I’m in the midst of reading Steven Levy’s book about Google, “In the Plex,” and I was fascinated with the account of Steve Jobs hiding the iPad’s development from Google CEO Eric Schmidt while Schmidt was sitting on the Apple board. We noted this striking example of corporate confidentiality last week.
Jobs was reportedly angry with Google for allegedly ripping off iPhone features like pinch to zoom that eventually wound up in the Android phone.
Eventually Schmidt stepped down from his position on the Apple board, and the rest is history. Or maybe not. Our former colleague Nilay Patel, ex of Engadget, says in his personal blog that the story can’t be that simple. First, he says Apple didn’t have a patent on pinch to zoom until October of 2010. The Android G1 shipped in October 2008, and didn’t have pinch to zoom, but it finally made it to the Google Nexus One in February 2010. Now all Android phones have the feature.
Continue reading The unanswered questions about Jobs, Schmidt and iOS features
The unanswered questions about Jobs, Schmidt and iOS features originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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