AfterDawn: News

Google's Larry Page: Steve Jobs trying to re-write history

Larry Page, co-founder of search giant Google has accused Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs of attempting to re-write history, and asserted that Google did not "follow" Apple into the mobile phone market. Page is referring to comments made by Jobs in February at an Apple town hall meeting, in which he blasted Google's "don't be evil" mantra as "bullshit" and accused the company of trying to kill the iPhone.

In a videotaped conference in June, Jobs echoed the same comments. However, Page has told Reuters that Jobs words are a "little bit of re-writing history."



"We had been working on Android a very long time, with the notion of producing phones that are Internet enabled and have good browsers and all that because that did not exist in the marketplace," Page said. "I think that characterization of us entering after is not really reasonable."

Google acquired Android Inc., a mobile startup, in 2005 and announced its Android mobile operating system in November 2007. The iPhone had debuted in January of that year. After the Android OS was announced and handsets rolled out that featured the operating system, relations between the two tech giants soured increasingly.

At Google's annual developers conference this year, vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra said that Google developed Android to avoid a "Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device and one carrier would be our only choice." Behind him, a picture read, "Not a Future We Want, 1984."

The stunt mirrors Apple's portrayal of IBM when it first launched the Macintosh, referencing of the George Orwell classic that describes the totalitarium regime known as "The Party."

Written by: James Delahunty @ 13 Jul 2010 10:34

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• 6 comments

• Mysttic

  Apple is doing a good enough job on their own killing their phone with their lame excuses behind the antenna issue. When the 3GS handles better than the 4, its time to go back to the drawing board. Jobs used the hype of previous releases as the selling point on 4 purposely because he wanted to be even cheaper than he already is. He knew despite the flaws, people would still do mass lineups and millions of pre-orders, but yea.. the Iphone is dieing..
  
  It would be amusing if Nintedo changed the 3DS to a phone just to get into apple's so called turf. I'd laugh, tho it'd prolly suck

  13.7.2010 11:13 #1

• Hyasuma

  Not just 3gs, i say even 2g and 3g had better signal than 4g. (i had 2g and 3g, now I went to Evo) I do have to admit that Apple do have better apps, specially certain games I want to play like street fighter, but i can just use my jail broken 3g to do that. Either way, hopefully the apps gets a ot better with Android Market.
  

  13.7.2010 11:26 #2

• dirtyash

  The android marketplace has nes, snes and sega emulators. So if you wanted to play street fighter on your evo, you could.

  13.7.2010 14:06 #3

• Morreale

  Originally posted by dirtyash: The android marketplace has nes, snes and sega emulators. So if you wanted to play street fighter on your evo, you could. I think the iPhone does too, it's just $10 for the emulator instead of like $4 lmao
  
  I'll take an Android device over an iPhone any day. Not only do I like the system and layout much more, but it's open source! If it wasn't for that, I'd still be dying with WinMo 6.5 on my phone x.x

  13.7.2010 14:55 #4

• Josipher

  Originally posted by Morreale: Originally posted by dirtyash: The android marketplace has nes, snes and sega emulators. So if you wanted to play street fighter on your evo, you could. I think the iPhone does too, it's just $10 for the emulator instead of like $4 lmao
  
  I'll take an Android device over an iPhone any day. Not only do I like the system and layout much more, but it's open source! If it wasn't for that, I'd still be dying with WinMo 6.5 on my phone x.x I actually AM dying with my aging HTC touch diamond (the first not the 2nd evolution)..still cant decide what i want more though.
  i won an ipod touch few months back so i know how fun and diverse games on iphone are..but im also a lefty..and I hate steve jobs..its like sophies choice

  13.7.2010 19:46 #5

• KillerBug

  Android has all the old platforms, and there is even work on a PS1 emulator. On top of that, many android devices have keyboards with d-pads; making gaming a lot easier. Plus, there are games like quake 3 on Android...you could never get away with that on the iMarket. Some devices can even me made to work with a PS3 DualShock3 controller, although I never tried it because I don't want to carry the controller with me.
  
  I say that Android is inspired by iPhoneOS, just as iPhoneOS was inspired by WinMo...that is how the cell phone industry works; one company is making something, and they stop advancing it, or even start to let it decline. The market screams for something better, and then someone else steps in with something better. iPhone still has the lead over Android, but at the rate they are going, they will be far behind within a year or two...they simply refuse to give people the software that they want, or the hardware quality that they (for some unknown reason) expect...when your new iPhone needs duct tape to make it work, there is a problem. When they include a flash player app that only works with youtube, and then claim that no one wants flash, there is a problem.

  13.7.2010 23:46 #6