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Comment by jbob2000 | Hacker News Reader

jbob2000·

Did you miss all the "be better than Google"? He seemed intensely scared of them, to the point where he wanted Apple to focus 100% on beating them. Google doesn't do laptop/desktop computers (until this year with the pixel). We are seeing this version of Apple come to fruition; all-in on mobile and consumer software services.

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Job's fear of Google is justified. He sees the dwindling PC sales and knows that they're not the future. He sees Google as a threat because they don't even bother with PCs, they're a cloud first company and Job's knows that's where Apple needs to go next to avoid losing relevance.

It seems pretty obvious today but 6 years ago that was pretty forward thinking.

I'm sure "scared of them" played some part, but "angry at them" played a larger one. This wasn't too long after Google blind-sided Apple by entering the phone market, which SJ somehow thought was a betrayal. To be fair, they did so while Schmidt was actually still sitting on the board at Apple, which might be what really ticked Steve off.

And they did so with an OS based on a technology, er, "borrowed" from SUN and now owned by his great friend Larry Ellison.

Lots of straws on that camel...

It's not like Google helped Oracle continue to fail at having their own mobile platform. Jonathan Schwartz, SUN CEO at the time, witnessed in support of Google, as he encouraged them to use it. The whole point was to open more technologies to foster creative ideas, while Apple continues to cherry pick from for their "locked users".

And don't forget that Google's Eric Schmidt was on the Apple board at the time... he would literally be asked to leave the room when they discussed the iPhone.

> Google doesn't do laptop/desktop computers

They do:

"Google Chromebooks outsell Apple Macs" (May 2016)

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-chromebooks-outsell-ap...

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