Ask HN: How did it fell inside Apple when Android pivoted to be an iPhone lite

[dekervin]

I had this interrogation when reading the thread on Google rebooting its AR initiative. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29566313

We often talk about business consequences of a company "stealing" your ideas/features and their defensibility, but for the teams involved in innovation at such high competitive level, it must be soul crushing to live through it.

[gcheong]

Are you assuming that those people were hoping their innovations would only benefit Apple and their customers? If an athlete comes up with a new technique to boost their performance it will be quickly copied by competitors and the higher bar of performance becomes the new normal. I don't see why you think it would be soul-crushing to know you've had that kind of impact.

[dekervin → gcheong]

I honestly didn't think it would be a controversial opinion. I was merely asking for some insider, foot soldier account. But I'll bite.

Let's say you are a bicycle making company and you come up with a completely new form factor for a bicycle, with an innovative design that required a lot of breakthrough in thinking. On monday morning, You go to market .

Then on tuesday morning you just learn that, a hat making company, heretofore friendly with you and that had some small side business painting bicycles, completely turned its line of business upside down to copy your product and make it one of its core line of products.

Are you telling me you wouldn't have some negative feelings? If after toying with that hypothetical situation you still think that you would be unmoved, my guess is you don't know yourself well enough.

But we don't even have to speculate. The CEO of Apple at the time "vowed" to make Google pay for it. He was battling Cancer and still felt exacting that punition was one of the most important thing he had to do before leaving us.[0]

"I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want."[1]

"* 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. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.*"[1]

[0] https://venturebeat.com/2011/10/20/how-steve-jobs-felt-betra... [1] https://www.phonearena.com/news/Steve-Jobs-vowed-revenge-on-...

[gcheong → dekervin]

Steve Jobs wasn’t the innovator he was the guy trying to keep everything for Apple from a business perspective which you said should be distinguished from the people doing the actual innovative work. Also it’s an understatement to say that Steve could be a bit dramatic more for effect than anything else.

[dekervin → gcheong]

Both fair points. But at very least it shows that feeling slighted is within the range of possible reactions.

Regarding the original Iphone, once you get to the level of product decisions, it's perfectly legitimate to consider Steve Jobs one of the main innovators. Especially if you consider the decisions of what not to include on the device which was a matter of taste. And Again, Android in its pre-Iphone version is the perfect control group.

I think Jobs was in the perfect position to realize how much "creative" work Google was borrowing for free and he felt it was is duty to do something about it whether he was within his rights or not. I am just guessing some of the technical people below him must have felt the same.

[mytailorisrich]

Android did not do anything to Apple. Being copied means you're correct.

What Android did is kill off all proprietary OSs so it that was "soul crushing" it must have been at Samsung's software team, Microsoft, etc.

[dekervin → mytailorisrich]

See, that's why I made the difference between "business consequences" and emotional impact. When you say "being copied means you're correct", you are talking like someone with 10 thousands feet view of the situation.

If you are toiling in the trenches, I think it still feels like a punch in the stomach. More so, since they copied Apple without "saying" they copied. I mean If you didn't follow the situation closely, you might think that all the design decisions taken by Apple were obvious. While the complete opposite is true. They were carefully weighted decision and often went aginst common sense.

Last, I still remember clearly all the business articles claiming that the luxury niche strategy of Apple was doomed. Had it been the case, being correct would have meant nothing in the end, wouldn't it?

[bruce511 → dekervin]

>> If you are toiling in the trenches, I think it still feels like a punch in the stomach.

um, nope, I don't think so. It's the sincerest form of flattery. Being a creator, and having your creation influence the creations of other creators is a great feeling.

[dekervin → bruce511]

Regarding "sincerest form of flattery", I think how you copy and when you copy matters.

For example, if you copy something that is still in its infancy because you are privy to some insider talks from the creators. I don't think they would take it as flattery.

See my other comment elsewhere on this page [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596238

[moistly → dekervin]

So you’ve asked a question that can only be answered with subjective opinions, and then spend the rest of your time arguing that those subjective opinions must be incorrect because you have a different subjective opinion … which leaves me to wonder if you were sincerely wanting your question answered, or were trolling, looking to have a fight with everyone.

[dekervin → moistly]

I am sorry if it came off like fighting. I didn't consider it fighting, but just arguing. I am indeed interested in subjective opinions. But most of the first answers were answering by explaining what was "the right" way for others to react, and doing it authoritatively.

What I was trying to argue is both reactions are valid and felt forced to take the other side. I was doing it in the hope that anybody that read this thread would find her reaction in a similar situation legitimate and offer it to us whatever that reaction is. I didn't want them to be inhibited if they were going against the grain.

And since I am interested, I replied to every answer that was interesting, like yours :)

By the way muzani was the first to offer a first person account of a similar situation. Now re-reading the original post, I probably didn't make it obvious enough that I was interested in "subjective" opinions based on first person experience ! I sincerely hope this reply doesn't read like it's combative, it's really not my state of mind.

Edit: I had those kind of stories in mind when asking the question https://www.folklore.org/

[mytailorisrich → dekervin]

When the iPhone was released many laughed at it and said it was too expensive and that Apple didn't know anything about phones... And yet it promptly destroyed the competition and reshaped the whole industry. Arguably all smartphones on the market today are copies of the iPhone (which sales have grown exponentially year on year from its release in 2007 [first Android version in 2008] until 2015).

I can't imagine how any of that could have been "soul crushing", or felt like a "punch in the stomach" for anyone at Apple, including when competitors started to play catch-up by copying. I expect it was the exact opposite feeling, actually.

[dekervin → mytailorisrich]

I don't think your first paragraph support your second paragraph the way you seem to think it does.

I agree all smartphones today are Iphone in disguise, but it is not a fact that is part of common wisdom. Therefore, there is no direct cultural "dividend" for Apple, contrary to how we "know" Newton expanded on Galileo.

Also, but for a few wrong moves, Apple could have never enjoyed the "capitalistic" dividends of its forward thinking, embodied by a sky high stock price. To be clear, I am not pondering whether it's fair or not. I am saying it must cause a few nightmares at night at least.

PS: I just found a quote from Steve Jobs dating from that time, and it seems he didnt take it lightly either. "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."[1]

[1] https://venturebeat.com/2011/10/20/how-steve-jobs-felt-betra...

[muzani]

I'm always proud when it happens. The feeling is more like, "See! I'm not crazy! You guys said it was a dumb idea but now X Corporation is doing it!"

Competition is a different thing with tech. There's more worry that the market doesn't exist than there is that someone is going to take market share.

[dekervin → muzani]

Yes indeed, it can be liberating to feel vindicated if you have a particular hunch about a market and it's validated externaly. Were you in the driving seat, like a founder, when it happened or in an employee position trying to stir the ship in the right direction ?

[_448]

Let us go a few decades back and ask this similar question:

"How did it feel inside Xerox PARC when Apple pivoted to GUI lite?"

Or,

"How did it feel inside Go Corporation when Apple and Microsoft pivoted to tablet lite?"

[dekervin → _448]

Yes. exactly. You are kind of making my point. There is a comment, in another thread on this page saying: I can't imagine how any of that could have been "soul crushing",... I expect it was the exact opposite feeling, actually.

Yet, do we expect that it wasn't "soul crushing" for those inside Xerox, when Apple pivoted to GUI lite, ?

I would add that, the specifics of what is copied, how it is copied and at what stage it's copied, matters a lot on how it is felt.