Steve Jobs Calls Out Rivals In Post-Conference Dis-Rant
Steve Jobs doesn't usually address industry analysts after Apple announces its quarterly earnings, but yesterday, the Apple CEO held a conference call wherein he gloated about selling more smart phones than RIM, claimed Google couldn't match Apple's products and decried the entire class of seven inch tablet PCs. For a practicing Buddhist and former hippie, that's a lot of aggression.
To start off, Jobs pat himself on the back for Apple's first-ever $20 billion quarter, before noting that the sale of 14.1 iPhones means that Apple passed RIM, producer of the BlackBerry , as the world's largest smart phone manufacturer. Then, Jobs made sure to note that Apple still activates 75,000 more phones per day than Google, and that the App store offers 210,000 more programs than the Android store.
Next, Jobs refuted Google's criticism of Apple's iPhone OS as closed. As far as Apple is concerned, they are not "closed", they are "vertically integrated," a state that allows them to serve their customers better than Google. Adding to the beef track feeling of the conversation, Jobs took a swipe at his old foe Microsoft , using the failure of their music player as an example of why the Apple closed system will "triumph" in the marketplace.
Finally, he of the black turtleneck ended his prepared statements by claiming that any tablet smaller than the 10-inch iPad misses the point of tablet PCs. They don't replace phones, they replace laptops, and by making a 7-inch tablet, companies produce a product too big to replace a phone, but too small replace a laptop.
Jobs continued his combativeness during the question and answer portion, where he dismissed a question about Apple's continued failure to allow iPads or iPhones to run Adobe's widely used Flash software with: "Flash memory? We love flash memory."
The entire transcript can be read over at Macworld.
