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Overview
Google and Apple were once friendly companies with similar goals. As the mobile internet market grew, they began to compete directly with each other in an effort to dominate that market. Users have benefited from a growing stream of smartphones as a result of this competition between Google and Apple.
In one corner of the ring is Apple, which makes iPhones and has its own proprietary operating system called iOS. It also has legions of lawyers to protect its innovative features from copycats. In the other corner is Google, a search engine giant that creates open-source software for mobile devices called Android. This company also works with many manufacturers to create phones running on this software.
Once friends, these two tech giants became rivals. They fought for a larger share of the smartphone market. This passage documents how an early partnership turned into a legal battle with backstabbing and confidential information being thrown out in the trash.
In this article, you’ll learn how Steve Jobs was wrong about the iPhone. You’ll also discover what gorillas, iPhones and glass have in common. Finally, you will find out how many lawyers it takes to cripple a smartphone manufacturer.
Big Idea #1: Steve Jobs didn’t want to develop a phone, but he did because it was what his customers wanted.
Apple produced the iPod in 2001. Although it was a great product, Apple executives had been wanting to produce a phone for some time. However, Steve Jobs didn’t want to waste money and resources on developing a phone that would be meddled with by large companies such as T-Mobile or AT&T. At that time, these companies controlled what phones were made because they subsidized the purchase price of phones and marketed them; therefore they could control what features were included in new models.
Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, didn’t like the idea of a phone that was controlled by someone else. He wanted to have full control over any device Apple made. Therefore, he focused on iTunes instead. It launched in April 2003 for Mac and iPod users as only Apple devices had the software required to run iTunes.
In the past, Apple had a partnership with Motorola to create a phone that would run iTunes. The deal was that Motorola would design and produce the hardware, negotiate deals with AT&T (the cell phone carrier), then pay Apple royalties for allowing iTunes on their devices. However, this new device didn’t work out well because it only allowed 100 songs to be stored at once and couldn’t download music directly from the internet like other phones could do.
This setback didn’t discourage Apple. In 2004, iPod sales skyrocketed and Jobs started to think about an Apple phone again.
Big Idea #2: Apple wanted to create a phone that had never been made before.
Steve Jobs was warming up to the idea of a phone for Apple by 2004. He knew that mobile connections were now fast enough to run a web browser and stream video, so he started thinking about making a phone for his company.
AT&T was going to buy Cingular. Apple wanted to develop a phone for them, and they made the deal that if they did, then AT&T would yield full control of product development. They also wanted to pioneer new features such as multi-touch screen navigation with 2 fingers.
Today, pinching and stretching on a smartphone screen is commonplace because the graphics software was too difficult for phone chips to run in 2005. Apple worked hard over several years to develop technology that could fit in a regular-sized smartphone by making it smaller.
The company found a way to make the screen of its new phone more durable. Early on, the engineers were frustrated with two options: plexiglass screens that could survive a fall but scratched easily and glass screens that didn’t scratch but shattered in a one-meter drop test. Jobs had an epiphany when he met Corning Glass and learned about gorilla glass, which is very hard to scratch. He convinced Corning to start producing it for Apple’s phones.
