Steve Jobs rounds on Google and Adobe, draws battlelines in the mobile market

At a recent Apple employee conference, Steve Jobs apparently launched an attack on Google and Adobe. On Google, it’s claimed he had this to say-

We did not enter the search business: they entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them

I wasn’t actually present at the conference, and these quotes came second hand, so they may have been paraphrased, but it’s also claimed he also attacked Google’s Don’t be evil mantra, with some reports claiming he said it was rubbish, and others claiming he chose the more aggressive, “it’s bullshit”. Either way, Mr Jobs doesn’t sound too happy with the Big G.

But it wasn’t just Google that were singled out for criticism by Jobs. He also took time to attack Adobe, astonishingly claiming they were “lazy”.

They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy

Now, for a long while now, iPhone users have been waiting for a compatible version of Flash for their phones, but there has been nothing forthcoming. Adobe themselves stated last year that they would love to release an iPhone compatible version, but Apple weren’t giving them the assistance they needed in getting it up and running. It doesn’t sound like Adobe are going to get that assistance now.

Jobs also claimed that Apple would be aggressively releasing updates for the iPhone that Google won’t be able to keep up with. So, what does this mean for Google Android? Well, swapping my Android fanboy hat for my geek hat for a moment, there’s no question that Apple taking the fight to Google is a good thing technology-wise. If Apple step up a gear, Google will probably have to keep pace if they want to keep the Android momentum going. With the smartphone market being seen as the next big thing, having two heavyweights pushing the boundaries as far as possible in an effort to get one over the other will doubtless see us making massive leaps in mobile technology, particularly in the mobile internet field.

For Android, again, competition breeds progress, but fragmentation of the OS continues to be one of the biggest criticisms leveled at Android. That fragmentation could potentially increase exponentially should Google choose to match the aggressive update policy that Apple are planning to adopt. I have a suspicion though, that Google don’t see fragmentation as such a big issue. I think they will continue to concentrate on their own equally aggressive campaign to simply get as many different Android devices out to market as they possibly can. The more users there are using Android phones, whether they’re the latest and greatest models or an entry-level phone, the better for Google. I’m not convinced that Google’s overall plan here with Android actually is domination of the mobile phone market with their own phone OS, but rather I have a suspicion that they’re looking at a long term plan for domination of the mobile advertising market and that the goal is to get as many mobile internet-ready handsets out there in the hands of potential customers. At the end of the day, Google will make their money through improved, super-targeted mobile advertising whether it’s on an Android phone an iPhone, or any other smartphone.

One thing that I did take from Jobs’ comments were that they seemed to be the sort of stressed and kneejerk backlash you’d see from a man struggling under pressure. I may be way off the mark, as I wasn’t there to hear the comments in context, so my reaction may be way off the mark, but I’m by no means the only person with that opinion. Perhaps he was merely trying to deflect attention away from the widespread criticism of the newly launched iPad. At the end of the day though, the outbursts weren’t exactly a PR masterstroke.