
Steve Jobs calls Google's "Don't be evil" mantra "Bullshit" and Adobe "Lazy" - mocy
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/googles-dont-be-evil-mantra-is-bullshit-adobe-is-lazy-apples-steve-jobs/
======
angelbob
It's important for Jobs to convince the rank-and-file at Apple that Google's
"Don't Be Evil" is bullshit. Right now it looks an awful lot like Apple is
being closed and evil, while Google is being open and excellent with Android
apps.

If that perception continues, Apple loses recruiting access to a lot of the
best developers.

~~~
ynniv
Not allowing third parties access to your walled garden is hardly in the same
ballpark of possible evil as having access to all of your personal
communications. In the worst case of Apple being evil, you can't run Bob's
cool software without buying another (non-Apple) device. The worst case of
Google being evil is that you go to jail (or worse depending on where you
live). And yes, people have gone to jail based on searching Google [1][2].

Please keep some perspective.

[1 | [http://www.slaw.ca/2005/11/14/google-searches-used-in-
eviden...](http://www.slaw.ca/2005/11/14/google-searches-used-in-evidence) ]

[2 |
[http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/26/wireless_hacker_plea.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/26/wireless_hacker_plea.html)
]

ADDENDUM: Yes, the evidence in these cases was not provided by Google. No,
that does not discredit my statement. The point is that the business Google is
in has far more capacity for "evil" than the business Apple is in. Some
comments have pointed out that Apple could have backdoors in their software
that would allow them to be equally evil. While that is technically possible
it would be easily detectable using network monitoring tools, and no one has
found one. On the other hand, we have no idea how Google uses the data they
have on us. They claim to play nice, but there is no way that anyone could
verify this, and it could change retro-actively at any moment.

~~~
rw
Capacity for harm != actual harm done.

To play Devil's advocate: The United States controls over five thousand
thermonuclear missiles. Sudan controls none. So what country has been more
evil in the last decade?

It's important to acknowledge, too, that Google likely has more blackmail-able
information on us than the FBI.

~~~
fnid2
Probably the united states. They've killed millions of people around the world
in the last decade. If you don't limit it to the last decade, it's even worse.

~~~
rw
Yeah. It's not the crispest distinction to make. But, note that the U.S. has
also helped a whole lot of people.

a - b = c

Being utilitarian about it, which country has done better in the last decade?

~~~
derefr
Being _utilitarian_ about it, India or China is ahead no matter what, because
of all of those little sacks of utility known as "babies" they've produced. ;)

------
karzeem
"Don't be evil" clearly is bullshit to the extent that you can always
rationalize an evil action, and three words aren't going to stop you from
doing what you want.

On the other hand, though, a mantra like that can help entrench a culture that
makes it harder for "evil" ideas to find roots.

On balance, I'm not sure a mantra makes a difference. It's sort of dangerous
when it becomes so entrenched that you start to think your actions are _by
definition_ non-evil. From time to time, we do see Google pulling out "it's
not illegal if the President does it"-type rationalizations.

~~~
pyre
That said, it's a tough pill to swallow coming from Apple of all people.
Especially with the lawsuits over rumors/leaks. Especially with the, "you
can't run non-approved apps on iPhone OS," attitude. If I had to rank
companies on the spectrum of 'evil,' Apple would be closer to evil than
Google.

~~~
ellyagg
Tough pill to swallow? Apple never staked a claim to some fuzzy moral high
ground. All Jobs is pointing out is that to the extent that you equate
greediness with evil, Google is precisely as evil as every other company.

Google is open where it thinks it can afford to be and not where it doesn't.
So is Apple.

Google locks down its algorithm to give a good user experience in search.
Apple locks down its App Store to provide a good experience on the iPhone.
Both of these moves are designed to make money, but mysteriously, Teflon
Google easily sheds all acknowledgement of its motives.

Maybe I'm not a good judge of morality. I still hold the romantic notion that
people giving you money means people think you're doing something good for
them. Apple's fans are some of the most loyal on the planet. It doesn't seem
as though they're extorting folks into buying their stuff.

~~~
pyre
> _Google locks down its algorithm to give a good user experience in search.
> Apple locks down its App Store to provide a good experience on the iPhone._

You lost me at this point. Out of all of the things that Google does or has
done, locking down their algorithm hardly ranks on the scale of evil.

> _Both of these moves are designed to make money, but mysteriously, Teflon
> Google easily sheds all acknowledgement of its motives._

Google locking down their algorithm does _not_ prevent someone from competing
with them. On the other hand, Apple locking down the AppStore _does_ allow
them to prevent others from competing with them (i.e. where is iPhone Opera
Web Browser?). Google's algorithm is more in line with the hardware design
blueprints of the iPad and the source code to the operating system. No one but
the most rabid FSF supporters are railing on Apple for not open-sourcing their
operating system. And no one is railing on Apple for not posting their
hardware design blueprints for the iPad and/or iPhone.

~~~
demallien
No, your analogy isn't right. Or rather, using your analogy, no one is being
prevented from competing with Apple either, all you need to do is build your
own wildly successful gadget with AppStore. Easy!

No, a better analogy would be to look at how Google restricts use of their
APIs. I remember a couple of years ago, I wanted to geo-code a couple of
hundred addresses of handicapped parking spaces in Paris for a handicapped
friend. Google's terms of service required me to pay money for this access,
because a couple of hundred hits, run over a few minutes, was considered
commercial use of their service. I didn't have an automatic right to use
Google's service in an innovative way. And indeed, I tried it anyhow, just to
see how they reacted, the server stopped responding after the first 50 or so
hits.

Both companies are very restrictive in how you, as a developer, may use the
services that they provide. And they are both near-monopoly providers of those
services. As others have pointed out, both are publicly traded companies that
are there to make a profit, and both will put restrictions on developers that
they feel are using their systems in ways that _they_ have decided are
inappropriate.

~~~
pwhelan
"I didn't have an automatic right to use Google's service in an innovative
way. And indeed, I tried it anyhow, just to see how they reacted, the server
stopped responding after the first 50 or so hits."

No, you didn't have the automatic right to use their servers as much as you
want in an innovative way. Putting in a time delay (say 2 seconds?) between
each request and you can do that just fine. Google is in no way saying either
method is inappropriate, just that they consider one to be an action done by
businesses and they don't give away as many services to businesses for free.

I hope you got the list done for your friend though, it sounds like quite a
nice thing to do.

~~~
demallien
Yes, that's the way of getting around the technical restriction, but if you
read the terms of service, at least as they were a couple of years ago, what I
was doing wasn't allowed - I was over the upper limit per month.

I ended up finishing things with Yahoo's service instead, so she eventually
had a list of handicapped places in her GPS :-)

------
benologist
Part of me agrees with him re. Adobe. Adobe has a mountain of resources,
talent and potential. I've been working with Flash for about a decade now -
before Adobe even bought Macromedia - for all sorts of different use cases. In
all that time it's been and to this day remains a horribly inefficient IDE to
program in, and the FlashPlayer is a platform you have to optimize early and
optimize often to keep running on performance-intensive uses.

Every new version developers are just praying _this time_ Adobe will give us a
product they've gone back and fixed _instead_ of just adding more stuff to it.

~~~
chriskelley
>Every new version developers are just praying this time Adobe will give us a
product they've gone back and fixed instead of just adding more stuff to it.

I can't tell you how many times I have made this statement regarding After
Effects. I've been hoping they would do this since version 6.5.

------
aresant
Job's is dead on.

Google's goal is no less than to assimilate every piece of dearly held private
information it can find about you to feed you advertising more efficiently,
all while wiping out the individual industries that have made them popular
(real estate's next!).

Adobe hasn’t innovated a serious product since flash - it got huge, wiped out
the competition through acquisitions and has been producing spammy me-too’s
like their media player & mobile devices app ever since.

Apple is of course, open to massive criticism themselves, but it’s fun to see
Steve throw other monster media companies under the bus!

~~~
chrischen
Sorry I can't tell if you are sarcastic or not, but in case you're not: what's
wrong with being targeted by advertising more efficiently.

Theoretically speaking, isn't being targeted by advertising at absolute
efficiency being given exactly what you want when you want it?

I know in practice we get spammed by noise, but most of that noise is caused
by inefficient advertising. But what's wrong with being targeted with
something that genuinely piques your interest? People would love to pay for
that, because frankly the information we need is not always presented to us
right when we need it. Highly efficient advertising is giving people who have
something to say, say it to the right person right when they need it.

Don't misconstrue this as an endorsement of false or misleading advertising. I
think there is the ability for advertising to serve the need to present the
right information to the right people at the right time.

~~~
Super_Jambo
Theoretically speaking being targeted by advertising at absolute efficiency is
being persuaded to part with as much cash as possible for as little product.

This is advertising presenting the right information to the right person at
the right time.

On account of the consumer not paying for it, advertising is pretty much
diametrically opposed to the consumers wants.

A paid for service which tells you what you want and when you want it is not
what google are developing.

~~~
chrischen
Think about it this way. Let's say I'm trying to buy a pair of night vision
goggles that could see through people's clothes. Well let's say I search
google and I get spammed with night vision goggles of poor quality and that
_can't_ see through people's clothes. Theoretically speaking, if the
manufacturer of a night vision goggle _knew_ how perverted I was, they'd be
willing to pay Google to get the right information in front of me. This is
because they know with that key perfectly targeted information they can make a
sale with me. I want to see through people's clothes, the manufacturer makes
money off me. WIN WIN!

That is my definition of perfect targeting. And it also explains why Google
wants to get more information out of us. Obviously more information means
better targeting. But this better targeting also means better ads that are
more relevant. Relevant doesn't mean ads close to what I want but not really
what I want. Relevant means genuinely relevant. And I REALLY believe Google is
trying to achieve that perfect genuine relevancy.

Sure Good search results are there, but there is still noise. Good search
results still requires us wafting through the crap. But with paid well
targeted ads, the right information has the potential to come to you by
circumventing the things that cause the noise. Companies who know they have an
advantage on pervert night vision goggles can pay for that highly targeted
area and get the information to the right people.

~~~
Super_Jambo
Oh I do get the theory. I just don't think that's how it is likely to play out
in the majority of cases.

Look at current advertising, it doesn't generally help you find the best
product that suits your needs, instead it shouts at you that for a small fee
you can learn the simple secret to perfectly white teeth.

In your above example no company could legally say that it is making pervert
x-ray vision goggles. So what happens is the company with the best marketing
strategy (and probably useless non-xray goggles) devises a campaign which
alludes to the non-existent x-ray properties of their useless goggles. Google
helps them target it at you and do so JUST as that cute neighbor next door is
raking up the leaves in her annoyingly baggy gardening wear and BAM you're
buying some junk which doesn't fulfill your need.

No doubt in some cases consumers will be provided with a product which
fulfills their needs via googles adverts, but generally they will get worse
value for money and I suspect they'll also get worse products.

~~~
chrischen
Well if the comapny advertising outright lies, that's a whole different issue.
I'm just saying that there is a model for advertising where it's win win for
both parties, and I think it's google's goal to achieve that.

A lot of advertising is inefficient but if you stop thinking about advertising
in it's current form you can see how a more efficint system can serve a
beneficial place in society.

~~~
enneff
Such an efficient model would show me very few ads indeed, as there is very
little I need that I don't already have, and I resent being encouraged to
spend wastefully.

~~~
chrischen
Advertisers don't want to spend wastefully either. So if they know you won't
spend, then you shall get less ads.

~~~
drewp
Eventually all the ad dollars will be spent changing you into someone who does
want to spend more money.

~~~
chrischen
That's propaganda, brainwashing, whatever you want to call it. But by my
definition (the one I'm talking about; I didn't create it) it's not
advertising, and I think Google is working to achieve my definition of
advertising.

------
wooster
So, if I were SJ, and I trusted a guy from another company, gave him early
confidential information on a revolutionary product I was working on, then
found out he was going to undercut me with a crappy knockoff of my product
with a wider distribution model, I'd be pretty pissed.

I'd be especially pissed when it happened AGAIN 22 years later.

I'd be even more especially pissed if the person doing it had no business
model behind it other than some fuzzy idea of gathering more web page views
which would eventually lead to more mobile advertising dollars. In fact, I'd
probably buy a mobile advertising company or two to make sure that guy never
saw a red cent of the money from the platform I helped revolutionize.

So, on that front, do you see why SJ might be pissed?

~~~
Tichy
Launching a mobile operating system seems very different from launching an
iPhone. Possibly the time was just right? People forget that there where
mobile phones before the iPhone, and programmable ones, too. You could even
buy "apps" for them.

What changed is the viability of mobile internet. It's only recently that it
has become fast enough and affordable enough. Why should Apple be the only
company inspired by these new possibilities?

~~~
cpr
Apple was the company most responsible for the viability of the mobile
Internet, with their focus on making WebKit in the first place, building on
KDE, and then making it practical on a mobile device.

~~~
Tichy
The viability comes from bandwidth and reduced cost, not from a particular
browser implementation. Touch screens help, too.

------
sorbits
According to the article Jobs is quoted saying: _“Make no mistake they
[Google] want to kill the iPhone”_.

What motivation would Google have for this? Considering the apps and services
they offer on the iPhone, including iPhone optimized versions of their web
applications, this conclusion seems rather strange.

~~~
jamesbritt
Indeed.

One of the best explanations I've read for Google getting into the mobile biz
was to increase the opportunity for people to use the Web and see ads.

Sounds more like Jobs wants to portray Apple as the underdog, despite the
incredible success they've been having.

~~~
joubert
Then why would they make _hardware_?

~~~
jamesbritt
More control of the software, and providing options for how they can be used.
Google doesn't just want to offer phones for one or other carrier; they want
phones that work independent of any carrier. They want to change the mobile
device landscape.

------
raganwald
Adobe feels like the next Microsoft. Or maybe this one.

~~~
irrelative
Not sure why you're being downvoted, because you're right.

Adobe feels like that for the same reason: you get an annoying swagger when
you own a monopoly.

Adobe owns "rich content" on the web. And just like Microsoft, they also know
what a pain technology transitions are. No company wants to support a flash
version _and_ an HTML5 version of their site/product/app. And just like
Microsoft, they'll start to advertise how all the fun stuff runs on their
platform instead of building new stuff.

Realistically, flash is here to stay at least until IE supports HTML5 and
achieves a critical mass. Until then, Adobe can give the finger to everyone
and maintain control no matter how hard developers or competitors whine. Feels
very familiar indeed.

~~~
viraptor
The way you explained it, Apple seems to be just as "lazy"... and I agree.
They control the iphone/pad/whatever app store and can approve something, or
not. It won't matter for them and they can ignore anyone whining. They're so
big, they don't have to care if your app ends up rejected and forgotten.
Annoying swagger indeed.

~~~
ahlatimer
Are you arguing that Apple has a monopoly on phones? Even narrowing the
category to smart phones doesn't really make enough of a difference for your
point to be valid. Sure, there are plenty of people out there that have
iPhones, but there's also people out there with phones running Android and
PalmOS. There's people with Blackberry's and WinMos. If you don't like Apple's
walled garden, you can easily get a decent experience buying another phone.
You want rich media on the web? Well, good luck getting away with that without
using Flash.

I'm not arguing for or against the AppStore. I get why Apple is doing it, and
I get why people don't like it, but comparing Apple to Adobe in this way is
fruitless (no pun intended).

Also, Apple has reversed rejections when the blogosphere cried foul.

~~~
viraptor
AFAIR they reversed rejections when influential enough blogosphere gave them
bad PR. Cases that didn't make it into known bloggers' posts didn't matter
(and we probably didn't hear about most of them). Just look at
apprejections.com to see how silly the situation still is.

Comparing iPhone apps to Android and PalmOS? Sure - just like Flash can be
compared to Java embedded/webstart and avi embedding through `<object ...>`.
There's almost the same amount of real-world competition in those areas... If
you want some app, it's probably already in Flash/AppStore - even if some
people push it via other means (avi players/other app markets).

I'm not arguing they have monopoly on (smart)phones - just on real-world
smartphone apps. And that allows them to be lazy - it's just strange that they
call Adobe lazy for doing exactly the same. Apple: "just port it the way we
want, or go away", Adobe: "just let us use what we have, or go away", both:
"no" :(

------
syncerr
"No one will be using Flash, [Jobs] says. The world is moving to HTML5."

Maybe I'm just a guy, maybe I was just a hopeful iPhone user, but for the
record, the iPhone will _NOT_ be seeing Flash - ever.

~~~
GeorgeTirebiter
I'm not sure why you can't have something like flash.

Imagine if the browser, noticing it's about to download a .flv, would not d/l
the .flv, but would trampoline that to a backend server that would transcode
to, say, .mp4 and then your browser (using AJAX for the async call) would load
the .mp4 from the backend server.

I know that more complicated flash stuff, like games, and interactivity, would
not work this simple way; but if there's a non-flash way of getting the same
functionality in the browser via HTML5, then couldn't this "server-in-the-
middle" approach work?

~~~
GHFigs
_noticing it's about to download a .flv_

The browser doesn't do this. The Flash applet in the page does this. Also,
most of the Flash video content on the web is in .mp4 these days, and most big
video sites already stream it to iPhones, etc. as .mp4, as if Flash didn't
exist.

------
jsz0
I think Steve's evangelical streak is showing here at least in regards to
Google. You're either with us, or you're against us, and if you're against us
it stands to reason that you're evil because we represent everything that is
good and pure. I have concerns that Google's sheer size and participation in
so many areas creates potential for _accidental evil_ but I see nothing that
suggests they are committing an Orwellian fraud on us by projecting anti-evil
double speak to cover their true intentions.

------
markkoberlein
You know I miss the days when Apple (as in Steve) went after Microsoft and IBM
with a vengeance. That battle didn't turn out too well for him, but it was fun
to watch. It would be fun to see Apple and Google go at it.

The history of the PC vs. Mac wars showed us that an open platform (as in able
to be installed on any non-apple device) wins over a closed platform
controlled by one company. It will be interested to see what happens this time
around.

~~~
pyre
> _The history of the PC vs. Mac wars showed us that an open platform (as in
> able to be installed on any non-apple device) wins over a closed platform
> controlled by one company. It will be interested to see what happens this
> time around._

Not necessarily. Care to comment on the era where Apple opened itself up to
3rd-party hardware vendors?

~~~
markkoberlein
I'm not saying that Apple wasn't successful. Just like they have become the
"mind share" (RIM still has the market share) leader in the phone market, they
ruled the personal computer market before the PC clones and Windows 95.

I can see how they had some success during their time with 3rd-party hardware
vendors but that was short lived never truly made a big challenge vs. the
Win/PC market. Also, this was during the non-Steve Apple and we can be sure
that he won't be opening up any Mac OS to third parties because he wants to
keep that control.

I'm saying that if you look at the entire time period from when Apple had a
90% PC market share to it's less than 10% and compare that to entire Win/PC
market you have to say that a system that is open to 3rd parties is more
successful than one which is locked down.

The iPhone and iPad will probably be better products than any Android powered
device but that doesn't matter because history shows that a closed strategy
isn't successful in the long run.

~~~
pyre
> _a system that is open to 3rd parties is more successful than one which is
> locked down._

It was competition that won out in that respect. Competition drove down
prices. PC hardware became a commodity.

------
spaceman77
Outside of right and wrong, Steve Jobs has a lot of attitude.

------
adolph
It is interesting that the discussion is focused two partner-competitor
relationships and not (as far as what has leaked) mostly-competitor
relationships such as Microsoft, Palm/Elevation, Nokia or Sony. I wonder if
the discussion was broader and the leaker has some reason to poison the
cooperation that exists between these companies?

It is ironic that Jobs voices frustration with Adobe for not putting more
effort in optimizing Flash for MacOS, in that Adobe's conservation of
resources comes from their lack of a strong competitor (and MacOS's weak share
of their user base). It is ironic because without Google's potential
competition in handheld devices Apple would undoubtably be just as
lazy/conservative as Adobe.

It is shocking that Google is more of a handset discussion topic instead of
Palm, Nokia and Microsoft. I think this speaks to how orthogonal Google's
business model is compared to Apple's. Apple's mindset is one of fee for
service, like HBO. Google's mindset is one of free for ads, like broadcast TV.
This not only gives Google a consumer-cost advantage in handsets but also in
areas such as online services.

------
Deestan
Does the article mix his quotes up a bit to "spark controversy", as
journalists are so fond of?

The gist his quoted statements seem to be "Google are evil because they
compete with one of our products". I thought it was common knowledge that
competition is far from evil; it's healthy and necessary. It seems a bit
absurd that Jobs would say that.

------
metaforth
The thing I like about Steve is he calls it like he sees it.

~~~
barrkel
Steve calls it like he wants you to hear it. What he says has no necessary
relation to the truth or what he actually thinks, or sees.

~~~
GHFigs
Wow, you just called someone a liar on the internet. Good job, you totally
deserve five up votes for that observation. Note that what I say has no
necessary relation to the truth or what I actually think.

------
runn1ng
And I call Apple's "Think different" mantra "bullshit".

~~~
ugh
They are different. Very much unlike HP or Dell. Not even remotely similar to
Nokia or Samsung.

That motto is pretty content free, though. They are different, sure, but is
that a good thing or a bad thing? Are they different in the right way or in
the wrong way? That motto would also fit both Google and Microsoft without any
problems. Those two are pretty unique.

So no, no bullshit, but rather devoid of much useful content.

~~~
klipt
<http://www.shoujoai.com/attach/95/707295/Unique>

------
matrix
Like Steve jobs, I'd love to ditch Flash too, because frankly I can't really
ever bring myself to like using products from the company that brings us
delights such as Adobe Reader, Adobe's updaters, etc.

However. Unlike Steve, I don't have an army of developers to build and test
Javascript and CSS to make sure it works across all browsers (as you know...
it won't). I use Flash/Flex because it means I spend more time creating value
and less time chasing browser incompatibility bugs.

I think Flash will be here for quite some time yet.

------
statictype
Are we allowed to flag this as flame-bait? Well, I just did.

------
biafra
The real reason why Flash is not on the iPhone or the iPad is:

Apple gets 30% for every purchase in the AppStore. With Flash on the iPhone
many could go around that.

This is also the reason why there are no interpreters or a JVM on the iPhone.

