The next time you wish to use that quote to criticize Steve Jobs, simply replace his name with that of Picasso. I think you’ll quickly realize how foolish your criticisms have been.

I read your post several times and I have to admit that I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I don’t think you do either.

First, I did not accuse Android of stealing anything. You made that up from whole cloth and read that into my remarks.

Second, do you not understand that there is a difference between building on the ideas of others and breaching their patents? Patents are a time limited monopoly granted by the state. Whether Apple or Google or Android or whoever breaches those patents, they are responsible for the consequences.

I would like to provide a better response but, honestly, I simply can’t follow what you are trying to say. 

Apple appears to have some fairly broad and strong patents for this market. Some of them appear to have no workarounds. Samsung has already had it’s products blocked in some countries even before the case goes to trial. That’s just about as bad as it can get for them. The Galaxy and touch wiz interface really look like IOS. It’s very clear that Samsung dropped the iPhone in the engineering lab and said “Make this”.  Apple has responded in a way that any company should. 

By you’re interpretation, Google must be a great artist.  By looking at what was out there already and innovating on top of it, they created Android.  If Android was directly stolen from iOS, why are the only patents Apple can bring against it things like allowing you to click on a phone number in an email?  While a useful feature, that surely does not define the whole OS.  (Note how I am leaving out the Samsung legal battle because it obviously applies to the hardware imitating the iPad.  All other Android tablets are in the clear and are not being sued by Apple).  

Copy your whole last paragraph and replace “Steve Jobs” with “Android,” and you will see how in this case, Steve was “not only petty, not only small minded, but very, very foolish.”

Android is currently the only OS that can completely replace a standard computer.  When Apple chose to release their phone on only AT&T, not to have a file system, not to give users the ability to use programs such as flash, not to allow installation of programs from anywhere other than the App Store, they should have known that they were seceding part of the market to whoever could.  And since Microsoft was no where to be found in mobile these past few years, Android dominated.   Apple has no one but themselves to blame for the rise of Android.  And now, its too late for them to fix their mistakes.  (and things like not giving T-mobile the iPhone4S show that they still don’t understand this).

If at some point in the future, Android is destroyed by jealous competitors like Apple and Microsoft, then it should be through competition and the choice of consumers, not through multi-billion dollar legal action.

What did Steve Jobs “steal”? Did he steal the Apple I or II? Wozniak had no interest in marketing his project. Without Jobs, it would have died stillborn. Did he steal the mouse? He was permitted to view the Xerox technology which was going nowhere until Apple mainstreamed it. Did he steal Pixar? Did he steal NeXT which he then used to revive Apple? Did he steal the iPod? Or did he use the click-wheel to reinvent the MP3 player? Did he steal iTunes? No, he bought it and improved it and integrated it with the iPod. Did he steal the ideas that have turned Apple retail into the most successful retail operation of all time? Did he steal the iPhone? Please. There was nothing like the iPhone before it was introduced and every smart phone since emulates it. Did he steal the App store? It’s the greatest generator of computing ideas since the beginning of the personal computing revolution. Did he steal the iPad? No one could make the tablet commercially viable before the iPad and no one can seem to make a commercially viable tablet that can compete with the iPad today. Did he steal Siri? No, he purchased it and integrated it into Apple’s mobile operating system.

Steve Jobs once famously said that good artists copy, great artists steal. Haters have purposely misconstrued that quote to prove that Jobs was a thief. Their contention doesn’t survive even an ounce of scrutiny. Do you think that Picasso (who was attributed with the quote) stole off with other people’s paintings? Of course not. It’s a metaphor. Taking the saying literally is literally stupid. What that quote means is that good artists try to do what others are doing while great artists make great ideas their own. They internalize them and use them to build their own great creations.

Suggesting that Steve Jobs stole technological ideas is like suggesting that Abraham Lincoln stole from the speeches of Demosthenes, Socrates, Cicero, and Pericles. He incorporated all of their thoughts and ideas into his speeches, but he didn’t plagiarize them. From their greatness he created wholly new, wholly different, wholly wonderful speeches of his own. Steve Jobs did the same. To claim otherwise is not only petty, it’s not only small minded, but it’s very, very foolish.

Actually, Google went into mobile in order to insure that MICROSOFT not dominate mobile the way it dominated the desktop. At the time, Google and Apple had a close relationship and Apple’s phones were no threat to Google’s search at all. In fact, Google recently stated in a congressional hearing that the majority of their mobile income still comes from Apple devices.

I think this is one of the reason’s why Jobs may have been so bitter. Eric Schmidt helped orchestrate an attack on Apple’s core business while simultaneously serving on Apple’s board. It’s little wonder that Jobs felt betrayed.

You say that Apple is afraid of the competition. But if Apple’s suits are meritless, then how will their litigation help them? And if Apple’s suits have merit, doesn’t that mean that it is the competition, not Apple, who is at fault?

Look, it’s OK to contend that patent litigation is bad. It is NOT OK to contend that patent litigation is good when others initiate it and bad when Apple initiates it.