‘Livid’ Steve Jobs declared “thermonuclear” war on rivals Google after HTC launched a similar iPhone device, pledging to “spend Apple’s last penny” on destroying the rival.
New secrets surrounding the life of the notoriously private boss has emerged from Walter Isaacson, who penned the late Apple co-founder’s official biography, Steve Jobs, which hits US stores on Monday.
One of the major things to emerge from the book is his factitious relationship with the former Apple board member who went on to become Google CEO, Eric Schmidt.
Jobs was said to have been ‘livid’ when Google Android entered the smartphone industry, particularly in January last year when HTC launched its Android OS touch phone, vowing to “right this wrong.”
The move was, in Jobs’ eyes, “grand theft” of his baby, the iPhone. Apple later went on to sue HTC for patent violations.
So livid was the Apple chief that he was willing to destroy the competition, at any cost. He is said to have used certain ‘expletives’ to describe his enemy Android and Google Docs, reports AP, who have previewed the explosive book.
“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $US40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” he declared.
“I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”
And he was unwilling to settle his differences with former colleague Schmidt, when they held a private meeting at a cafe in Palo Alto.
“I don’t want your money. If you offer me $US5 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.”
And war indeed is now happening in courts across the globe as Apple has gone after Android carriers Samsung, HTC and Motorola claiming patent infringement on numerous smartphones and tablet devices.
In addition, Jobs refused to undergo medical treatment for his pancreatic cancer for nine months, after hearing of the extent of his illness believing he could find an alternative cure in the form of spiritual or dietary emancipation, Isaacson told CBS News this week.
‘I didn’t want my body to be opened … I didn’t want to be violated in that way,’ Jobs said.
The decision was also against the wishes of his wife Laurie and he was later to regret the decision, Isaacson said.
“I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don’t want something to exist, you can have magical thinking ….”
And in another facinating twist of fate, it seems Jobs met his biological father – without him (or his father) even knowing.
Jobs’ sister, the author Mona Simpson, told Issacson how their father Abdulfattah ‘John’ Jandali commented that Jobs regularly came into a restaurant he owned in Silicon Valley.
“Everyone used to come there,” Jandali told his daughter. “Even Steve Jobs used to eat here. Yeah, he was a great tipper.”
It was only in later years did Jandali learn the true identity of his famous son, although Jobs said he wanted to keep his distance, saying he “learned a little bit about him and I didn’t like what I learned.”
Jobs asked his sister to keep the truth from Jandali.
