He was a hypocrite - he took lots of other people's ideas and profited from them. He then proceeded to brag about it - "Good artists copy, great artists steal". Your white-wash attempt simply doesn't stand up to the facts.
On that note, I'm really glad Android is spreading like wildfire. It will be the dominant OS this decade and the way the majority of the world's population (not just the status-conscious and some Westerners) interacts with their most personal computing device. A feat Jobs could never achieve, either with the Mac, nor iOS.
Hmmm, didn't realize someone had already responded to this.
Don't know what you mean about white-wash. If there's something specific about the reasoning you disagree with, feel free to point it out.
Regarding the gotcha quotation: I'm pretty sure you don't understand what Jobs meant by "stealing". Presumably you don't understand what Picasso meant by stealing, as he didn't do anything analogous to copying his competitors' designs. Jobs always wanted to be seen as doing something the world had never seen before, to wow audiences. It's hard for me to imagine that you think Jobs wanted to be a copycat.
Here is the comment I deleted:
I see a lot of folks say, "Jobs is a hypocrite, Apple has stolen lots of stuff." This continues to be edifying only on a superficial level. Context continues to matter.
You may believe that software patents are bad. You may even believe that patents are bad. But please don't pretend that some people's use of innovative ideas aren't more important and more credit worthy than others. The public doesn't believe this and you probably don't either, if you think carefully about it.
The world is a chaotic, ambiguous place, but that hasn't prevented us from judging whether entities in specified circumstances have stolen ideas from others. For example, I understand that Carlos Mencia is derided in the comedy community for being a joke their.
No one believes that you shouldn't be able to stand on the shoulders of giants. For example, the claim that Jobs is hypocritical because OS X is based on BSD is a non-starter. BSD was used with permission, legally and morally.
Put yourself in Jobs' shoes. You spend every waking moment to bring something wonderful and new to the world. You pour your sweat and love and passion into it. You trust people. And one of the people you trust starts competing against you directly AND copying your work down to a pretty fine detail. This wouldn't bother you? We're not talking about Robin Hood here. We're not talking about a charity or not for profit corporation with a transparently open source project. We're talking about another company taking your ideas to make money for themselves.
If you ask a normal person on the street who copied whom in the smartphone business, they'll say Android copied iPhone. And they'll be right. And that's why Jobs was mad.
> "But please don't pretend that some people's use of innovative ideas aren't more important and more credit worthy than others."
So we do agree to the fact that when iPhone and Android Notification system appears to be the same - it's not a mere coincidence and that credit goes to Android?
Multitouch was not a APPL invention anyways, but still they did a brilliant execution and kudos to them! If you are agreeing that Android was a copy of iPhone as it has multitouch then okay 10 points to Apple. Now for notifications if you use the argument that the only evolutionary solution is the one that is currently being used - the same argument can be used against Multitouch (which again, if ever introduced to handheld devices - would work the same way)
On that note, I'm really glad Android is spreading like wildfire. It will be the dominant OS this decade and the way the majority of the world's population (not just the status-conscious and some Westerners) interacts with their most personal computing device. A feat Jobs could never achieve, either with the Mac, nor iOS.