What If Steve Jobs Is Right?

24.10.2011
Apple has been around the world claiming that Android smartphones and tablets infringe on its patents. Android loyalists see the legal attacks as a desperate, oppressive move by Apple to , but perhaps the success of Android is a function of the ways it "borrows" Apple intellectual property.

According to leaked excerpts from the Steve Jobs biography which will be officially released tomorrow, Jobs is quoted saying, "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

Jobs is also credited with stating, "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."

Sleeping With the Enemy

It doesn't take too much imagination to understand how . Apple and Google were buddies--allies against Microsoft in that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of way. Google's CEO--now Chairman--Eric Schmidt was a personal friend of Steve Jobs and sat on the Apple board of directors.

Seeing Google and Schmidt as partners against Microsoft--more importantly partners that didn't compete directly in key areas like mobile devices and operating systems--Apple and Jobs would have felt comfortable sharing details of iOS. Schmidt was in a position to get confidential information on the strategy and vision for the future of the iPhone and possibly even the embryonic concepts of the iPad.