iPhone 5 Release Date: Google’s Eric Schmidt Denies Copycat Antics
Google’s Eric Schmidt recently expressed his feelings to the Associated Press regarding his company allegedly copying Apple strategies and implementing them into Android products.
The late Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, spoke about his hatred for Android in his biography penned by Walter Isaacson.
When describing a lawsuit against Android, Jobs elaborated on the reasons why Apple was attacking Google's Android.
“Our lawsuit is saying, Google you ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off,” said Jobs. “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.”
Schmidt decided to take a delicate approach to Jobs’ statement by first saying Jobs was a “fantastic human being” and his death was a tremendous loss to him personally.
He also took the higher ground regarding the comments in the biography.
“I decided not to comment on comments that are written in the book after his death,” said Schmidt to AP. “I don’t think it’s right. Most people would agree that Google is a great innovator, and I would also point out that the Android efforts started before the iPhone efforts. And that’s all I have to say.”
As far as timing, there is some truth to Schmidt’s statement.
“Google purchased Andy Rubin’s Android in 2005 but it is likely that development of the iPhone began long before the 2007 unveiling,” wrote technology website 9to5Mac.
The website added that Google changed the direction of the Android system and restructured it specifically for the touch-screen market around the time the iPhone launched.
Jobs vowed to eliminate Android and believed the company stole most of Apple’s ideas for its iPhone.
“I’m willing to go to thermonuclear war on this,” Jobs said in the biography passage. “They are scared to death because they know they are guilty.”
The iPhone is arguably the most popular smartphone in today’s cellular market. The iPhone 4S sold 4 million units in just four days making it the most successful iPhone launch to date.
The iPhone 5 is expected to drop in 2012.
