Steve Jobs Biography Describes Jobs As Hell Bent On Destroying Android
The biography on the life of Steve Jobs is about to be released on Monday and is simply titled, “Steve Jobs.” The book is being written by Walter Isaacson and provides new insight on Jobs and not only his falling out with Google’s Eric Schmidt but the Android operating system Schmidt helped commission as an answer to Apple’s iOS.
According to the book, to say Jobs was never happy with the idea of Android would be an understatement. So much in fact that Mr. Jobs was actually hell bent on destroying Android back in January 2010 when HTC and Google unveiled the Nexus One. According to Isaacson, Jobs compared Google’s new device to the equivalent of “grand theft.” The book further quotes Jobs as saying,
“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.”
The Associated Press who got some eyes on time with the book said,
Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google’s Internet-based word processing program. In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a Palo Alto, Calif., cafe, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn’t interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says.
“I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.” The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.
Wow Steve, why didn’t you tell us how you really felt? It’s clear Jobs took threats to Apple and iOS very personally. When it comes down to the argument of who-stole-what-from-who, it’s nothing new that operating systems “borrow” ideas from one another. What matters is not only who can come up with the best ideas off-the-bat — but also who is better at improving those ideas. Please, try to keep it classy in the comments, guys. Cheers.
[Via AP]