters, where Jobs' personal side shines through, with all his faults and craziness, leave a deep impression. There's humour, too, especially early on when Isaacson chronicles Jobs' lack of personal hygiene, the barefoot hippie who runs a corporation. And deeply moving are passages about Jobs' resignation as Apple's chief executive, and an afternoon he spent with Isaacson listening to music and reminiscing.
“Steve Jobs” was originally scheduled to hit store shelves in 2012. Its publication date was moved up after Jobs died. As such, there are bits that might have benefited from another round of editing. There are anecdotes, for example, that Isaacson repeats as if introducing them to the reader for the first time.
In the end, it's a rich portrait of one of the greatest minds of our generation.
Apple employees celebrate Jobs, stores close
CUPERTINO, Calif. - Apple Inc.'s famous penchant for secrecy remained intact Wednesday as the company's retail stores were curtained and employees were close-lipped about a private memorial service to celebrate the life of company co-founder Steve Jobs.
The service, announced to Apple employees in an email by CEO Tim Cook, took place Wednesday morning at company headquarters in Cupertino. It was also being webcast to employees worldwide.
Apple planned to keep its stores closed for several hours so employees could watch the service. At stores across Northern California, white curtains were draped across the windows to block the view from outside.
Near the campus before services started at 10 a.m. PDT, sheriff's deputies directed traffic and employees streamed toward the company's outdoor amphitheatre. Media handlers kept reporters from getting too close to the scene and tried to prevent them from speaking with employees.
Music drifted across the campus from the service, and employees leaving the service who wouldn't give their names said singer Norah Jones and the British rock band Coldplay performed live. At the end of the service, employees said Coldplay front man Chris Martin told everyone to get back to work because that's what Steve Jobs would have wanted.
The mood at the service was festive, not sombre, employees said. Speakers reportedly included Cook, Apple's chief designer Jony Ive and former Vice-President Al Gore, who reminisced about their experiences with Steve Jobs and Apple. Jobs died Oct. 5 at age 56 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Outside an Apple store in Manhattan, a sign read, "The Apple Store is temporarily closed. We'll reopen at 3 p.m." No reason was given. A few people were outside on a rainy and windy afternoon.
Bart Bingham, 36, a tattoo artist who lives in New York, was waiting for his girlfriend so they could shop for a gift for her birthday. He wasn't bothered by the fact that the store was closed and said he likely would find lunch and return.
"This doesn't bother me at all," he said.
Things looked normal inside except for the lack of customers and employees. Lights and laptops were still on. A reporter saw people gathered in an upstairs room, their backs facing the outside.
Analyst Stephen Baker, who tracks consumer electronics sales for research group NPD, said Apple doesn't stand to lose a lot of sales by closing its stores for a few hours. A customer or two might be unhappy when finding the store closed, but most would simply turn to other outlets that sell Apple products, he said.
Wednesday's service follows a memorial at Stanford University last Sunday for friends and family. That service at Memorial Church reportedly brought out tech titans including Oracle chief Larry Ellison and Microsoft's Bill Gates, as well as politicians including Bill Clinton. U2 frontman Bono and Joan Baez reportedly performed.
Associated Press technology writers Rachel Metz and video journalist Haven Daley in San Francisco and technology writers Barbara Ortutay and Peter Svensson in New York contributed to this report.
The service, announced to Apple employees in an email by CEO Tim Cook, took place Wednesday morning at company headquarters in Cupertino. It was also being webcast to employees worldwide.
Apple planned to keep its stores closed for several hours so employees could watch the service. At stores across Northern California, white curtains were draped across the windows to block the view from outside.
Near the campus before services started at 10 a.m. PDT, sheriff's deputies directed traffic and employees streamed toward the company's outdoor amphitheatre. Media handlers kept reporters from getting too close to the scene and tried to prevent them from speaking with employees.
Music drifted across the campus from the service, and employees leaving the service who wouldn't give their names said singer Norah Jones and the British rock band Coldplay performed live. At the end of the service, employees said Coldplay front man Chris Martin told everyone to get back to work because that's what Steve Jobs would have wanted.
The mood at the service was festive, not sombre, employees said. Speakers reportedly included Cook, Apple's chief designer Jony Ive and former Vice-President Al Gore, who reminisced about their experiences with Steve Jobs and Apple. Jobs died Oct. 5 at age 56 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Outside an Apple store in Manhattan, a sign read, "The Apple Store is temporarily closed. We'll reopen at 3 p.m." No reason was given. A few people were outside on a rainy and windy afternoon.
Bart Bingham, 36, a tattoo artist who lives in New York, was waiting for his girlfriend so they could shop for a gift for her birthday. He wasn't bothered by the fact that the store was closed and said he likely would find lunch and return.
"This doesn't bother me at all," he said.
Things looked normal inside except for the lack of customers and employees. Lights and laptops were still on. A reporter saw people gathered in an upstairs room, their backs facing the outside.
Analyst Stephen Baker, who tracks consumer electronics sales for research group NPD, said Apple doesn't stand to lose a lot of sales by closing its stores for a few hours. A customer or two might be unhappy when finding the store closed, but most would simply turn to other outlets that sell Apple products, he said.
Wednesday's service follows a memorial at Stanford University last Sunday for friends and family. That service at Memorial Church reportedly brought out tech titans including Oracle chief Larry Ellison and Microsoft's Bill Gates, as well as politicians including Bill Clinton. U2 frontman Bono and Joan Baez reportedly performed.
Associated Press technology writers Rachel Metz and video journalist Haven Daley in San Francisco and technology writers Barbara Ortutay and Peter Svensson in New York contributed to this report.
Palo Alto residents remember Steve Jobs the neighbour
There’s been so much talk of Steve Jobs as a visionary, it’s hard to remember he was just a man.
Residents of California’s Palo Alto knew him that way.
“Sometimes when he was healthier, I would see him around rollerskating," said neighbour Gordon Reade. He would also see him at Whole Foods, and described him as friendly. “He was a very regular sort of guy."
Reade's mother, Gloria, said she remembered when Jobs moved into his house. The Apple co-founder bought the home for $2 million and then demolished an adjacent house so he could have a garden.
Meanwhile, a group of young fans soon began writing messages to Jobs on the sidewalk in front of his home with Sharpies.
Apolline Arnaud and her friend Frida Schaefer Bastian began the trend. Asked why she thought Steve Jobs was so special, the 12-year-old Arnaud said simply, "Because I like Apple products. He changed the world and he's a genius."
"With everything he did, he impacted so many people's lives, and with his thoughts and brains he changed the world,” added Bastian.
“We really [feel] sick for this special person who died,” said Danny Kuo. His daughter, Jasmine Sun, also left a message on the sidewalk.
“I feel odd. I don’t think anyone’s really grieving,” said recent college grad Alice Badger, who went to camp with Jobs' son many years ago and lives nearby. “I think we’re really proud of him.”
Jobs was a genius in spotting ideas and talent'
Steve Jobs, born in California 56 years ago to a young cash-strapped couple, achieved the kind of world domination that eluded the Soviet Union. While not everyone could afford Jobs’s sleek products, nearly everyone knew about them – and aspired to buy them.
Initially, Apple’s goal was much more modest. “We didn’t think that computers would be able to play sophisticated games, play songs or do video editing, or even that the Internet would exist,” Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Jobs, recently told Metro.
“We thought people would use computers at home for very simple things, like organizing their recipe collection.” Soon, however, Jobs had raised the bar. At age 27, he recruited PepsiCo executive John Sculley to become Apple’s CEO with the question, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?”
“Steve set the bar high and moved it even higher,” Dean Hovey tells Metro. Hovey, founder of design firm IDEO, designed Apple’s groundbreaking mouse. Jobs got the idea for the mouse at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in Silicon Valley. “He was a genius in how he spotted ideas and talent,” says Hovey. “He got fanatical about it. PARC inspired him with a lot of stuff, but it doesn’t mean that they had a product that everyone could use.”
Fanatical, indeed. Jobs famously didn’t use consumer focus groups: he didn’t think people knew what they’d like. Instead, he trusted his own instinct, and with every new product he was proven right.
“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being,” wrote new Apple CEO Tim Cook in an email to the staff. “Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”
One person was hoping to say farewell to Jobs, but didn’t get a chance: his father. Syrian-born John Jandali, a Las Vegas casino executive. In the 1990s he told a newspaper he wanted to meet Jobs, but Jobs didn’t respond.
“I don’t want him to think I’m after his money,” Jandali told The Sun. “I have money. What I don’t have is my son.”
Initially, Apple’s goal was much more modest. “We didn’t think that computers would be able to play sophisticated games, play songs or do video editing, or even that the Internet would exist,” Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Jobs, recently told Metro.
“We thought people would use computers at home for very simple things, like organizing their recipe collection.” Soon, however, Jobs had raised the bar. At age 27, he recruited PepsiCo executive John Sculley to become Apple’s CEO with the question, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?”
“Steve set the bar high and moved it even higher,” Dean Hovey tells Metro. Hovey, founder of design firm IDEO, designed Apple’s groundbreaking mouse. Jobs got the idea for the mouse at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in Silicon Valley. “He was a genius in how he spotted ideas and talent,” says Hovey. “He got fanatical about it. PARC inspired him with a lot of stuff, but it doesn’t mean that they had a product that everyone could use.”
Fanatical, indeed. Jobs famously didn’t use consumer focus groups: he didn’t think people knew what they’d like. Instead, he trusted his own instinct, and with every new product he was proven right.
“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being,” wrote new Apple CEO Tim Cook in an email to the staff. “Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”
One person was hoping to say farewell to Jobs, but didn’t get a chance: his father. Syrian-born John Jandali, a Las Vegas casino executive. In the 1990s he told a newspaper he wanted to meet Jobs, but Jobs didn’t respond.
“I don’t want him to think I’m after his money,” Jandali told The Sun. “I have money. What I don’t have is my son.”
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