Steve Jobs biography reveals he thought Bill Gates “ripped off other people’s ideas”

Anonymous

Not like Apple never ripped off Xerox and passed off the UI concept as their own innovation. It’s not like Apple ripped off ideas from Windows or Unix. And iCloud, Siri, and iPad were the first of their kind, right? Um, no. Guess again!

I give one credit to Apple, and that is they are good at making their products very usable to non-traditional users of technology. Anything else they claim as innovation is a joke to me. Even the multi-touch interface that iPhone was hailed for really existed before in other products (like Microsoft Surface).

vikram333

When did Apple suggest that the GUI was their own innovation. Jobs has always credited Xerox for that. Apple also didn’t rip-off Xerox. They paid Xerox in 100k pre-IPO shares for the privilege to get ideas from it.

Also, Apple took the idea of a GUI from Xerox and made it better. The menu bar, drop down menus, movable windows, grab and re-sizable windows, the trash can were all Apple ideas and weren’t a part of the original Xerox GUI. The Xerox GUI was the inspiration and was much improved on by Apple.

Microsoft didn’t improve on Apple’s ideas, Microsoft just copied Apple without changing much. There is a reason why Windows GUI follows the same conventions as Apple, because they copied them directly.
http://geeknizer.com Geeknizer

It was steve who said they didnt want settlement with Android for money. How can he settle with Xerox? I loved Steve but he thought only he’s right and everyone else is wrong. That sucks.
Anonymous

Don’t rush to paint a rosy picture on Xerox-Apple affair. Xerox sued Apple later and lost. Xerox did not consider Apple’s offer fair, and rightly so because Apple infringed FIRST and offered compensation LATER, as it did with NOKIA’s IP. Ironically, I still believe that Apple did the “right” thing with Xerox anyway.

Windows was INFLUENCED by MacOS and not copied after it. Why does no one mention MS’s work with IBM on OS2/Warp on which MS contributed more than IBM. It was the work on OS2 that made MS dropping the IBM partnership and deciding to go their own way.

Conclusion, Apple stole ideas from Xerox, and MS stole ideas from Apple. Suites were filed and lost by Xerox,respectively Apple. It is ok to “borrow” ideas as long as you don’t “borrow” EXACT implementations on said ideas. Jobs is being a hypocrite here. It is ok though, he is only human. I share his selfishness sometimes.
Anonymous

You are wrong. Apple didn’t infringe first and offer compensation later, they didn’t even have a GUI out when they went to see Xerox. They gave Xerox PRE-IPO stock in 1979 for the right to view the Xerox GUI.

Just because Xerox filed a suit doesn’t make them right or wrong – as it does’t make Apple right for filing a suit against MSFT or Google. I am against software patents in general regardless of who came up with what idea first.

The issue is about most innovative and Apple clearly was much more so than MSFT in those days. And it is pretty clear that MSFT simply copied every Mac (and NeXT) convention for their Windows OS’s outright with very little changes – which is why Gates managed to bamboozle Scully with a contract for the right to copy the Mac in 1985 for providing application development. Gates wanted the right to copy the Mac, got it in writing and went out and did so. This is hardly a secret. My point is that that they hardly improved what Apple did.

That’s my broader point. Windows looked and worked exactly like the Mac. The Mac did not look and work like the Xerox Star.

I give MSFT credit though, Windows 8 is clearly innovative – good for them. They are building and improving and Steve Ballmer takes a lot of flak but I credit him and MSFT for clearly innovating here.
Anonymous

@vikram333 please stop talking bull and stop trying to defend apple. Apple never had an original idea that was innovative, they just improved on technology and if we want to go and blame Microsoft of stealing ideas we should do the same with Apple because all that MS has done has been to improve on existing technology. And we are talking about those that existed. The problem is that Steve Jobs was a total asshole and thought his ideas were original when they were not. perhaps we was still using acid. Did you not know that the guy was such an asshole that he denied being the father of his own daughter. And after years have passed and his daughter being raised he recognize her. If you ever read a book written by bill gates you get the feeling that this is a man that know’s what he’s talking about. Let me ask you this, did the Wright Brothers invent the airplane? mmm… sure for modern day times they did but did they come up with the idea? hell no… as a matter of facts if we go back in time Galileo was first to come up with the idea. So let’s stop bullshiting ourself and be defending a dead asshole who perhaps thought he was a God(no disrespect). That Apple has had a “infringe first and offer compensation later” is not far from being true. This has been their ways and approach for years so let’s not get over our head.
Anonymous

@nickcraze:twitter - So you don’t address any of my specific points and instead of debating about innovation you change the subject to Jobs being a bad father (of which you don’t know the private details – no one does except for Jobs and his girlfriend).The fact is that the Xerox GUI came out in the mid 70′s and that no one bought the Xerox Star which came out in the 80′s looked and worked much different than the Mac.Computers that were commercially available looked and worked one way before the Mac came out and after it came out they all worked and looked like the Mac.Similarly phones looked and worked much different than the iPhone and after the iPhone they look and work much like the iPhone. I will give credit to Windows Phone 7 which is building on the iPhone and doing their own thing which is great – unlike Android which is basically iOS with minor changes.I’ll also give credit to Steve Ballmer for Windows 8 which is the first innovative MSFT OS since Windows first came out. Again kudos…… But prior to Windows 8, it is very clear that Windows copied almost all of the Mac conventions. Note that Windows did not copy the Xerox Star conventions. Apple deserves credit for their innovation for building on top of Xerox’s work. MSFT deserves much less because they generally simply copied the Mac (and the NeXT).
Anonymous

@vickram:disqus You mention Next OS and Mac OS in the same sentence. I could have sworn Next OS popped up in the late 90s.

You really think MS copied Next OS?
Anonymous

@vikram333 It’s funny that you said MS had a “contract” to use the GUI from Apple and yet still describe their use of it as steeling. I guess Apple is steeling from MS right now considering the amount of “contracts” that they have to use MS’s stuff. Bottom line, your version of the actual events SUCK. You conveniently spin it so that MS looks like a total douche.
The truth is MS LICENSED the use of the GUI from Apple and when Windows started gaining popularity and Apple started going broke (cause and effect), they figured lets sue MS. They tried to sue for 189 GUI elements but non of them stuck in court. It was proven that 179 were licensed by MS and the other 10 were thrown out.
Anonymous

Ysleiro – NeXT started in 1988. Look at NeXT OS screenshots in the early 90′s and then look at what MSFT produced soon after.
brevi – that doesn’t change my point whether MSFT legally licensed the Mac GUI or not. I’m not accusing MSFT of stealing anything. My point is that they copied Apple.

There is a reason why Windows doesn’t look like the Xerox Star OS and why Xerox failed to succeed in making PCs. Their GUI was a good initial idea but very incomplete and not workable. Go on Youtube and look at how it worked. It is much different than Windows or Mac OS.

There is a reason why MSFT Windows looks and works like the Mac. Microsoft copied it. They legally licensed it from Scully but undoubtedly it was a very similar and direct copy of the Mac.

I give credit where it is due. The Windows 8 OS is innovative at the Metro level. I can credit Microsoft fully for that.
http://twitter.com/Fire_Six Sriram Sarma

Isnt it absurd to say MSFT copied these from Apple? They also copied it from Xerox. And as for the UI similarity, there are none! The screen behaviour is totally different from Apple’s. I havent seen a right click in Apple’s mouse and neither have I seen a Maximize, Minimize and Close buttons in Apple’s windows.
Coming to the near past, tablets were first demoed by BillG and a few years down the line you have iPads.
The first smart device/phone were also by Microsoft.
Finally, I dont see where you sourced the PreIPO stuff between Xerox and Apple, but its totally untrue.
Give credit for Apple’s hardware design innovation and MSFT for most of the software innovations! The bottom line is, even Apple’s OS kernel is borrowed while MSFT has completely rewritten the NT kernel.
Acevedo

Never uses a mac? Yes there has always been a Maximize, Minimize and Close buttons in Apple’s UI. Yes macs have had a right click since the 90′s. They just don’t sell mice with two buttons because they feel it’s a simpler user experience. After working for years with user support, two mouse buttons caused many issues. As a power user the right click is important but not causal users. Since USB was implemented you could use any mouse you wanted.

Now the real issue here. “Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything” I think the best way to view it is Gates would see or get an idea and just implement or copy it. Jobs would use his imagination to determine how best to implement and improve upon the idea. And along the way extend to idea beyond it’s original intention.

The tablet/iPad is the greatest example of this. Gates worked in this way: I want this form factor and to not have to write on a legal pad. How do I do the exact same actions in this form factor. Jobs worked this way: : how do I best do things with this form factor how would my behavior change with this form factor.

Now which way requires more imagination?
Anonymous

@vikram333:disqus Again offering stock to take a peak IS NOT THE SAME as a deal to use the tech. Xerox agreed for Apple to take a peak and NOT to incorporate Xerox tech in future Apple products. It is why Xerox sued. As hard as you try to diminish it, it is just NOT the same as licensing. Apple got its foot through Xerox’s door with stocks but did not actually LICENSE said tech. Fact is Jobs used Xerox ideas to create his product and I do believe that Xerox wouldn’t have done anything with it anyway.

Now on to Gates. Gates warned Jobs that he is going to use Apple’s ideas(which were in fact Xerox’s). Gates used them, used the principle of the GUI thus pissing on their amicable relation. Nothing wrong in taking a good idea from a competitor’s product. But copying(as you wrongly imply) means replicating down to the codebase itself(CHINA style). THIS HAS NEVER BEEN PROVED in any court of law.

Now, the Scully agreement; it is nothing less than Adobe requiring low level kernel access to OSX which Apple refuses to give, in order to offer a better Flash experience; this is the reason why Flash sucks on OSX and works better on Windows. For development purposes Gates got MAC OS access, good for him. MS learned a thing or two from that, definitely so, does that mean that MS copied MacOS, HELL NO.

Microsoft DID improve on Apple’s(Xerox’s) ideas. Your disagreement on this represents your personal view. Originally Jobs was for designing an OS that is tailored for a linear interaction, thus the one-click Apple mouse(back in the day I mean); Gates in his argument with Jobs on this issue was for interaction with the OS and giving the user choices, THUS the mouse2 button and the context menu. In fact I read on AppleInsider an Apple loyalist comment on how Apple actually paid or pays for the “maximizing” of windows feature that is now present in OSX Lion.

Every frickin’ GUI on the planet follows the same conventions as Xerox’s original sketch. That sketch was improved upon by Apple and later MS and later by Linux and Sun with Solaris. Is there something wrong about using the same “common sense” conventions? Why don’t you also mention IBM’s revolutionary and ahead of its time OS2/Warp co-developed with MS, also using windowed GUI. No one talks about it and no one mentions MS’s work in developing it and also OS2′s windowed look. Did IBM’s windowed OS also “copy” Apple, because sure as hell it looked similar by your arguments ? There was an old snarky saying that OS2/Warp was MS “best work”.

PS: If patents are a measure of improvements MS is no.2 in tech related patents after IBM which is the mother of all patent holders.
Anonymous

Apple didn’t give Xerox millions of dollars in stock without the expectation that they couldn’t use ideas from the Xerox GUI. That’s why they gave the stock. You don’t get something for nothing. Xerox sued Apple AFTER Apple sued MSFT for exploiting the agreement that MSFT had to copy the Mac conventions in case they too could make money from MSFT via Apple. The judge threw out the Xerox case because they had given permission to Apple that Apple paid for with stock. Similarly, the judge through out parts of the Apple case against MSFT because MSFT had an agreement with Apple to be able to copy the Mac GUI and the judge felt that the contract was extendible to later MSFT OS versions.

I will also point out that the MSFT agreement with Apple had nothing to do with kernel access. This agreement happened in 1985. It was a copyright agreement to allow them to copy Apple conventions - the menubar, dropdown windows, the trashcan etc… They already had access to the Mac OS as early as 1981 when Apple asked MSFT to build apps for them. That’s when they decided to copy the Mac GUI.

Gates literally got an agreement from Scully to allow him to copy the Mac look and feel and Mac conventions at the end of 1985, in exchange for MSFT continuing to build Mac applications. This ends any argument about whether MSFT copied Apple or not. They literally had a contract that said that they could.

Microsoft copied Apple… with Apple’s permission.
Anonymous

@vikram333:disqus Vikram, do you honestly believe that DROP DOWN MENUS should be patented ? Or intuitive GUI features? Yes we take them for granted now and someone thought about them(XEROX) but
incorporating these features(with or without agreement) is not COPYING an entire OS. NT!=Unix.

So when Apple faithful say that MS copied Apple thinking about using same GUI features, why do they make it sound like the NT Windows is a carbon copy KIRF of OSX; diminishing the work of thousands of software engineers that couldn’t care less about OSX ?

Thus I believe that my point still stands, MS did NOT copy Apple by using GUI features. And Windows was not and is not a copy of OSX. Even if Gates did not agree with Scully, and shamelessly used GUI elements, as long as they were implemented in an entirely different architecture(as is NT), it is not copying.
http://twitter.com/Fire_Six Sriram Sarma

@@vikram333:disqus A couple of corrections regarding your comments and more comments!
Talking about Steve Jobs not accepting his own child is a well known fact and it shows a bit about his character. Again, he later accepted her, so no more speculation here.
I am not sure where you get your facts about the rest of the stuff about Windows adapting from Apple until Win7, but both companies have copied lots of features from each other.
-The message toasters in iOS5 was around in WP7 and Android.
-Siri is nothing more than a voice recognition engine that’s been present in WP7.
-Cloud services provided by iOS was again copied from its rivals.
THE GUI FEATURE WAS COPIED FROM XEROX. END OF STORY!!!! From there on MSFT came up with its own innovations like the Start button etc.

Unless MSFT and Google sent someone into the future and copied it from apple, it isnt possible.
This conversation can go on forever, but with little productivity!
Anonymous

Of course the GUI came from Xerox – no one disputes that.

I do have a question though, why did Windows when it came out suddenly look like the Mac and not Xerox? Why did Windows suddenly have drop down menus, resizable Windows, a menu bar at the top, a trash can etc… when Xerox didn’t have those things?

Why did Windows suddenly get these features?

You put Windows, the Mac and Xerox side by side and the Xerox machine looks different. Why is that? Why, if the Mac simply copied Xerox and Windows copied Xerox too via the Mac, why does Windows have all these features that the Xerox GUI didn’t have?
Anonymous

@vikram333:disqus Incorporating those features does not make Windows a copy of OSX. Look’n’ feel is just appearance. You are the one that does not understand. Apple used Xerox’s idea of a GUI and MS used Apple’s idea of the GUI. Nothing wrong with using software look’n'feel. The court agreed with me. You want to be politically correct yes MS did “copy” GUI elements but not the implementation of said elements. As long as we are talking about Unix vs. NT we cannot speak about copying.
Anonymous

Apple didn’t rip off xerox. I never heard the part about paying xerox anything actually. From what I’ve read and heard, Jobs and his Mac team were “invited” by Xerox to look at the stuff some of their engineers were working on. In fact in the Triumph of the Nerds documentary the program manager for the stuff that Jobs got access to see refused to share any of their work at the time and said would only show him and his posse the fruits of their work if she was ORDERED to.

In the interview during that documentary Jobs, the visionary that he is, even says that he completely did not see some of the other things they showed him at the time such as email and networked computers to name a few. His mind was so blown by the GUI and the mouse that he completely missed those items. And by he I am assuming he meant he and his Mac team because he wasn’t the only one from apple who went on this visit.

Microsoft did not copy apple without changing much. That’s pure bull! There is no way you can put a Mac of that era and a PC of that era and confuse the 2 for being an apple product. Moreover, when Windows began to gain traction, besides being GUI based, there was hardly any similarities with the Mac. On top of that Microsoft spent years working on what was supposed to replace Win 3.x with IBM which eventually was abandonned by MS and a short while later yielded Windows 95 and then NT.

You have to remember back then the patent system was different. Software was considered very difficult to patent. Today you can patent pretty much anything if the verbiage you use is right…

Steve Jobs never called himself visionary. People gave him that title. Mainly because they had no clue where he was getting his visions from…
Guest

Then why did Xerox later sue Apple?
Gabriel

In response to vikram333, if Apple was so innovative, why don’t they have 90% of the PC market? And have their own office software, etc. And please don’t don’t mention the ipad/iphone because as mentioned above, we already know these were not originally Apples ideas, they were someone else’s. So, it’s a matter of how a product is presented/executed. MS executed the PC well and offered it to the masses while jobs offered his products to his cult of followers until the last ten years or so. He saw the impact MS made by focusing on the world instead of specific groups of individuals and he copied Bills business model. Fact is that in the early days, his business model wasn’t good & Bills was
Acevedo

“why don’t they have 90% of the PC market?” Because Bill Gates was a better business man in his youth then Steve Jobs. Also Jobs was not around from 1985 – 1996. Remember Microsoft only really exploded into the mainstream in 1995. By the way windows had 97% of the market a few years ago. Where did that 7% go?
Acevedo

Oh and during his absence he guided Pixar into a animation powerhouse. And started the company and OS that is the basis of Apple current Operating systems. Yes I know OS X / IOS is based in UNIX, but it is the only mainstream UNIX GUI.
Guest

(below)

That would be Next, which of course failed miserably in the market. Funny how you leave out things that don’t fit your meme, no?
Anonymous

Acevedo – Actually, to be fair, Apple was more successful than Microsoft at the time when Jobs was there. Gates outsmarted Scully and IBM (and everyone else) when Jobs got squeezed out and had to start from scratch.

“Guest” – NeXT wasn’t a commercial success at the time, but Tim Berners-Lee created the first WWW pages with it and it sold to Apple at a profit and then the NeXT OS became OSX which branched into IOS – both which are hugely successful…

…but I concede your point as it wasn’t a hugely successful business in itself.

But the thread isn’t arguing about business success, but whether the fact that Apple (and NeXT) under Jobs was more innovative than MSFT in those days – which they clearly were. PCs looked one way pre-1984 Mac and then another way soon after the 1984 Mac – and they all looked and worked like the Mac OS which Windows (legally) copied.
zato

“why don’t they have 90% of the PC market?”When IBM chose Microsoft/Bill Gates for their PC OS, the game was OVER for Apple. IBM was the most powerful company on the planet at the time. IBM was both feared and almost worshipped by the corporate world. Unless you were an adult at the time, you can’t imagine the power and respect IBM had. Bill Gates was an IBM worshipper, and wanted to build a company in the image of IBM. Apple saw its sales to business drop off to almost nothing after the intro of the first IBM PC. The home PC market was the only hope for Apple. Millions of PC’s were sold to business, and that produced lots of software. People then chose IBM and clone PC’s for home use because they could copy the MS Office install discs at work and bring them home. The huge numbers of PC’s produced lots of gaming software and almost none for the Mac. All in all, it’s amazing Apple even survived, let alone became the largest company in the world.
Anonymous

“if Apple was so innovative, why don’t they have 90% of the PC market?”…

Um…because they effectively kicked out Jobs in 1985 and Scully and the others ran the company down. They had a nearly 10 year headstart in the OS that Windows couldn’t match till Windows 95.
You think that if Jobs hadn’t been turfed that he would sign a contract with Gates that allowed Microsoft to copy the Mac GUI as Scully did at the end of 1985? Do you really think that Jobs would have been so foolish?

Microsoft managed to get their market share for a lot of reasons among them:

1) Steve Jobs got squeezed out of Apple in 1985 and was gone from Apple for 12 years till 1997.

2) Bill Gates is a brilliant businessman

3) John Scully stupidly licensed the Mac GUI look and feel to Gates in 1985

4) Apple under Scully, Spindler and Amelio dropped the ball when they had a 10 year headstart on other commercial PC makers.

5) Microsoft engaged in anti-competitive practices for which they were later convicted of.
Guest

The court found against you on #5, declaring that their monopoly had been acquired legally. So no. their initial success in becoming the market leader had nothing to do with aniti-competitive practices. Unless of course you know more than the court did?
Anonymous

You are wrong. The courts around the world – the US and Europe – found that MSFT engaged in anticompetitive practices for which they paid out many billions of dollars. You are confusing monopoly with anti-competitive. My point #5 is correct.

This was the conclusion of the Netscape portion of the trial. There were many other cases as well that the DOJ had but IE and Netscape is what the DOJ focused on in regards to anti-competitive behaviour and MSFT was convicted of that.
Guest

Why are we compairing Biil Gates with steve Jobs? one makes software …another makes hardware. Steve Jobs should be compared with Samsung or HTC Engineers.
Anonymous

Before the windows explosion of the 90′s all PC’s were niche and expensive tools. That explosion created the critical mass for the Internet to take off, and the digital world we live in today. Before MS was relevant, in the golden days of Apple, you had as many different architectures as there were companies, of which Apple was obviously the best due to their privileged relationship with IBM. There was no standardization. You had no choice but to buy expensive hardware for your chosen platform. You were literally charged through the roof for parts and such. The entire landscape moved at snail’s pace as a consequence.

Bill Gates, more of an engineer than Jobs ever was, truly believed that software should not be hampered by hardware. His unique vision was that hardware is just redundant hardware and should not be an obstacle for software. Thus he embarked in creating an alliance of hardware makers, bringing standardization to a market that desperately needed it. And he was right, after all the mac is an IBM PC nowadays.

Personally I find it appalling that I have to buy a separate identically configured desktop machine to run a piece of software. It is something that should have stayed in the 80′s. It is both counter intuitive and expensive.

MS was anti-competitive because they had a monopoly; it is all relative. Gates acted like Apple acts with its OS today. It is illegal only when you have a monopoly(notion that eluded Gates, USA and the EU had to tell him that). When you don’t(like Apple) it is ok to be “anti-competitive” with software/hardware bundling and tie-ins. Same practice, different market share.
Anonymous

leafcarver – I’m not sure where to begin here with all the misinformation…

“…in the golden days of Apple, you had as many different architectures as there were companies, of which Apple was obviously the best due to their privileged relationship with IBM…”

Apple was fighting IBM. They had no “privileged relationship with IBM”. Jobs in those days mocked IBM in exactly the same way that he later started on Microsoft.

“…MS was anti-competitive because they had a monopoly; it is all relative. Gates acted like Apple acts with its OS today. It is illegal only when you have a monopoly…”

No. There are several items to being anti-competitive. That is why the law separates anti-competitive behaviour from simply monopolistic and anti-trust behaviour. You don’t have to be a monopoly to do ant-competitive behaviour. Microsoft was doing sketchy things like creating phony errors and purposefully crashing other companies software that they were competing with, including what they did with Netscape in showing error messages that made people think that there was something wrong with the software when they loaded it. That was the tip of the iceberg that they got caught on. If you read the case details, there were several companies that they screwed over that the case was streamlined to focus on Netscape because it was a slam dunk to prove. They hid OS APIs did all sorts of things to ensure that Office and other MS products like IE would win out by doing things to screw up other software vendors.

It is true that there are things that you can’t get away with that you once could if you were not a monopoly but Microsoft was a monopoly that also behaved very badly in using their Windows OS monopoly to submarine other people’s software. Microsoft later spinned it as what you are suggesting, that because of a natural monopoly their normal business practices that they used to do got them in trouble. If you read the details of the case it was far more than that. There was a reason why Judge Jackson called Microsoft one of the most dishonest and deceptive companies that he had ever dealt with. Look into the case with Quicktime and Intel and MSFT together and how they literally stole software from Apple and then got caught and had to change their video software.

Microsoft and Gates absolutely deserve credit for helping spread the PC revolution that Apple ignited with the Apple II, that IBM later jumped into with their PC and that Microsoft spread with their standardized OS. But if you complain about expensive Apple hardware, I can complain about the overpriced Microsoft software just as easily.

Apple hardware isn’t overpriced, its just that they ship higher spec machines. If you build an equivalent machine with the same quality screens and other components and unibody aluminum for strength and thinness, any PC would cost in the similar neighbourhood. An Intel processor is only part of the computer. That is why PC makers are finding it difficult to ship a MacBook Air for the same price as Apple. The Samsung S9s started out more expensive than Apple. Companies with a MacBook Air-like design that are much cheaper, don’t have total aluminum chasis, backlit keyboards etc…Check out the latest Acer MacBook Air competitor to see what I mean.

Apple builds higher costing machines but on average they are also better machines. You get what you pay for. Having said that there is also nothing wrong with a cheaper PC that is more affordable. A computer is a necessity and I hope that Apple starts reducing pricing over time.

I use a PC for work and a Mac at home, OSX is simply works much, much better. There is a reason why OSX consistently rates better in consumer satisfaction year after year than Windows machines.
KoalaCastle

Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple in 1985 because he almost ran the company to the ground and John Scully saved it. Jobs wanted the Mac to be easy to use like a TV… right idea but wrong time. If Jobs was such a genius, then Next Computer would have been a success and proved that Apple made a mistake firing him. If anything, Next proved Apple’s board made the right decision.

Back in 1985, personal computer industry had new technology every year, but Jobs wanted a simple non-expandable Mac. That meant when new technology like hard drives and CD ROM became viable on the personal computer, it can’t be installed on the Mac except by hacking. Imagine running your Mac on slow floppy disks which is what you had to do in 1985. In addition, people buy computers not for the cool user interface but for the killer apps. While MS-DOS had a difficult to use command line interface, it had all the killer apps like Lotus 123 and Word Perfect. The Mac couldn’t compete with DOS. In other words, Gates played a role in getting Jobs fired which would explain Jobs dislike of Gates.

After Jobs firing, Scully changed Mac’s direction and made a color Mac that was expandable. By the late 80s after Jobs was fired, Mac became a serious challenge to MS-DOS based computers until 1993 when Windows 3.1 was released. If you were around in the late 1980s, John Scully was a rock star CEO on Wall Street.
Anonymous

Talk about forgetting history.

“…If Jobs was such a genius, then Next Computer would have been a success and proved that Apple made a mistake firing him. If anything, Next proved Apple’s board made the right decision…”

This is hilarious. Without Jobs Apple was run into the ground. When Jobs came back, Apple this last 12 months has 50% more revenue than Microsoft. Any blind man could tell you that Steve Jobs is indeed a “genius” and that Apple made a mistake in 1985. Would Steve Jobs have licensed the Mac GUI and conventions to Microsoft in 1985 like John Scully did, giving MSFT the ammo to grow WIndows? Hell no.

Apple had a slow year in 1985 but the economy was generally poor and soon after the very same Mac started selling like crazy – which is what made Scully the “rock star” – it was the same Mac. Of course the first Mac had limitations but it quickly became hugely popular and became Apple’s flagship product as the technology got cheaper and improved and everybody soon realized that the Mac GUI was the best way to go.

NeXT didn’t completely succeed for many reasons but that is because Windows was entrenched and because of Microsofts anti-competitive practices. NeXT was great technology. The very first internet WWW pages was created on it by Tim Berners-Lee and the NeXT technology was basically OS X in Apple. It wasn’t a huge commercial success but was successful in many other important ways. You make it seem like Jobs was a bad manager or something when he had with Apple created the Apple II, the Mac, invested in Adobe and with them single handedly created modern desktop publishing, NeXT technology which created the world wide web and on the side a little company called Pixar.

“…Imagine running your Mac on slow floppy disks which is what you had to do in 1985…”

Um…the very basic CD-Rom was introduced as a future computer technology in 1985. CD-Roms only became popular in computers in the 90′s. In 1985, everybody used floppy discs on any mainstream PC. Remember that in 1985, the Mac was the ONLY commercial PC to have a mouse GUI so why are you talking about CD-ROMS? In 1998 when the first iMac came out, it was Jobs who first killed the floppy drive in mainstream PC’s as the iMacs were the first PCs to ship entirely without a floppy drive and only CD-Roms for which they received a lot of criticism for. Jobs was always ahead of the curve technically and this was true of the Mac in 1985.”…While MS-DOS had a difficult to use command line interface, it had all the killer apps like Lotus 123 and Word Perfect. The Mac couldn’t compete with DOS. In other words, Gates played a role in getting Jobs fired which would explain Jobs dislike of Gates…”Sure, DOS had some great apps but you might want to recall that Excel and Word were first developed for the Mac by the selfsame Microsoft so it wasn’t an issue of not being able to compete with DOS. Also, Apple as a company in 1985 was far bigger than Microsoft and in the late 80′s was a roaring success based on the very same Mac product line. The problem that Apple had was that they fired Jobs in 1985 during a slow US economy and when initial Mac sales weren’t as hoped. By 1986 everything had changed and the promise of the Mac turned Apple into a huge force. Stupidly they squeezed out Jobs who was the visionary and who was 100% CORRECT about the value of the Mac. Apple coasted for 10 years and got caught by Microsoft with Windows 95 but that was 100% the fault of the leadership of Apple at the time and would never had happened if Jobs was still in charge.
The proof of Jobs ability as a manager is what he did after he came back to Apple. The iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iPad and whatever great new products that are in the pipe.

Next year this time, Apple will be by revenues 100% bigger than Microsoft and that will be because of Steve Jobs and the legacy of his leadership.
Sarah_gilbert

Steve Jobs was a known a$$hole. He only ranted about competitors. He was a master copycat. I don’t respect him at all. His death is overblown. None of the apple products have changed the world. They have changes experience of a few, but name me one product that has changed the world or made you a better person. This is a consumer blood sucking company.
LittleSmarter

Jobs was a mature poet or as T.S. Elliot put it Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. They did not invent the smartphone, they stole the idea and reshaped the industry in their own vision.

For Apple didn’t invent the iPod, they stole the idea and made the music industry their own. The way we buy and listen to music is now shaped almost entirely by Apple’s vision. Jobs did not have a reality distortion field he molded reality to fit his vision. Simply poetic.
Anonymous

See Steve Jobs always thought it was OK to steal as long as you admit you’re stealing. He feels like Bill Gates never thanked him for stealing from Xerox and Gates simply went ahead and in his mind, in Jobs mind that is, stole from him what was stolen from Xerox.

If you take what Gates said about the guy being ”weird” and “fundamentally odd” and apply it whenever a bit of Jobism is used or an apple fanboy tries to make point, life would make much more sense and things would fall into perspective.

I love how Gates confirmed what I’ve been saying all along about Jobs not being a technologist. LOL! “He really never knew much about technology…”! I first got that from watching and reading what Woz was saying over the years. If you go back and pay attention to what Woz was saying when they would ask him about how it all started and how great was Jobs, he would always in his own subtle way, slip a comment about how Jobs was really more of a cheerleader and a great salesman but it was he [Woz] who did all the real work.
Hildron

Apple didn’t rip off Xerox. Xerox gave Apple their concept.
Joe

And it was Jonathan Ive, not Steve Jobs, who designed Apple products to appeal to non-traditional consumers, and Ives took his ideas from the genius Dieter Rams of Braun:

http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future

I think the most detestable thing Jobs has done is posthumously glorify the use of LSD in his biography. Wonderful guy.
guest

“The more I learn about this Steve Jobs Biography the less respect I seem to have for him”

Well said.

I do respect Gates.

Anonymous

Shows you don’t always have to invent something to be succesful. I also appreciate people when they improve existing technology my life, rather than adding more and more gadgets/new technology to it.

You get my point?

Anonymous

What Gates did was he made software as important a revenue source as hardware. Before that, nobody thought you could make tons of money on software.

http://twitter.com/Fire_Six Sriram Sarma

It is a bit of a surprise since Steve ripped a lot from others and promoted it in Apple products. Whatever the fanboys might say, the fact is, GUI was ripped by Steve Jobs from Xerox!!!!

Anonymous

True: Apple, Amiga, Commodore, Microsoft, IBM etc. etc. ripped Xerox concept……… making it a commercially success.
Anonymous

Correct, Laser Printers, Ethernet Networking, Object Oriented Programming, etc. All came from Xerox. Yet I don’t see a biography from Xerox crying about it.

C’mon, Steve!
http://joelfalconer.com Joel Falconer

Actually at one point Xerox tried to sue Apple over their use of the GUI, in the middle of Apple’s suit against Microsoft and others for using the GUI. The case was dismissed, but it turns out Xerox did at one point cry about it — though they did invite the Apple team in to look at and learn from their GUI in the first place.

Anonymous

How can Steve Jobs think that Bill Gates rips other people’s ideas when he does it all the time? Is he in his own RDF?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Pedro-Roque/100000194503830 Pedro Roque

Have respect for the men. He invented cancer!
Anonymous

Stay classy.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Pedro-Roque/100000194503830 Pedro Roque

I don’t own any apple product, so I don’t need to pretend I’m classy.
Guest

Yeah, like your ex messiah. /s
Anonymous

@ Pedro I am thinking he died thinking he invented Cancer… oohh and on another note did people not realize how arrogant steve Jobs was? because if they haven’t they should look back in history and for what he was known at Apple.
Sarah_gilbert

He died of HIV and invented C+HIV
Anonymous

and here I thought it was just his zodiac sign.

Anonymous

The guy is mean, has been mean. Just before that D5 conference…. he said that about iTunes in Windows – It’s like giving a glass of ice water to someone in Hell — he seems to have forgotten the iTunes is fugly, slow and bloated piece of software.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Pedro-Roque/100000194503830 Pedro Roque

You got it wrong. Clearly what he meant to say is that windows is like a nice cup of watter for someone in iTunes hell!

Anonymous

interesting! isn’t it?!!!

http://twitter.com/_Armo David

There’s a reason why I’ve always disliked Steve Jobs with a burning, fiery passion. It’s because of shit like this.

Adam

i remember steave saying and i quote that he ‘shamelessly steal’ good ideas and that ‘good artist copies, great artist steal’

Guest

Yeah, Jobs was nothing if not a hypocrite.

J. Davies

I don’t think he was being unpleasant on purpose, to
be frank. My guess is he saw what he wanted to create — this vast vision –
clear as crystal in his head, and he wanted it DONE. People were necessary to
help make it, and Jobs was smart enough to seduce them on side… but
ultimately they were mere irritating obstacles in his Quest. If you weren’t
useful, you were worse than muck. Even profits, the engine oil of business,
were a necessary evil to keep on racing to the end of that rainbow.

You know what? That’s all fine. He made products, which you
can use or disregard. I’m frankly relieved he wasn’t born in a different time
and place. He could well have been one of those hair-raising, charismatic
dictators, complete with a bloodthirsty cult of followers who’d die for his
vision.

Anonymous

What do you mean “He could have been.” You mean he wasn’t one now?
Anonymous

I think the “vast vision” or “visionary” view of Steve Jobs is greatly exaggerated. He was good a putting things that already existed together but i wouldn’t give him so much credit. He knew when something look really good and took advantage of it before anyone else. Such as the MP3 Player, iPhone. If you look back and see Apple’s accomplishment all they did is put eye candy to something that already existed or was being developed. When Microsoft demonstrated the Surface the iPhone was nowhere near to exist and the all of the sudden Apple buys this tech company that does touch. When Microsoft demonstrated universal search on Longhorn Apple when ahead and implemented it into their OS. That he took something that look good and developed it and simplify it was one thing but that he was this super genius that had visions come to him in his dream is pretty much a fairy tale as Adam and Eve.
Tom

No, he wasn’t being unpleasant on purpose. He’s just unpleasant *all the time*.

Mr Lefleur

“He really never knew much about technology, but he had an amazing instinct for what works,” Case closed and iOS and OSX are some of the worst looking UIs even some linux distros look better and he has the nerve to talk about taste but i have to say they make some good looking hardware

Anonymous

I wouldn’t go that far as being the worse. It is appealing to the masses so I think it’s going a bit far off. The reason Microsoft didn’t beat Apple to the iPhone approach was that they had integrated a culture that everything had to look like Windows and that’s part that was blocking their vision.
Adam

the reason why microsoft didn’t beat Apple to the iPhone approach was because the goverment told them to stop so there was compition
Tom

He has the nerve to talk about taste, and Mac OS used Chicago as its system font.

The same holier-than-thou attitude extends to the Mac-using community. They have the nerve to insult Arial — while they’re using Times Roman on their Macs.

(Despite the name, “Times Roman” is actually a copy of Times New Roman. Yes, Microsoft shipped the original, and the supposedly design-conscious Apple shipped the copy. Of course, the reality is that neither Microsoft nor Apple cared about this stuff. It actually came out of a decision made by Adobe many years before that. It was one of those accidents of history, like how some people use QWERTY keyboards and some user AZERTY. The Mac-using design community just wanted to insult Microsoft.)

Avatar Roku

Steve Jobs was a pretty awful human being. Look at how he treated his daughter and his wife (claiming infertility and leaving them on welfare for years while he made millions). I don’t think we should be surprised by these comments, he was immature, petty, self-centered and paranoid. Jobs eliminated all charitable giving from Apple when he resumed there as CEO and never gave any of his vast wealth to charity.

It’s ironic that he should complain about others copying him because his very last keynote consisted of nothing other than demonstrating how Apple had systematically copied all of iOS 5′s features from Apple’s rivals. I think Apple will fall apart overtime without his obsession, paranoia, and compulsions driving the company forward.

Jobs only ever said one thing I ever really agreed with, “death is the single greatest invention of life.” The tyrant is finally gone.

Anonymous

+1

You’ve hit that nail dead on. I always found it funny that for all of Jobs “thinking differently”, that he never tried to use his fortune for good

In the end, I guess he didn’t pay enough attention to Karma.

Lee

I love the way this article quotes Steve’s stinging assessment of Bill Gates and then follows with…

“The pair have competed over many years and clearly have a mutual respect and understanding of each others work”

Really???

Tom

Oh yes, they had some very interesting interpersonal dynamics.

Steve would insult Bill to the news media, he’d insult Bill to his face, he’d insult Bill behind his back. And Bill, being by all accounts slightly autistic, would just shrug off all the insults and work tirelessly towards redirecting Steve’s anger.

The famous cult classic film, “Pirates of Silicon Valley,” dramatizes this by having Bill Gates show up to Apple headquarters, get yelled at by Steve Jobs for hours, sweet-talk him by telling him what a genius he was – and then by the end of the night, Steve was eating out of Bill’s hand.

Remember the 1997 Apple-Microsoft deal? That was negotiated personally between Steve and Bill. Steve then showed up to MacWorld and spun it as his idea.
Anonymous

Who gets the last laugh here? Bill Gates. His company is still uber-profitable and he has been doing his foundation work for over a decade. Jobs was a Scrooge!

Grandvictory

this story tell u normal human being are selfish,they can only see other people’s fault but not theirs
own fault, it is like: ‘it is ok if I take something from others,but it is unforgiveable if others take something from me.’,that is why we human being need religion,without religion this world is unimaginable horrible.

Anonymous

Hahaha he behaved very much like a Women…. hahahah no offense to the ladies but i have yet to meet a women that doesn’t do this.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Pedro-Roque/100000194503830 Pedro Roque

Yes, Bill gates never invented anything!
Everyone knows that Steve Jobs invented the computer GUI, the MP3 player, the phone, and Tablets!!!!
I didn’t respect this guy as a human being when he was alive, and still don’t.

Anonymous

That’s correct, Bill Gates never invented anything.
Neither did Steve Jobs for that matter.
What he did though, was to bring me the best products he could build and not the products he could make the most money from.
Anonymous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU nuff said!
Guest

Not only that. The dock. Virtual computer screens. Multi-touch. The media center. Basically everything we know today in the industry was done by Apple and made magical. / sarcasm
Anonymous

Jobs did not invent any of those things, you ignorant git.

http://twitter.com/MichielPapp Michiel Papp

Steve Jobs is so full of shit. If i run acros him in the afterlife (or his shitty incarnation) then i’ll kick him in the nuts or an equivilant painfull place on his incarnated body/object/wathever…..

Guest

You see. Steve Jobs is the guy from the screen who talks to the crowd.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
And Apple followers are those guys in gray who listen to him.

Yes Steve Jobs was a visionary. He predicted that in 1984.

Robin Ashe

Steve’s just a bitter old man.

Frylockns86

Hey, Steve, guess what? Your darling iPods, iPhones, iPads, and other iWhatevers, were ALL built off other’s ideas. You didn’t invent these products. Quit taking credit for them.

Even in death your douchbagginess and massive ego proceedes you.

http://twitter.com/ArturoRyes Arturo Ryes

And the best part…HE DID NOT EVEN DESIGN THEM! I have to give him some credit though for making me laugh even now that he is dead.
Anonymous

Jonathan Ive deserves far more credit as an inventor then Jobs.

Gabriel

And, we were sympathetic and graceful when we heard he passed. Even in death this guy was arrogant. I take all my well wishes and good thoughts back. This guy took elements from other people’s ideas and incorporated them into his products. I thought that on your dying bed, you should have peaceful thoughts and be focused on God. Yet his actions displayed ugliness and hatred. Remember his biograpgher was one of a few people allowed to visit him upon his passing, so he clearly took the Tim to insult and mud sling prior to passing. He had no problem taking the 150M that Bill gave him to keep Apple from going under. Another selfish act on his part……typicall

http://twitter.com/Fire_Six Sriram Sarma

No offence meant and nothing personal either. But the only thing for which Steve Jobs never took credit was his own daughter Lisa (sorry to offend you Lisa, but that’s how your dad was)! I respect him as a creative head, but the rest is all crap.
He is supposed to have gone to India to become a yogi/guru, but has there been any change in his attitude? No!

Anonymous

This coming from a man that created the entire Mac computer from a ripped off Gui from Xerox.

Anonymous

This is the kind of Man Steve Jobs was, another quote from the book about Android:

“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.”

“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.”

Anonymous

Yeah, and the dude thinks he’s NEVER WRONG. Remember antennagete just last year? He insulted millions by telling them that they’re HOLDING THE PHONE WRONG! And that well, other manufacturers have a DEATH GRIP anyway in their phones, trying hard to squeeze RIM’s or Samsung’s just to prove his stupid point.

What a prick.

And everyone who he has worked with said that he’s only passionate about his work, asking for the impossible for everyone to deliver and being a DOUCHEBAG at it.

Heard a lot of the interviews at Bloomberg after his passing. One investor who departed early from his ill dealings with Steve said that he doesn’t regret the move even if Apple got as rich as it is today. He said he’d be one of the richest guys in the CEMETERY if he still dealt with Jobs.

And how can you even take on a guy who’s doing philantrophy? Jeez.

http://www.gamerelatedblog.com/ StriderNo9

Interesting. It seems to me that Steve was an inventor and Bill was more of a programmer. Both needed, both important but in different ways.

Anonymous

Steve wasn’t and inventor. He was a designer. He had a vision on how things should look and work and got the true geniuses to build it for him. We need to give him credit for moving the way technology look and feel. Before him we had big beige boxes for pcs and the handhelds didn’t look much better. Engineers care about functionality not about form. He didn’t invent the technology, but he made it look good and run smoothly. They guy might have been a prick, but give credit were it’s due.
http://www.gamerelatedblog.com/ StriderNo9

I’m giving him his credit. I agree, designer is more appropriate.
Anonymous

Still it took 30 years until Jobs finally came up with a design(iPhone) that was truly sleek. Even geniuses are not made overnight. Perhaps his biggest achievement coming back was letting Jonathan Ive go crazy.

PG

iPad = copy of tablet pc
iPod = copy of dozens of mp3 players
iPhone = copy of dozens of smartphones before it

What exactly did Jobs create that was original? Every ‘invention’ is basically a subsequent rehash of a product before it but hopefully with a better interface. He was able to make things work better but he was no inventor. Gates is the exact same way, he took computing and brought it to the masses with an easy to use interface (Windows) and got prices down to make it affordable for everyone to be able to communicate, conduct business and have fun. Gates computing contribution to the world are much greater as he affected a larger group of people. Jobs did nothing but bring flashy toys to the market at high prices for the wealthy.

The world is better without Steve Jobs, good riddance.

Anonymous

I think it started earlier. ;-)

iPad = Windows Mobile/Windows Pocket PC/Windows CE
http://www.twitter.com/rurikbradbury Rurik Bradbury

But those products were garbage and the iDevices were good. That’s innovation too.
Anonymous

Apple’s real innovations lie in industrial design(unibody Macs), UX(fluid, fast UIs) and quality(low return rates) not tech innovations per se. If you read this web site you see all the amazing things coming out of MSFT Research, but those inventions are not productizable due to lack of vision(see Ballmer).
http://www.twitter.com/rurikbradbury Rurik Bradbury

Yes, but not just fluid, fast UIs but *simple* UIs. MS is a techie, engineering culture that for decades produced user interfaces too complex for ordinary users. Apple makes interfaces for ordinary users. Especially since the iPod it has redefined what ordinary users should expect from a computer. By simplifying the experience, Apple opened up computing to several billion people.
Anonymous

come on! I’m not an apple fan, but the world is not better without him. The tablet pc didn’t sell because they were expensive, they touch interface wasn’t that good, and the battery life was awful. The mp3 player were fairly large and usually not easy to use with functions buried in submenus. It took years for OEMs to finally make a touch phone that has an interface that scrolls as smoothly as the iphone. Apple didn’t invent these things, but they pushed the industry to build better designed devices. Prior to Apple’s entry into those markets, the devices were getting more functionality, but there wasn’t much work done in design or the interface.
Anonymous

So you’re saying Apple innovated better touch UI, power usage. But that’s not invention, just refinement. Remember the LG Prada beat the iPhone to the market by a year.

Guest

This is all lies! We all know Steve Jobs created life, and then on the seventh day, created the iPad. What did Bill do? NOTHING! He CHEATED!

Anonymous

Steve Jobs did not pass up the opportunity to get the last word in, did he? You can’t really argue with someone who is dead. Nice that this is my last impression of the guy. It is no wonder that I don’t own a single Apple product or even have Quicktime loaded on my PC.

http://www.mainstreetchatham.com/ JimmyFal

Respect yes, but I’ll take my hero over the other guys hero. You are classier than your counterpart Bill. I never felt as though you were wagging your tongue at anyone.

SDreamer

I think the main problem here is that people think either Steve of Bill came up with every single idea that comes out as a product from each of their companies. I agree to some extent with both, how Steve says Bill just copies and how Bill says Steve has the ability to just see things work. After all, I don’t feel creative juices coming from Bill. Sure Microsoft makes billions, but I honestly do not think that Bill came up with any of those ideas, but was rather able to make people’s ideas (from his company) happen. Steve I believe was just able to see a person’s ideas, find its fundamental flaws, and have his company improve on it. There’s all this talk about the Xerox UI, and how Apple didn’t first make it’s UI, but Apple did improve on it’s usability, and Microsoft took off with the idea of a UI and interpretted and marketed it in its own way to make it much more successful. Both of these humans are greatly talented in their own way. I had once respected Steve as a genius for the products that come from his company, but have realized, these can’t all be his ideas; he doesn’t just sit there all day concocting how to make the iPhone better, but listens to the iPhone team and sees if it will work or not, if it’s a good idea or not, and I have a good feeling that’s what Bill did too

Anonymous

that’s what leaders do. They find what is important and what is not and get people to execute they idea. They usually don’t come up with the ideas. I think most inventors aren’t capable of actually getting their ideas to market. Usually a business man comes in and figures out what it takes to transform the idea into an actual product and to sell it.

Guest

Between windows and android, it seems clear that a person can’t commit a greater sin in Steve’s world than ripping off his idea.

Guest

And in Jobs egotistical world, every idea was his.

Chrgeorgeson

I’ll try to keep some tact here with my post.

I have been an iOS user since the beginning. I love the
product and have never really god the appeal of Android. However I can say that
when I have used Android (At Work) I never felt like it was a clone of iOS even
slightly.

When I step back and look at these quotes from his upcoming
biography I think it’s just sad.

This man had battled a terrible ordeal with cancer and he
wanted to spend his last days complaining about the competition and there is
actual video of Steve talking up Bill Gates a few years back saying that there
is nothing wrong with the PC and that it’s necessary. (Paraphrasing) and then
he decides in his last year of life to turn bitter. I know that cancer actually
has that affect on people so I get that. I have seen what cancer does to people
first hand and it’s seriously tragic and there seems to be no exception here.

The only Apple product that I particularly use is the iPod/Phone
devices but even I remember before the iPhone was announced hearing about
Android. The world was ready for a smartphone revolution and in my opinion
Apple is winning it and I really like what MS has done with WP7.

Steve Jobs said something that I really liked once, and this
me just paraphrasing. “People think in order for Apple to succeed
Microsoft has to lose…” We all now know that Steve was right about this,
these companies live cohesively in the market. I think the same could be said
if you replaced Microsoft with Android.

-Chris

Guest

Jobs can’t seem to make up his mind. Because at D9 he credited Gates with seeing the potential for a for profit software industry when nobody else did. That took quite a bit of imagination on Bill’s part. Frankly, I find the whole exchange sad. Gates should have said nothing. And Jobs, well…you see the real person instead of the carefully crafted media persona. Just like we saw with the vindictive quotes he had for Schmidt, his former Director and Google’s former CEO.

Guest

A glimpse at the real Steve Jobs vs the PR image:

“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,” Jobs said. “I’m going to
destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear
war on this.”

Anonymous

Jobs was real classy to the end, remember he dedicated every remaining moment of his life to destroy Android.

Justfortherecord

Android was in development before Apple as I believe Android was a company that Google purchased. Android already had a working OS. Google and Apple were kind buddy buddy at the time when Google purchased Android. The two companies co-mingled for a while during this time Apple was also building a phone OS until one realized what the other was up to. Its kind of history repeating itself.

Guest

1) Everyone copies from everyone, Apple included.
2) Gates imagined a PC on every desk and in every home, building a public software company, and bringing a business decision mindset and process to charitable donations. I’d say that qualifies as imaginative. Sadly, on the product side I agree that Microsoft hasn’t been as imaginative as it should have been.
3) Jobs is an asshole. That has been established even by those who worked closely with him and admire his leadership. But he was a great marketer and had a great sense for when to enter markets and what would sell.
4) Not being technical was his edge. He looked to what technology could do, not what it was. Gates flaw was he was more interested in the technology. As you would expect, what interests the leaders fascinated their underlings. So we have two companies that today reflect those views.
5) Jobs was ruthless about control, delivering product excellence, and protecting Apple’s image. If Ballmer were half as good at those, MS would be twice as successful.
6) Jobs vs Ballmer is no contest; Jobs was by far a better CEO and the results speak for themselves.
7) Bill should have observed the old tenet: If you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything.

Guest

What expected from someone like Jobs. This guy had mental issues!

Guest

The point is Steve Jobs was either nice to your face while reaching in your back pocket to steal your wallet

or an asshole….his Karma card was punched long ago.

Peter

Usually you be sad when you hear someone die even if you don’t like him much or he/she is your competition.

But when you read what he said it change your mind and when you think again you see that actually you are happy that now he is gone.

This guys clearly had mental issues and problems. He had no respect for anybody so I don’t see why others should respect him.

Anonymous

What the hell did Steve Jobs ever invent? Nothing. In fact, Steve Jobs and Apple are the biggest rip off artists of all time. Hell, Apple rips off patented features of Windows Phone, puts them in iOS5, and will eventually claim they came up with those features.

Anonymous

“At the center of this will be the idea of digital convergence. That is, taking all the information—books, catalogs, shopping approaches, professional advice, art, movies—and taking those things in their digital form, ones and zeroes, and being able to provide them on demand on a device looking like a TV, a small device you carry around, or what the PC will evolve into.”
—Bill Gates, COMDEX keynote speech, 1994

http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/information-at-your-fingertips

Ga

“Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”

Yeah, like Jobs invented anything. He basically invented what was already invented (“reinvented” in applebabble) and then he reinvented what was already reinvented. And then he patented it. A**wipe.

Anonymous

His “biography” sounds a lot like Bill Clinton’s in the fact it may not be 100% accurate and used to advance a particular idea or agenda. Jobs was indeed the master of marketing. Everything he did had a marketing motive and I doubt this book was any different.

Anonymous

I’m a long time Mac user, but this biography feels like it’s going to do nothing more than solidify Steve Jobs as a petty, self-aggrandizing baby. The more snippets are revealed about this book just really make him seem like a fucking jackass.

http://teddyotero.com Teddy M. Otero IV

Huh. Coming from someone whose company just lifted a bunch of features from Android and WP7, huh?

Anonymous

When Jobs passed – I thought “maybe as he got older and saw his own mortality with his cancer, he was thinking about past life mistakes and being a better human”. I read so many posts about his “sensitive/caring” side after his death I thought maybe that it was/did happen. Nope. He is just proved it again. Still a terrible person. I may read the biography when it comes out and see for myself, but what a terrible person. The post from Avatar Roku is spot on.

Adam

Their meeting was in Jobs’s conference room, where Gates found himself surrounded by ten Apple employees who were eager to watch their boss assail him. Jobs didn’t disappoint his troops. “You’re ripping us off!” he shouted. “I trusted you, and now you’re stealing from us!” Gates just sat there coolly, looking Steve in the eye, before hurling back, in his squeaky voice, what became a classic zinger. “Well, Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”source Microsoft news

Guest

ITT apple fanboy arguing with people who use decent computers. :c

WinRumors

Microsoft news and rumors

Steve Jobs biography reveals he thought Bill Gates “ripped off other people’s ideas”