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Steve Jobs calls Google's "Don't be evil" mantra "Bullshit" and Adobe "Lazy"

125 points by mocy 17y ago

aresant 17y ago
Job's is dead on. Google's goal is no less than to assimilate every piece of dearly held private information it can find about you to feed you advertising more efficiently, all while wiping out the individual industries that have made them popular (real estate's next!). Adobe hasn’t innovated a serious product since flash - it got huge, wiped out the competition through acquisitions and has been producing spammy me-too’s like their media player & mobile devices app ever since. Apple is of course, open to massive criticism themselves, but it’s fun to see Steve throw other monster media companies under the bus!
- zitterbewegung 17y ago
  Of course if we want to criticize apple in the same way they just want you to have complete and utter vendor lock in but thats almost the same as every other company.
- Flankk 17y ago
  I fail to see the problem here. All three of these companies produce excellent products. If this weren't the case, you wouldn't be so passionate in your arguments. I mean, your criticisms practically describe their business model.
- chrischen 17y ago
  Sorry I can't tell if you are sarcastic or not, but in case you're not: what's wrong with being targeted by advertising more efficiently. Theoretically speaking, isn't being targeted by advertising at absolute efficiency being given exactly what you want when you want it? I know in practice we get spammed by noise, but most of that noise is caused by inefficient advertising. But what's wrong with being targeted with something that genuinely piques your interest? People would love to pay for that, because frankly the information we need is not always presented to us right when we need it. Highly efficient advertising is giving people who have something to say, say it to the right person right when they need it. Don't misconstrue this as an endorsement of false or misleading advertising. I think there is the ability for advertising to serve the need to present the right information to the right people at the right time.
  - jodrellblank 17y ago
    """Theoretically speaking, isn't being targeted by advertising at absolute efficiency being given exactly what you want when you want it?""" That sounds an awful like going to a webpage, for example Google, typing in a query, and having the results be appropriate and useful. (Roughly, how Google was before it stopped being that and started serving useless shit like dozens of the same mailing list mirrors, shareware download sites and shopping aggregate sites). """Theoretically speaking, isn't being targeted by advertising at absolute efficiency being given exactly what you want when you want it?""" No, because part of the point of advertising is to convince you that you want it. Perfect advertising would be such that whatever they show you, you buy.
    - chrischen 17y ago
      Well targeted advertising is when you're looking for a car, and you get presented with information about cars. Perfectly targeted advertising is when you're looking for a car, and you get presented with information about a car that you buy, but that you would have bought if you spent time doing the research yourself. This is my definition of theoretically perfectly targeted advertising. This is what I think Google is trying to achieve.
      - jodrellblank 17y ago
        But perfect advertising is when you're looking for a car, and you get presented with information about a (more expensive) car that you buy, but that you wouldn't have bought if you spent time doing the research yourself. This is a worse outcome for you, but a better outcome for Google and the manufacturer. I'm not sure if this is possible, presumably if there is something that would convince you to buy it, enough research on your part would hit the same thing and you would buy it anyway - in that case it would be the same as your suggestion - but you wouldn't be doing research on "what's the most expensive car I could possibly convince myself to buy", you would be researching "what's the cheapest" or "the best form/function/cost trade". It still seems like good search results are what you'd want when buying a car, and adverts are what you wouldn't want. What would it take you to get into a state where you skip researching a purchase and take the first advert Google shows you, confident that it would be close to what you'd have found anyway?
- angelbob 17y ago
  Adobe didn't "innovate" Flash -- it bought it from Macromedia, who bought another company to get it. So apparently you have to go even farther back to find something innovative from Adobe :-)
  - cellis 17y ago
    Not true. They made massive optimizations to the JIT compiler as well as Actionscript. It still runs faster than js (even V8) for many pixel intensive operations. Just because the original idea of multimedia was from Macromedia, doesn't mean Adobe didn't innovate on top of it.
    - krakensden 17y ago
      The word innovation has lost all meaning. Improving a JIT compiler in 2005 (or later), by itself, isn't innovation, it's catching up to the state of the art. And saying Actionscript is faster than Javascript for pixel intensive operations is fairly meaningless, because that's not really dependent on the language, it's dependent on how those pixels get pushed to the screen.
      - cellis 17y ago
        I didn't say Actionscript was faster, did I? If you took it that way, allow me to clarify: I meant to say they improved the language, and that the JIT is faster than the chrome JIT.
        catch23 17y ago
        How is the flash vm faster than v8? It seems like v8 would have a slight advantage since their JIT doesn't produce intermediate code.
  - jdowdell 17y ago
    I was one of the first people at Macromedia to talk up FutureWave SmartSketch and CelAnimator. From what I've personally seen, the innovation of the entire Flash Platform under Adobe's stewardship has surpassed even the growth under Macromedia. You don't have to believe it. But that's what I've seen.
raganwald 17y ago
Adobe feels like the next Microsoft. Or maybe this one.
- irrelative 17y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted, because you're right. Adobe feels like that for the same reason: you get an annoying swagger when you own a monopoly. Adobe owns "rich content" on the web. And just like Microsoft, they also know what a pain technology transitions are. No company wants to support a flash version and an HTML5 version of their site/product/app. And just like Microsoft, they'll start to advertise how all the fun stuff runs on their platform instead of building new stuff. Realistically, flash is here to stay at least until IE supports HTML5 and achieves a critical mass. Until then, Adobe can give the finger to everyone and maintain control no matter how hard developers or competitors whine. Feels very familiar indeed.
  - etherael 17y ago
    And that's why they can afford to be lazy. And they absolutely are, the laziest software company I can think of. I hope they get the same kind of backlash Microsoft reaped from similar tactics, they are my least favourite company right now. That said, the Google comment just seems to be so much hot air; "I know we're being pricks, but everyone is, and anyone who says different is simply lying". Yeah, thanks Steve.
  - viraptor 17y ago
    The way you explained it, Apple seems to be just as "lazy"... and I agree. They control the iphone/pad/whatever app store and can approve something, or not. It won't matter for them and they can ignore anyone whining. They're so big, they don't have to care if your app ends up rejected and forgotten. Annoying swagger indeed.
    - ahlatimer 17y ago
      Are you arguing that Apple has a monopoly on phones? Even narrowing the category to smart phones doesn't really make enough of a difference for your point to be valid. Sure, there are plenty of people out there that have iPhones, but there's also people out there with phones running Android and PalmOS. There's people with Blackberry's and WinMos. If you don't like Apple's walled garden, you can easily get a decent experience buying another phone. You want rich media on the web? Well, good luck getting away with that without using Flash. I'm not arguing for or against the AppStore. I get why Apple is doing it, and I get why people don't like it, but comparing Apple to Adobe in this way is fruitless (no pun intended). Also, Apple has reversed rejections when the blogosphere cried foul.
angelbob 17y ago
It's important for Jobs to convince the rank-and-file at Apple that Google's "Don't Be Evil" is bullshit. Right now it looks an awful lot like Apple is being closed and evil, while Google is being open and excellent with Android apps. If that perception continues, Apple loses recruiting access to a lot of the best developers.
- ynniv 17y ago
  Not allowing third parties access to your walled garden is hardly in the same ballpark of possible evil as having access to all of your personal communications. In the worst case of Apple being evil, you can't run Bob's cool software without buying another (non-Apple) device. The worst case of Google being evil is that you go to jail (or worse depending on where you live). And yes, people have gone to jail based on searching Google [1][2]. Please keep some perspective. [1 | http://www.slaw.ca/2005/11/14/google-searches-used-in-evidence http://www.slaw.ca/2005/11/14/google-searches-used-in-eviden... ] [2 | http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/26/wireless_hacker_plea.html http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/26/wireless_hacker_plea.ht... ] ADDENDUM: Yes, the evidence in these cases was not provided by Google. No, that does not discredit my statement. The point is that the business Google is in has far more capacity for "evil" than the business Apple is in. Some comments have pointed out that Apple could have backdoors in their software that would allow them to be equally evil. While that is technically possible it would be easily detectable using network monitoring tools, and no one has found one. On the other hand, we have no idea how Google uses the data they have on us. They claim to play nice, but there is no way that anyone could verify this, and it could change retro-actively at any moment.
  - angelbob 17y ago
    I agree that Google's scope of possible evil is much more significant. But this is really all about perception, not reality. What Steve Jobs says at an internal Apple employee meeting isn't going to truly change Apple, but it may change how the employees view their company.
    - ynniv 17y ago
karzeem 17y ago
"Don't be evil" clearly is bullshit to the extent that you can always rationalize an evil action, and three words aren't going to stop you from doing what you want. On the other hand, though, a mantra like that can help entrench a culture that makes it harder for "evil" ideas to find roots. On balance, I'm not sure a mantra makes a difference. It's sort of dangerous when it becomes so entrenched that you start to think your actions are by definition non-evil. From time to time, we do see Google pulling out "it's not illegal if the President does it"-type rationalizations.
- pyre 17y ago
  That said, it's a tough pill to swallow coming from Apple of all people. Especially with the lawsuits over rumors/leaks. Especially with the, "you can't run non-approved apps on iPhone OS," attitude. If I had to rank companies on the spectrum of 'evil,' Apple would be closer to evil than Google.
  - karzeem 17y ago
    True, but Apple doesn't make any special claims that it's not evil. I think if people smell bullshit in "don't be evil", it's because looking at all companies, they see no correlation between claiming not to be evil and actually not being evil.
  - ellyagg 17y ago
    Tough pill to swallow? Apple never staked a claim to some fuzzy moral high ground. All Jobs is pointing out is that to the extent that you equate greediness with evil, Google is precisely as evil as every other company. Google is open where it thinks it can afford to be and not where it doesn't. So is Apple. Google locks down its algorithm to give a good user experience in search. Apple locks down its App Store to provide a good experience on the iPhone. Both of these moves are designed to make money, but mysteriously, Teflon Google easily sheds all acknowledgement of its motives. Maybe I'm not a good judge of morality. I still hold the romantic notion that people giving you money means people think you're doing something good for them. Apple's fans are some of the most loyal on the planet. It doesn't seem as though they're extorting folks into buying their stuff.
markkoberlein 17y ago
You know I miss the days when Apple (as in Steve) went after Microsoft and IBM with a vengeance. That battle didn't turn out too well for him, but it was fun to watch. It would be fun to see Apple and Google go at it. The history of the PC vs. Mac wars showed us that an open platform (as in able to be installed on any non-apple device) wins over a closed platform controlled by one company. It will be interested to see what happens this time around.
- pyre 17y ago
  > The history of the PC vs. Mac wars showed us that an open platform (as in able to be installed on any non-apple device) wins over a closed platform controlled by one company. It will be interested to see what happens this time around. Not necessarily. Care to comment on the era where Apple opened itself up to 3rd-party hardware vendors?
  - bad_user 17y ago
    When Apple licensed the Mac OS and Mac ROMs to third parties, in '94, the first clones hit the market in '95. The truth of the matter is, they did it too late, and when they did, their competition released Windows 95, and later Windows NT 4 ... which were seen as big improvements over their predecessors, and Mac OS 7 wasn't that great compared to Windows. Practically, it was too little, too late, and it only lasted until 97.
  - markkoberlein 17y ago
    I'm not saying that Apple wasn't successful. Just like they have become the "mind share" (RIM still has the market share) leader in the phone market, they ruled the personal computer market before the PC clones and Windows 95. I can see how they had some success during their time with 3rd-party hardware vendors but that was short lived never truly made a big challenge vs. the Win/PC market. Also, this was during the non-Steve Apple and we can be sure that he won't be opening up any Mac OS to third parties because he wants to keep that control. I'm saying that if you look at the entire time period from when Apple had a 90% PC market share to it's less than 10% and compare that to entire Win/PC market you have to say that a system that is open to 3rd parties is more successful than one which is locked down. The iPhone and iPad will probably be better products than any Android powered device but that doesn't matter because history shows that a closed strategy isn't successful in the long run.
benologist 17y ago
Part of me agrees with him re. Adobe. Adobe has a mountain of resources, talent and potential. I've been working with Flash for about a decade now - before Adobe even bought Macromedia - for all sorts of different use cases. In all that time it's been and to this day remains a horribly inefficient IDE to program in, and the FlashPlayer is a platform you have to optimize early and optimize often to keep running on performance-intensive uses. Every new version developers are just praying this time Adobe will give us a product they've gone back and fixed instead of just adding more stuff to it.
- chriskelley 17y ago
  >Every new version developers are just praying this time Adobe will give us a product they've gone back and fixed instead of just adding more stuff to it. I can't tell you how many times I have made this statement regarding After Effects. I've been hoping they would do this since version 6.5.
syncerr 17y ago
"No one will be using Flash, [Jobs] says. The world is moving to HTML5." Maybe I'm just a guy, maybe I was just a hopeful iPhone user, but for the record, the iPhone will NOT be seeing Flash - ever.
- GeorgeTirebiter 17y ago
  I'm not sure why you can't have something like flash. Imagine if the browser, noticing it's about to download a .flv, would not d/l the .flv, but would trampoline that to a backend server that would transcode to, say, .mp4 and then your browser (using AJAX for the async call) would load the .mp4 from the backend server. I know that more complicated flash stuff, like games, and interactivity, would not work this simple way; but if there's a non-flash way of getting the same functionality in the browser via HTML5, then couldn't this "server-in-the-middle" approach work?
  - GHFigs 17y ago
    noticing it's about to download a .flv The browser doesn't do this. The Flash applet in the page does this. Also, most of the Flash video content on the web is in .mp4 these days, and most big video sites already stream it to iPhones, etc. as .mp4, as if Flash didn't exist.
spaceman77 17y ago
Outside of right and wrong, Steve Jobs has a lot of attitude.
runn1ng 17y ago
And I call Apple's "Think different" mantra "bullshit".
- ugh 17y ago
  They are different. Very much unlike HP or Dell. Not even remotely similar to Nokia or Samsung. That motto is pretty content free, though. They are different, sure, but is that a good thing or a bad thing? Are they different in the right way or in the wrong way? That motto would also fit both Google and Microsoft without any problems. Those two are pretty unique. So no, no bullshit, but rather devoid of much useful content.
  - klipt 17y ago
    http://www.shoujoai.com/attach/95/707295/Unique http://www.shoujoai.com/attach/95/707295/Unique
- mortenjorck 17y ago
  "Don't be evil" was an internal slogan popularized by Google's founders. "Think Different" was an Apple marketing campaign in the late 1990s. That said, I agree with you that both are pretty ambiguous in their relation to each company's operations.
sorbits 17y ago
According to the article Jobs is quoted saying: “Make no mistake they [Google] want to kill the iPhone”. What motivation would Google have for this? Considering the apps and services they offer on the iPhone, including iPhone optimized versions of their web applications, this conclusion seems rather strange.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  Indeed. One of the best explanations I've read for Google getting into the mobile biz was to increase the opportunity for people to use the Web and see ads. Sounds more like Jobs wants to portray Apple as the underdog, despite the incredible success they've been having.
  - joubert 17y ago
    Then why would they make hardware?
    - jamesbritt 17y ago
      More control of the software, and providing options for how they can be used. Google doesn't just want to offer phones for one or other carrier; they want phones that work independent of any carrier. They want to change the mobile device landscape.
  - petsos 17y ago
    Because if Google actually managed to kill the iPhone, it wouldn't be like all the iPhones would just disappear. They would be replaced by Androids.
metaforth 17y ago
The thing I like about Steve is he calls it like he sees it.
- barrkel 17y ago
  Steve calls it like he wants you to hear it. What he says has no necessary relation to the truth or what he actually thinks, or sees.
  - GHFigs 17y ago
    Wow, you just called someone a liar on the internet. Good job, you totally deserve five up votes for that observation. Note that what I say has no necessary relation to the truth or what I actually think.
jsz0 17y ago
I think Steve's evangelical streak is showing here at least in regards to Google. You're either with us, or you're against us, and if you're against us it stands to reason that you're evil because we represent everything that is good and pure. I have concerns that Google's sheer size and participation in so many areas creates potential for accidental evil but I see nothing that suggests they are committing an Orwellian fraud on us by projecting anti-evil double speak to cover their true intentions.
wooster 17y ago
So, if I were SJ, and I trusted a guy from another company, gave him early confidential information on a revolutionary product I was working on, then found out he was going to undercut me with a crappy knockoff of my product with a wider distribution model, I'd be pretty pissed. I'd be especially pissed when it happened AGAIN 22 years later. I'd be even more especially pissed if the person doing it had no business model behind it other than some fuzzy idea of gathering more web page views which would eventually lead to more mobile advertising dollars. In fact, I'd probably buy a mobile advertising company or two to make sure that guy never saw a red cent of the money from the platform I helped revolutionize. So, on that front, do you see why SJ might be pissed?
- wooster 17y ago
  For the curious: November 1985: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0 November 2007: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) January 2010: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/apple-is-said-to-buy-mobile-ad-company/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/apple-is-said-to-bu...
- Tichy 17y ago
  Launching a mobile operating system seems very different from launching an iPhone. Possibly the time was just right? People forget that there where mobile phones before the iPhone, and programmable ones, too. You could even buy "apps" for them. What changed is the viability of mobile internet. It's only recently that it has become fast enough and affordable enough. Why should Apple be the only company inspired by these new possibilities?
  - cpr 17y ago
    Apple was the company most responsible for the viability of the mobile Internet, with their focus on making WebKit in the first place, building on KDE, and then making it practical on a mobile device.
    - Tichy 17y ago
statictype 17y ago
Are we allowed to flag this as flame-bait? Well, I just did.
Deestan 17y ago
Does the article mix his quotes up a bit to "spark controversy", as journalists are so fond of? The gist his quoted statements seem to be "Google are evil because they compete with one of our products". I thought it was common knowledge that competition is far from evil; it's healthy and necessary. It seems a bit absurd that Jobs would say that.
adolph 17y ago
It is interesting that the discussion is focused two partner-competitor relationships and not (as far as what has leaked) mostly-competitor relationships such as Microsoft, Palm/Elevation, Nokia or Sony. I wonder if the discussion was broader and the leaker has some reason to poison the cooperation that exists between these companies? It is ironic that Jobs voices frustration with Adobe for not putting more effort in optimizing Flash for MacOS, in that Adobe's conservation of resources comes from their lack of a strong competitor (and MacOS's weak share of their user base). It is ironic because without Google's potential competition in handheld devices Apple would undoubtably be just as lazy/conservative as Adobe. It is shocking that Google is more of a handset discussion topic instead of Palm, Nokia and Microsoft. I think this speaks to how orthogonal Google's business model is compared to Apple's. Apple's mindset is one of fee for service, like HBO. Google's mindset is one of free for ads, like broadcast TV. This not only gives Google a consumer-cost advantage in handsets but also in areas such as online services.
matrix 17y ago
Like Steve jobs, I'd love to ditch Flash too, because frankly I can't really ever bring myself to like using products from the company that brings us delights such as Adobe Reader, Adobe's updaters, etc. However. Unlike Steve, I don't have an army of developers to build and test Javascript and CSS to make sure it works across all browsers (as you know... it won't). I use Flash/Flex because it means I spend more time creating value and less time chasing browser incompatibility bugs. I think Flash will be here for quite some time yet.
biafra 17y ago
The real reason why Flash is not on the iPhone or the iPad is: Apple gets 30% for every purchase in the AppStore. With Flash on the iPhone many could go around that. This is also the reason why there are no interpreters or a JVM on the iPhone.

125 points by mocy 17y ago

Job's is dead on. Google's goal is no less than to assimilate every piece of dearly held private information it can find about you to feed you advertising more efficiently, all while wiping out the individual industries that have made them popular (real estate's next!). Adobe hasn’t innovated a serious product since flash - it got huge, wiped out the competition through acquisitions and has been producing spammy me-too’s like their media player & mobile devices app ever since. Apple is of course, open to massive criticism themselves, but it’s fun to see Steve throw other monster media companies under the bus!

zitterbewegung 17y ago
Of course if we want to criticize apple in the same way they just want you to have complete and utter vendor lock in but thats almost the same as every other company.
Flankk 17y ago
I fail to see the problem here. All three of these companies produce excellent products. If this weren't the case, you wouldn't be so passionate in your arguments. I mean, your criticisms practically describe their business model.
chrischen 17y ago
Sorry I can't tell if you are sarcastic or not, but in case you're not: what's wrong with being targeted by advertising more efficiently. Theoretically speaking, isn't being targeted by advertising at absolute efficiency being given exactly what you want when you want it? I know in practice we get spammed by noise, but most of that noise is caused by inefficient advertising. But what's wrong with being targeted with something that genuinely piques your interest? People would love to pay for that, because frankly the information we need is not always presented to us right when we need it. Highly efficient advertising is giving people who have something to say, say it to the right person right when they need it. Don't misconstrue this as an endorsement of false or misleading advertising. I think there is the ability for advertising to serve the need to present the right information to the right people at the right time.
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  """Theoretically speaking, isn't being targeted by advertising at absolute efficiency being given exactly what you want when you want it?""" That sounds an awful like going to a webpage, for example Google, typing in a query, and having the results be appropriate and useful. (Roughly, how Google was before it stopped being that and started serving useless shit like dozens of the same mailing list mirrors, shareware download sites and shopping aggregate sites). """Theoretically speaking, isn't being targeted by advertising at absolute efficiency being given exactly what you want when you want it?""" No, because part of the point of advertising is to convince you that you want it. Perfect advertising would be such that whatever they show you, you buy.
  - chrischen 17y ago
    Well targeted advertising is when you're looking for a car, and you get presented with information about cars. Perfectly targeted advertising is when you're looking for a car, and you get presented with information about a car that you buy, but that you would have bought if you spent time doing the research yourself. This is my definition of theoretically perfectly targeted advertising. This is what I think Google is trying to achieve.
    - jodrellblank 17y ago
      But perfect advertising is when you're looking for a car, and you get presented with information about a (more expensive) car that you buy, but that you wouldn't have bought if you spent time doing the research yourself. This is a worse outcome for you, but a better outcome for Google and the manufacturer. I'm not sure if this is possible, presumably if there is something that would convince you to buy it, enough research on your part would hit the same thing and you would buy it anyway - in that case it would be the same as your suggestion - but you wouldn't be doing research on "what's the most expensive car I could possibly convince myself to buy", you would be researching "what's the cheapest" or "the best form/function/cost trade". It still seems like good search results are what you'd want when buying a car, and adverts are what you wouldn't want. What would it take you to get into a state where you skip researching a purchase and take the first advert Google shows you, confident that it would be close to what you'd have found anyway?
angelbob 17y ago
Adobe didn't "innovate" Flash -- it bought it from Macromedia, who bought another company to get it. So apparently you have to go even farther back to find something innovative from Adobe :-)
- cellis 17y ago
  Not true. They made massive optimizations to the JIT compiler as well as Actionscript. It still runs faster than js (even V8) for many pixel intensive operations. Just because the original idea of multimedia was from Macromedia, doesn't mean Adobe didn't innovate on top of it.
  - krakensden 17y ago
    The word innovation has lost all meaning. Improving a JIT compiler in 2005 (or later), by itself, isn't innovation, it's catching up to the state of the art. And saying Actionscript is faster than Javascript for pixel intensive operations is fairly meaningless, because that's not really dependent on the language, it's dependent on how those pixels get pushed to the screen.
    - cellis 17y ago
      I didn't say Actionscript was faster, did I? If you took it that way, allow me to clarify: I meant to say they improved the language, and that the JIT is faster than the chrome JIT.
      - catch23 17y ago
        How is the flash vm faster than v8? It seems like v8 would have a slight advantage since their JIT doesn't produce intermediate code.
- jdowdell 17y ago
  I was one of the first people at Macromedia to talk up FutureWave SmartSketch and CelAnimator. From what I've personally seen, the innovation of the entire Flash Platform under Adobe's stewardship has surpassed even the growth under Macromedia. You don't have to believe it. But that's what I've seen.

raganwald 17y ago

Adobe feels like the next Microsoft. Or maybe this one.

irrelative 17y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted, because you're right. Adobe feels like that for the same reason: you get an annoying swagger when you own a monopoly. Adobe owns "rich content" on the web. And just like Microsoft, they also know what a pain technology transitions are. No company wants to support a flash version and an HTML5 version of their site/product/app. And just like Microsoft, they'll start to advertise how all the fun stuff runs on their platform instead of building new stuff. Realistically, flash is here to stay at least until IE supports HTML5 and achieves a critical mass. Until then, Adobe can give the finger to everyone and maintain control no matter how hard developers or competitors whine. Feels very familiar indeed.
- etherael 17y ago
  And that's why they can afford to be lazy. And they absolutely are, the laziest software company I can think of. I hope they get the same kind of backlash Microsoft reaped from similar tactics, they are my least favourite company right now. That said, the Google comment just seems to be so much hot air; "I know we're being pricks, but everyone is, and anyone who says different is simply lying". Yeah, thanks Steve.
- viraptor 17y ago
  The way you explained it, Apple seems to be just as "lazy"... and I agree. They control the iphone/pad/whatever app store and can approve something, or not. It won't matter for them and they can ignore anyone whining. They're so big, they don't have to care if your app ends up rejected and forgotten. Annoying swagger indeed.
  - ahlatimer 17y ago
    Are you arguing that Apple has a monopoly on phones? Even narrowing the category to smart phones doesn't really make enough of a difference for your point to be valid. Sure, there are plenty of people out there that have iPhones, but there's also people out there with phones running Android and PalmOS. There's people with Blackberry's and WinMos. If you don't like Apple's walled garden, you can easily get a decent experience buying another phone. You want rich media on the web? Well, good luck getting away with that without using Flash. I'm not arguing for or against the AppStore. I get why Apple is doing it, and I get why people don't like it, but comparing Apple to Adobe in this way is fruitless (no pun intended). Also, Apple has reversed rejections when the blogosphere cried foul.

angelbob 17y ago

It's important for Jobs to convince the rank-and-file at Apple that Google's "Don't Be Evil" is bullshit. Right now it looks an awful lot like Apple is being closed and evil, while Google is being open and excellent with Android apps. If that perception continues, Apple loses recruiting access to a lot of the best developers.

ynniv 17y ago
Not allowing third parties access to your walled garden is hardly in the same ballpark of possible evil as having access to all of your personal communications. In the worst case of Apple being evil, you can't run Bob's cool software without buying another (non-Apple) device. The worst case of Google being evil is that you go to jail (or worse depending on where you live). And yes, people have gone to jail based on searching Google [1][2]. Please keep some perspective. [1 | http://www.slaw.ca/2005/11/14/google-searches-used-in-evidence http://www.slaw.ca/2005/11/14/google-searches-used-in-eviden... ] [2 | http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/26/wireless_hacker_plea.html http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/26/wireless_hacker_plea.ht... ] ADDENDUM: Yes, the evidence in these cases was not provided by Google. No, that does not discredit my statement. The point is that the business Google is in has far more capacity for "evil" than the business Apple is in. Some comments have pointed out that Apple could have backdoors in their software that would allow them to be equally evil. While that is technically possible it would be easily detectable using network monitoring tools, and no one has found one. On the other hand, we have no idea how Google uses the data they have on us. They claim to play nice, but there is no way that anyone could verify this, and it could change retro-actively at any moment.
- angelbob 17y ago
  I agree that Google's scope of possible evil is much more significant. But this is really all about perception, not reality. What Steve Jobs says at an internal Apple employee meeting isn't going to truly change Apple, but it may change how the employees view their company.
  - ynniv 17y ago

karzeem 17y ago

"Don't be evil" clearly is bullshit to the extent that you can always rationalize an evil action, and three words aren't going to stop you from doing what you want. On the other hand, though, a mantra like that can help entrench a culture that makes it harder for "evil" ideas to find roots. On balance, I'm not sure a mantra makes a difference. It's sort of dangerous when it becomes so entrenched that you start to think your actions are by definition non-evil. From time to time, we do see Google pulling out "it's not illegal if the President does it"-type rationalizations.

pyre 17y ago
That said, it's a tough pill to swallow coming from Apple of all people. Especially with the lawsuits over rumors/leaks. Especially with the, "you can't run non-approved apps on iPhone OS," attitude. If I had to rank companies on the spectrum of 'evil,' Apple would be closer to evil than Google.
- karzeem 17y ago
  True, but Apple doesn't make any special claims that it's not evil. I think if people smell bullshit in "don't be evil", it's because looking at all companies, they see no correlation between claiming not to be evil and actually not being evil.
- ellyagg 17y ago
  Tough pill to swallow? Apple never staked a claim to some fuzzy moral high ground. All Jobs is pointing out is that to the extent that you equate greediness with evil, Google is precisely as evil as every other company. Google is open where it thinks it can afford to be and not where it doesn't. So is Apple. Google locks down its algorithm to give a good user experience in search. Apple locks down its App Store to provide a good experience on the iPhone. Both of these moves are designed to make money, but mysteriously, Teflon Google easily sheds all acknowledgement of its motives. Maybe I'm not a good judge of morality. I still hold the romantic notion that people giving you money means people think you're doing something good for them. Apple's fans are some of the most loyal on the planet. It doesn't seem as though they're extorting folks into buying their stuff.

markkoberlein 17y ago

You know I miss the days when Apple (as in Steve) went after Microsoft and IBM with a vengeance. That battle didn't turn out too well for him, but it was fun to watch. It would be fun to see Apple and Google go at it. The history of the PC vs. Mac wars showed us that an open platform (as in able to be installed on any non-apple device) wins over a closed platform controlled by one company. It will be interested to see what happens this time around.

pyre 17y ago
> The history of the PC vs. Mac wars showed us that an open platform (as in able to be installed on any non-apple device) wins over a closed platform controlled by one company. It will be interested to see what happens this time around. Not necessarily. Care to comment on the era where Apple opened itself up to 3rd-party hardware vendors?
- bad_user 17y ago
  When Apple licensed the Mac OS and Mac ROMs to third parties, in '94, the first clones hit the market in '95. The truth of the matter is, they did it too late, and when they did, their competition released Windows 95, and later Windows NT 4 ... which were seen as big improvements over their predecessors, and Mac OS 7 wasn't that great compared to Windows. Practically, it was too little, too late, and it only lasted until 97.
- markkoberlein 17y ago
  I'm not saying that Apple wasn't successful. Just like they have become the "mind share" (RIM still has the market share) leader in the phone market, they ruled the personal computer market before the PC clones and Windows 95. I can see how they had some success during their time with 3rd-party hardware vendors but that was short lived never truly made a big challenge vs. the Win/PC market. Also, this was during the non-Steve Apple and we can be sure that he won't be opening up any Mac OS to third parties because he wants to keep that control. I'm saying that if you look at the entire time period from when Apple had a 90% PC market share to it's less than 10% and compare that to entire Win/PC market you have to say that a system that is open to 3rd parties is more successful than one which is locked down. The iPhone and iPad will probably be better products than any Android powered device but that doesn't matter because history shows that a closed strategy isn't successful in the long run.

benologist 17y ago

Part of me agrees with him re. Adobe. Adobe has a mountain of resources, talent and potential. I've been working with Flash for about a decade now - before Adobe even bought Macromedia - for all sorts of different use cases. In all that time it's been and to this day remains a horribly inefficient IDE to program in, and the FlashPlayer is a platform you have to optimize early and optimize often to keep running on performance-intensive uses. Every new version developers are just praying this time Adobe will give us a product they've gone back and fixed instead of just adding more stuff to it.

chriskelley 17y ago
>Every new version developers are just praying this time Adobe will give us a product they've gone back and fixed instead of just adding more stuff to it. I can't tell you how many times I have made this statement regarding After Effects. I've been hoping they would do this since version 6.5.

syncerr 17y ago

"No one will be using Flash, [Jobs] says. The world is moving to HTML5." Maybe I'm just a guy, maybe I was just a hopeful iPhone user, but for the record, the iPhone will NOT be seeing Flash - ever.

GeorgeTirebiter 17y ago
I'm not sure why you can't have something like flash. Imagine if the browser, noticing it's about to download a .flv, would not d/l the .flv, but would trampoline that to a backend server that would transcode to, say, .mp4 and then your browser (using AJAX for the async call) would load the .mp4 from the backend server. I know that more complicated flash stuff, like games, and interactivity, would not work this simple way; but if there's a non-flash way of getting the same functionality in the browser via HTML5, then couldn't this "server-in-the-middle" approach work?
- GHFigs 17y ago
  noticing it's about to download a .flv The browser doesn't do this. The Flash applet in the page does this. Also, most of the Flash video content on the web is in .mp4 these days, and most big video sites already stream it to iPhones, etc. as .mp4, as if Flash didn't exist.

spaceman77 17y ago

Outside of right and wrong, Steve Jobs has a lot of attitude.

runn1ng 17y ago

And I call Apple's "Think different" mantra "bullshit".

ugh 17y ago
They are different. Very much unlike HP or Dell. Not even remotely similar to Nokia or Samsung. That motto is pretty content free, though. They are different, sure, but is that a good thing or a bad thing? Are they different in the right way or in the wrong way? That motto would also fit both Google and Microsoft without any problems. Those two are pretty unique. So no, no bullshit, but rather devoid of much useful content.
- klipt 17y ago
  http://www.shoujoai.com/attach/95/707295/Unique http://www.shoujoai.com/attach/95/707295/Unique
mortenjorck 17y ago
"Don't be evil" was an internal slogan popularized by Google's founders. "Think Different" was an Apple marketing campaign in the late 1990s. That said, I agree with you that both are pretty ambiguous in their relation to each company's operations.

sorbits 17y ago

According to the article Jobs is quoted saying: “Make no mistake they [Google] want to kill the iPhone”. What motivation would Google have for this? Considering the apps and services they offer on the iPhone, including iPhone optimized versions of their web applications, this conclusion seems rather strange.

jamesbritt 17y ago
Indeed. One of the best explanations I've read for Google getting into the mobile biz was to increase the opportunity for people to use the Web and see ads. Sounds more like Jobs wants to portray Apple as the underdog, despite the incredible success they've been having.
- joubert 17y ago
  Then why would they make hardware?
  - jamesbritt 17y ago
    More control of the software, and providing options for how they can be used. Google doesn't just want to offer phones for one or other carrier; they want phones that work independent of any carrier. They want to change the mobile device landscape.
- petsos 17y ago
  Because if Google actually managed to kill the iPhone, it wouldn't be like all the iPhones would just disappear. They would be replaced by Androids.

metaforth 17y ago

The thing I like about Steve is he calls it like he sees it.

barrkel 17y ago
Steve calls it like he wants you to hear it. What he says has no necessary relation to the truth or what he actually thinks, or sees.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  Wow, you just called someone a liar on the internet. Good job, you totally deserve five up votes for that observation. Note that what I say has no necessary relation to the truth or what I actually think.

jsz0 17y ago

I think Steve's evangelical streak is showing here at least in regards to Google. You're either with us, or you're against us, and if you're against us it stands to reason that you're evil because we represent everything that is good and pure. I have concerns that Google's sheer size and participation in so many areas creates potential for accidental evil but I see nothing that suggests they are committing an Orwellian fraud on us by projecting anti-evil double speak to cover their true intentions.

wooster 17y ago

So, if I were SJ, and I trusted a guy from another company, gave him early confidential information on a revolutionary product I was working on, then found out he was going to undercut me with a crappy knockoff of my product with a wider distribution model, I'd be pretty pissed. I'd be especially pissed when it happened AGAIN 22 years later. I'd be even more especially pissed if the person doing it had no business model behind it other than some fuzzy idea of gathering more web page views which would eventually lead to more mobile advertising dollars. In fact, I'd probably buy a mobile advertising company or two to make sure that guy never saw a red cent of the money from the platform I helped revolutionize. So, on that front, do you see why SJ might be pissed?

wooster 17y ago
For the curious: November 1985: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0 November 2007: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) January 2010: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/apple-is-said-to-buy-mobile-ad-company/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/apple-is-said-to-bu...
Tichy 17y ago
Launching a mobile operating system seems very different from launching an iPhone. Possibly the time was just right? People forget that there where mobile phones before the iPhone, and programmable ones, too. You could even buy "apps" for them. What changed is the viability of mobile internet. It's only recently that it has become fast enough and affordable enough. Why should Apple be the only company inspired by these new possibilities?
- cpr 17y ago
  Apple was the company most responsible for the viability of the mobile Internet, with their focus on making WebKit in the first place, building on KDE, and then making it practical on a mobile device.
  - Tichy 17y ago

statictype 17y ago

Are we allowed to flag this as flame-bait? Well, I just did.

Deestan 17y ago

Does the article mix his quotes up a bit to "spark controversy", as journalists are so fond of? The gist his quoted statements seem to be "Google are evil because they compete with one of our products". I thought it was common knowledge that competition is far from evil; it's healthy and necessary. It seems a bit absurd that Jobs would say that.

adolph 17y ago

It is interesting that the discussion is focused two partner-competitor relationships and not (as far as what has leaked) mostly-competitor relationships such as Microsoft, Palm/Elevation, Nokia or Sony. I wonder if the discussion was broader and the leaker has some reason to poison the cooperation that exists between these companies? It is ironic that Jobs voices frustration with Adobe for not putting more effort in optimizing Flash for MacOS, in that Adobe's conservation of resources comes from their lack of a strong competitor (and MacOS's weak share of their user base). It is ironic because without Google's potential competition in handheld devices Apple would undoubtably be just as lazy/conservative as Adobe. It is shocking that Google is more of a handset discussion topic instead of Palm, Nokia and Microsoft. I think this speaks to how orthogonal Google's business model is compared to Apple's. Apple's mindset is one of fee for service, like HBO. Google's mindset is one of free for ads, like broadcast TV. This not only gives Google a consumer-cost advantage in handsets but also in areas such as online services.

matrix 17y ago

Like Steve jobs, I'd love to ditch Flash too, because frankly I can't really ever bring myself to like using products from the company that brings us delights such as Adobe Reader, Adobe's updaters, etc. However. Unlike Steve, I don't have an army of developers to build and test Javascript and CSS to make sure it works across all browsers (as you know... it won't). I use Flash/Flex because it means I spend more time creating value and less time chasing browser incompatibility bugs. I think Flash will be here for quite some time yet.

biafra 17y ago

The real reason why Flash is not on the iPhone or the iPad is: Apple gets 30% for every purchase in the AppStore. With Flash on the iPhone many could go around that. This is also the reason why there are no interpreters or a JVM on the iPhone.