Earlier this week, an interview with Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page claimed that Steve Jobs really didn't hate Android as documented in his official biography. Now, the man who literally wrote the book on Jobs is setting the record straight, saying it was definitely not "for show."
Among a number of revelations in Walter Isaacson's official biography on Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs was the former CEO's intense hatred of Google's open-source Android, which Jobs felt was a "stolen product" that was willing to wage "thermonuclear war" against in court in an effort to destroy it. Curiously, that isn't quite the way one of Google's co-founders see it.
As reported earlier this week by Bloomberg Businessweek, Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page claims Jobs was just putting on a show for his compatriots at Apple, suggesting he didn't actually hate that cute little green robot.
"I think the Android differences were actually for show. I had a relationship with Steve. I wouldn't say I spent a lot of time with him over the years, but I saw him periodically," Page explained. "I think [the fury around Android] served their interests. For a lot of companies, it's useful for them to feel like they have an obvious competitor and to rally around that."
However, official Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson is now going on the record with Macworld UK, claiming the late CEO's rage was all too real, and sent Jobs back to a very dark place in the 1980's when Microsoft debuted their copycat Windows product.
"It's almost copied verbatim by Android," Isaacson says of Apple's iOS. "And then they licence it around promiscuously. And then Android starts surpassing Apple in market share, and this totally infuriated him. It wasn't a matter of money. He said: 'You can't pay me off, I'm here to destroy you'."
Unfortunately for Jobs, Isaacson feels that his successor will take another course of action. "Tim Cook will settle that lawsuit," the author concludes.
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