Google's Schmidt: Android ‘started before the iPhone effort’
Steve Jobs wasn't too fond of Android. — Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has taken issue with Steve Jobs' claims that Android copied the iPhone. — “Our lawsuit is saying, 'Google you f***ing ripped off the iPhone …
Context & Ripple Effects
Eric Schmidt's timeline claim — that Android began development before the iPhone effort — is a direct rebuttal to the copying accusation at the heart of Apple's lawsuit against Google over Android, a claim Steve Jobs pressed publicly and that Schmidt now denies on the record. The fight has moved from product rivalry into competing origin stories, with each side's version carrying weight in both the courtroom and the market.
First-order effects
- Apple's infringement suit against Google now faces an explicit public denial from Google's executive chairman, who is staking the defense on Android predating the iPhone effort.
- Schmidt simultaneously used the appearance to reassure the market on another front, telling reporters Google will not favor Motorola — the Reuters pickup shows the two messages traveled together.
Second-order effects
- Handset makers weighing Android against iOS get a fresh data point on whether Google can remain a neutral platform operator while owning a hardware maker, a question Schmidt's Motorola pledge is meant to defuse.
- Apple gains a rhetorical adversary willing to contest the copying narrative in public, raising the reputational stakes of the litigation for both companies' developer and carrier audiences.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, smartphone platform competition gets settled as much through origin-story testimony and courtroom argument as through shipping products, making executive statements part of the legal record.
- A platform owner absorbing a device maker while promising neutrality sets up the governance question — favoritism versus openness — that will shape how OEMs commit to mobile operating systems.
The trend: Mobile platform rivalry is shifting from product differentiation toward litigation and public narrative warfare, with each side's founding story becoming a legal asset.