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Eric Schmidt: “Android effort started before the iPhone effort”

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Eric Schmidt declared today that Google was working on its Android smartphone operating system long before Apple’s original iPhone was released, despite what Steve Jobs thought.

Steve Jobs revealed to Walter Isaacson in his autobiography that he felt Apple were the victims of a “grand theft” by Google when they release their own mobile operating system to try and compete with iOS.

Schmidt responded today in South Korea when asked about the claims that Android was copy: “I’ve decided not to comment on what’s been written in the book after his death.

Steve is a fantastic human being and someone who I miss very dearly. As a general comment, I think most people would agree that Google is a great innovator and I would also point out that the Android effort started before the iPhone effort“.

Google’s Android operating systems was created by Andy Rubin in 2003 then his company was acquired by Google and Rubin was hired to head up continued development on the OS.

Steve felt Apple were betrayed by Google’s Eric Schmidt, who had previously sat on Apple’s board from 2006 to 2009, but when Android came out Jobs felt it was theft of Apple’s ideas and they wouldn’t take it lying down.

He said: “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. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.

Jobs met with Schmidt at a café in Palo Alto, California and told him in no uncertain terms what he felt about the Google and their Android operating system.

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

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