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Steve Jobs was quoted recently as having said before he died that he had vowed to destroy Google if it took him till his dying breath. And in a nice little twist, Jobs’ biography has been written by another Isaacson! Alright.
And it’s not hard to get where Jobs was coming from. He invented the iPhone, and Google basically ripped off the whole idea. In capitalist society you should be rewarded for working hard and coming up with good ideas, not stealing – which is essentially what Google did by finding ways around the patent to invent Android and a different technology for pinch-to-zoom. And, let’s be honest, they haven’t done it in quite as polished a way as Apple have (not that that bothers Google at all).
But from a consumer’s point of view, I love Android. It’s made it affordable for me to own a beautiful touchscreen smartphone, and it’s freed up developers to create pretty much anything they want for the Android Market (rather than only creating what Apple wants in the iPhone app store).
So I understand what Steve Jobs was feeling, but ironically it seems like the very mindset that encouraged him to be a pioneer and inventor actually restricts the rest of humanity from developing further without his ‘permission’. Shame.
So I suppose it just goes to show that although the iPhone has benefitted the world by opening inventors’ eyes to the limitless possibilities of technology, it existed for one reason: making Steve Jobs more money. The American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has turned into a nightmare of the pursuit of something that is unachievable, is constantly changing, and simply doesn’t satisfy.
‘But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.’ (Jeremiah 2:11b-13)
